1. Who would be the audience for your media product?
2. I researched into different audience markets. As we were creating a comedy we wanted to look into what demographic group our film would be aimed at and what age and gender they would be. Throughout the research we took note of all these different things. Also what films out now and what other films were similar to ours then looked at who it was most popular with. I looked further into different theories used and how we could apply these in our films. To start this I looked at the style of our film, and what happened in the film. By creating a film about geeks and school kids, knowing most of the shots would be set in a school it made it easy to know that our film should be aimed at teenagers that live there lives in the same environment and can related to the characters. We created our film by getting influence from other films, and ideas. So to look at target market I went back and looked at what they were and then looked at the audiences for them. For instance films, music and television shows.
3. To look further into a target audience I looked at the things that were used in popular film companies. By looking at different demographic groups I was able to chose what group our film should be aimed at. As a group we decided that the groups D and E were the groups that would most likely enjoy our film. Groups D and E are mainly students, unskilled workers (blue collar) and ‘mainstreamers’ these people all fit into our 15 certificate. Choosing these groups was a good choice as the people are most likely able to connect with the characters in our film and the situations they are put in. As a group we decided our film would use techniques like the Hypodermic Needle Theory as the film we have created has been made for entertainment purposes. The entertainment and the enigma code used in the piece is the fact that the audience are interested in who is going to win the girl. It’s a mystery to everyone who will be the winner. Our film was made with the thought kept in mind that it should be aimed at both females and males. Although saying this we have included 3 main characters as males and one as female but these vary from protagonists to opponent allies.
4. To help me chose a final audience I looked at others similar films in my genre. This would give me the knowledge that my earlier research was correct and comparative films would have the same target audience. Also its interesting to know what the audience like as it will help me know exactly what they like and dislike. This way when making the film I could think about this and use it to my advantage by copying and adapting things they have done to make them our own. Examples of films are Superbad (2007), Role Models (2008), Step Brothers (2008). The certificates of these films are Superbad – 15, Role Models – 15, Step Brothers- 15.
5. Looking at these films I have found certain points about each of them that we could include in our film. For instance ROLE MODELS is properly the most influential to our film. Although we did not realise this until after we had create our story boards and planned most of the film, Role models has a sequence in it where there are close ups of the boys in the film getting ready to dress up as famous band Kiss. This related perfectly to our film as this is most of our opening sequence. This shows we have gone down the right route as Role Models is a popular film for teenagers around 15-18. This is why we have chosen a 15 certificate. Role Models also includes different things, activities like lair and costumes that are now popular with teens. For instance Lair was popular in the summer of 2009 and this gave the film extra advertisement as everyone wanted to see where it was from. We want to include things like this in our film as it will hopefully drag in the same audience range in the same way. I then looked further into films like Step Brothers and Superbad these films are iconic comedy films for the age range between 14-20. They include memorable quotes and costumes, this is helpful to us as if we were to make the whole film we could create funny and memorable quotes. We have already thought about costumes and for all of our characters they have plain but memorable costumes. Especially the character of Tom as his is properly the most iconic and funny outfit as he trousers that are to small and his t-shirt has a funny slogan on it.
7. Opening: For our target audience we looked individually into the stereotypical boys and girls. To do some extra research we looked at what they liked and dislikes. Magazines By looking at magazines like Vogue and Cosmo we were able to see what the stereotypical girl would like. Music (link to film) This was a main part of our research as the music was important for the opening as well as the rest of the film. We looked into popular bands like Foo Fighters and found they also have a film coming out soon. We also looked at mainstream people like lady gaga as she's easy to listen to and is fun. Laptop As our target audience are quiet young we looked into different technologies they would most likely use. We found that iPhones and laptops were popular as an iPhone is a way of communication and keeping up to date. Hobbies I found that popular hobbies were sports, but unusual sports like roller skating. I found that parties and getting dressed up were also popular. Shops This was helpful as it helped us create costumes for our characters. I found top shop was popular but also t-shirts with slogans and possibly bands on them.
9. Clothes Looking at these two stereotypes there is a lot more varied opinions with the male audience. This is interesting as we will now properly aim the film at males as there is a wider range. For instance clothing is varied from leather jackets and plain jumpers with skinny jeans, to v-neck sweaters, smart shirts and smart trousers. Hobbies I found that these were similar to the girls but more common sports like skateboarding and football. By t looking at other films taking drugs was a popular thing to do. As our film is only a 15 I don’t think we will include any of this Magazines Looking at magazines was hard for men as they don’t stereotypically read magazines or books. I found that the only magazines were things like Zoo as it contains cars etc but also magazines like Empire and NME as they include new films and new music. Music Music was interesting to learn about as it was helpful to our film as we could include songs in our soundtrack. I looked at bands like Mumford and Sons and artists like Katy Perry as they both have individual qualities. Shops The most commons boys shops that are popular now are shops like River Island and Primark, as they are cheap but fashionable. I also looked at shops like Dickies and Hot topic as they contained more practical clothes and funny t-shirts and band merchandise.
