Audience

My two films have the common theme of being a teen drama, but both with different twists: ZomRomCom & Thriller, which could attract two types of audiences. 

I want my film to be aimed at 12-15+ year olds. I would make my Teen Drama/ZRC a 12, because it wouldn't deal with major themes like violence and drug use, which contrast my Teen Drama/Thriller idea, which I would aim at 15+ year olds, thus making my target audience teenagers - young adults, but I would like to widen my audience range, and make it appeal to not only teenagers but 20+ year olds. 

I plan on selecting 5 random people aged from 12-18 and showing them both my pitches, and ask them questions to see which they would prefer. I'll ask them questions like:

>Do you think my story outline fits the genre?
>What do you look for / enjoy in these specific genres?
>Would you come and see my film?
>What could I include to make it appeal more to my audience?
>What could I include that would make you not want to see my film?
>What do you think of my film idea?

By asking these specific questions it will give me an idea on what people of that age range enjoy, what puts them off, and how I can make it appeal more to them. And with these results I can hopefully create a successful trailer, and give me a clear indication on what film I should look to create. 

Also looking into Radio 1, who has the same target audience of 15-25, they had a poll in 2011 about their target audiences favourite films, this were the results: 

20. Scarface 
19. This Is England 
18. Clueless 
17. The Silence Of The Lambs 
16. City of God
15. E.T. 
14. Slumdog Millionaire 
13. The Big Lebowski 
12. Die Hard 
11. Fight Club 
10. The Godfather 
9. Inception 
8. The Dark Knight 
7. Anchorman 
6. Forrest Gump 
5. Pulp Fiction 
4. Back To The Future 
3. Toy Story 
2. Shaun Of The Dead 
1. The Shawshank Redemption

This shows me that my target audience are into a variety of different genres, but are especially the 'classics' such as 'Pulp Fiction' & 'The Godfather' & 'The Shawshank Redemption''.

Audience Responses: 

Audience Response 1:
Name: Charlotte
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Social Economic Class: E (student)


Audience Response 2:
Name: Joshua
Age:18
Gender:Male
Social Economic Class: E (student)


Audience Response 3:
Name: Bradley
Age:17
Gender:Male
Social Economic Class: E (student)


Audience Response 4:
Name:Jonathan
Age:17
Gender:Male
Social Economic Class: E (student)


From this small group of my target audience I can already see a clear picture of what they look for in a film. My audience responses were:

>What do you look for / enjoy in these specific genres?
1) Humor
2)Perfect mix of Comedy & romance
3)Comedy more than romance side of these films
4)Make up / Good effects
>What could I include to make it appeal more to my audience?1)Include a unique soundtrack
2)A good soundtrack
3)don't make it as serious as the pitch, make it more lighthearted
4)more action / more gory / modern flick
>What could I include that would make you not want to see my film?
1) N/A
2)Cheesy / Cliche story-line
3)a lack of originality
4)when films take themselves too seriously.


Strengths & Weaknesses of existing A2 media products:


 

Strengths:
-Camera Shots
-Soundtrack
-Use of Props
-Background Music



Weaknesses:
-Bad sound quality
-Can't understand the narrative
-Location choices make it hard to hear dialogue
-The fonts chosen don't fit the genre

By looking at existing products, it allows me to take note of both strengths and weaknesses and making me able to incorporate the strengths into my own product. 

Pitches / Outline Ideas / Developing initial ideas for my production

The genre I want to create my trailer around is teen drama and thriller. I want my audience to be able to relate to some key themes (which would encourage them to come and see the film) and by combing the two genres that don't normally go together should create a unique product. My film / Trailer will take teen issues and inspiration from films like: Submarine, 10 Things I hate about you, and, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, meaning my film is going to be character driven. The main conventions in a teen drama are having the main character doing the narrative, thus allowing the audience to form more of a connection with them, and can help them understand what the character is feeling; Music is a massive part of teen dramas, it also helps the audience to understand how the character is feeling, and sets the tone of the film. Because it's a teen drama, with typically having teens as the lead the settings would be based in school, the leads house, and their favourite place the 'hang out'. The lighting used would often be light because teen dramas tend to be light hearted, unless there are dark themes / issues addressed; which contrasts perfectly to my thriller genre which use dark (low key) lighting the create a dark atmosphere. You usually have isolated places, i.e. the woods, or an abandoned house, and is also character driven with the main character being the only one left. Teen dramas and thrillers both use Strauss' theory of binary opposites, but the main one I would include would be Love/Hate & Good/Evil. 

First Film Idea:
My first film idea I want to be a teen drama / ZomRomCom. It will start in a typical teen drama fashion, with a boy and girl in love, with a brief outline of their relationship etc, but then soon after the boy (Lewis) dies in a mundane way. There's a funeral and all carries on as normal. Jennifer is really cut up about it, and goes to visit Lewis' grave and discovers that there's a hole in the ground where the casket should be, so she goes to Lewis' parents house to ask them about it. When she gets there, the parents act awkward with her, until Lewis just walks in. It's happy families once again, and Lewis and Jennifer continue their relationship like nothing happened, until they have an argument, and Lewis just flips. It later becomes established that Lewis is a zombie,  and the film will show his descent from humanity. He gets worse and worse, with things like eating his parents, and the film will basically end with whether Jennifer should kill her boyfriend or not. 


Second Film Idea:
My second film idea I want to be a teen drama / thriller. It's going to be based around a box in the woods. 
The story will start with a group of teenage friends who go into the woods looking for a box.
The back story to the box is that if you commit some form of crime, or do something wrong, you find the box, write down what you did, put it in the box, and it's erased / forgotten about, so it's like it never happened. But there's a rule that you're not meant to go looking for the box, or read anything that's inside it; but being the typical teenagers, they go looking for it, and they find it. When they find it, they open it and start reading it, but one of the friends is adamant that they don't read any of them. The film will take place with some flashbacks, as the stories of people are being told. There will be twists such as some of the stories in the box will be linked to each one of the friends.



My pitches: 


  

Narrative Theorists

Genre, Audience & Conventions Analysis

Submarine: Shaun of the Dead: