The document summarizes audience research for films centered around child actors. It analyzes audience ratings and reviews for the films "About a Boy", "Secondhand Lions", and "Igby Goes Down" on IMDB. It finds that the target audience for these films tends to be males aged 18-30, though females under 18 also responded positively to "Secondhand Lions". The research suggests the document's author's film may attract an older, male-dominated audience. However, the author notes limitations with relying solely on IMDB data and plans to use additional research methods.

1. Audience Research

2. To start to look in detail at who I can expect to
be the target audience for my trailer I have
decided to initially look at the responses that
similar films involving child actors have received
from certain parts of the population in order to
assess the interest in films with plots centered
around a child.

3. About A Boy
Although this film is more of a comedy than a psychodrama I
feel that looking at the audience ratings for it will be very
useful in seeing the interest that certain groups have in a film
that is centered around a young boy, much like my film is. The
large bulk of the ratings for this film come from those
between the ages of 18-44 which is quite a large range of
ages as it covers those who are in their lat teens to those
who are middle-aged and everything in between. Within
these age ranges there is a significant amount more votes
from males than females which I find surprising as films
that star Hugh Grant are generally more popular with
females. This makes me question how reliable this
information is and the level of bias that it is affected by.
Because of this I am not going to take this information as
concrete evidence for the audiences of films like About A Boy,
however, it is useful in giving me a brief insight into the levels
of interest encountered by each group within the population.

4. Secondhand Lions
This film is slightly more related to my idea as it looks at
family connections and relationships. I was slightly surprised
that the group from which the film received the most ratings
was the 18-29 group as, being a part of that group myself, I
cannot say that the film is something that I or anyone I know
would be particularly interested in. Interestingly the group that
the film received the most positive reviews from was females
under 18 showing that there is a definite interest from the
younger audience. As is the same with About A Boy, the large
bulk of the reviews for this film came from the male audience.
The pattern that I am noticing with regard to the gender divide
suggests that the information is more useful in showing the
views of the potential male target audience and does not give
as much of a clear indication as to what we can expect with
regards to the potential female target audience. This means
that I will have to try and find other means of gathering
audience data later on in my research besides the information
given on IMDB in order to ensure that my research is as
accurate as it can be at my level and on my budget.

5. Igby Goes Down
There are many themes running through this film that can
be directly linked to themes in my story. This makes it quite
useful in suggesting towards the types of audiences that will
be interested in watching my idea. As is the case with the
other two films I have looked at, the large percentage of the
ratings came from a male audience. This does not necessarily
mean that this type of film is most popular among men, as I
have already spoken about with the previous film, however;
it does show a definite interest among the male target
audience. There is not as much of an obvious group which
was the most interested in the film as there has been with
the other two films, however, the most ratings came from
those between the ages of 30-44. The highest ratings for the
film, however, came from females under the age of 18.
Despite there only being 15 individual ratings in this group I
feel this is quite useful in showing enjoyment levels and who
enjoyed the film the most.

6. What I have discovered so far
So far I have noticed that there is significantly more interest in the films
centered around a child actor and the concept of change and growing up
amongst those between the ages of 18 to late 30’s. This is not a surprise to me
and is largely what I was expecting to find as complex stories revolving around
childhood are usually better received by a more mature audience than those who
are under the age of 18. There also appears to be significantly more interest
coming from the male target audience which I did find quite surprising because,
as cliché as it sounds, women often have a soft spot for stories involving
children.
In order to progress my research I am going to look into different ways of
collecting data on audiences to try and see patterns and similarities between
the data in order to have a more accurate and realistic view of who I can
expect to be interested in my film.

7. What I have discovered so far
So far I have noticed that there is significantly more interest in the films
centered around a child actor and the concept of change and growing up
amongst those between the ages of 18 to late 30’s. This is not a surprise to me
and is largely what I was expecting to find as complex stories revolving around
childhood are usually better received by a more mature audience than those who
are under the age of 18. There also appears to be significantly more interest
coming from the male target audience which I did find quite surprising because,
as cliché as it sounds, women often have a soft spot for stories involving
children.
In order to progress my research I am going to look into different ways of
collecting data on audiences to try and see patterns and similarities between
the data in order to have a more accurate and realistic view of who I can
expect to be interested in my film.