2. The target audience for our media product is the
average, middle class, teenage girl therefore to
attract and address this audience, we made sure
that our protagonist was as relatable and appealing
to our target audience as possible by using lots of
mise en scene such as iconography.
3. The biggest and most important setting within our opening sequence was the protagonists bedroom, we chose
this as we knew this would immediately relate to the teenage target audience as many teenagers use their
bedroom as their private space where they can relax and do things that interest them such as listen to their
favourite type of music, socialise with friends on their computers, play games etc. Using a bedroom as a main
setting in our opening sequence was also very good as it allowed us to incorporate as much iconography as
possible to construct the idea of the protagonist being the stereotypical and to relate with the audience and
therefore attracting the audience.
The setting was already pink (which would be found an appealing colour to the typical teenage girl audience
due to it being a colour often connected with girls) and had a rather studious, mature, feminine and teenage
look however we knew that we could make it look more like the stereotypical teenager of today and be a more
relatable setting to the teenage target audience by sticking posters of famous boy bands and music artists on
the walls as teenage girls are often linked to having celebrity crushes and have lots of posters etc.on their
walls of them. In the past few years this has become known as being a"fangirl" if you are a major fan of a
celebrity, it is where people obsess and spend lots of their time " fangirling" which means keeping up to date
and spending great amounts time finding out different facts about their celebrity idols. We decided to
place quite a few One Direction (the boy band) posters as these are very big with many teenage girls as the
majority of their fans are 12-16 year old girls. They have become quite iconic for their female teenage
following therefore incorporating them into our sequence is a very good idea as it screams the stereotypical
teenage of girl of today and it would be appealing to our target audience to see their favourite bands within a
film they are watching which will attract them to watch it.
Here is an image of the iconography used in our sequence.
4. We also decided to place a poster of Selena Gomez on the wall as shown below as she is
known for being very popular with teenage girls as she was on the series "Wizards Of Waverly
Place" on the very popular channel "Disney Channel" which has a big teenage target audience,
through being on this show Selena gained great success and launched her own pop music
career which was found to be very popular with teenage girls with it being the style that they
typically like, "pop" music, as well as her already having a big teenage following due to her
success on Disney Channel. She is also often featured in teenage girl magazines such as
seventeen magazine, this has made her even more popular with teenage girls and made her
someone they aspire to be like, these magazines have made her somewhat of a fashion icon
to young girls and many of them follow her fashion by wearing similar clothing and hairstyles.
This makes her a brilliant use of iconography for a stereotypical girl due her success with
teenage girls as well as herself being a teenager during her rise to fame therefore she herself
represents the typical girly girl. She will be very relatable for our target audience and make
them feel as if their protagonist lives a similar life to them with similar interests, making her
more appealing to the audience.
5. We also used the iconography of displaying CD's that have proved to be very
popular with teenagers on the protagonist bedroom desk. The cd’s are also of
the genre most stereotypical teenagers are incorporate with and like, the
‘pop’ genre which is often youthful and upbeat which is why it is often played
in coming of age genres. This will appeal and attract our target audience even
more as they will see that the protagonist is similar to them in interests and
music tastes as well as being iconic for creating the personality of the
protagonist as what music someone likes can tell a lot about a person. We
also placed these cd's messily on the desk around the protagonists laptop
which would relate with our audience as many teenagers are often laid back
and not overly neat, this would give our protagonist a calm and collected
persona and make the audience feel relaxed and possibly relate to the
composition of her bedroom items.
6. We have also incorporated CD's, Phones and Laptops into our opening sequence to show
that our opening sequence takes place in a modern industrial society where people have
technology and other gadgets which would be very appealing for a teenage audience as
many of them use these type of things in their daily lives, as well as coming of age films
being usually contemporary and modern to the time they are filmed therefore with
technology being a big aspect of this century it would be very important to incorporate it
as most teenagers aren't interested in old fashioned films as well as it being a convention
of this genre to be modern.
We thought that the use of the laptop and the IPhone as props is also good iconography
for a teenager as they often use these devices to socialise with friends e.g. on Facebook
and Twitter, teenagers are known for being addicted to social media sites and spend large
amounts of time on them therefore we believed this would be some effective and strong
iconography to display this trait teenagers of today have developed and would therefore
be found appealing to our audience to incorporate it. We also think the use laptop is good
to show that she is interested in writing as that is what hobby we wanted our protagonist
to have and there is a scene where the software Microsoft word is open on the laptop that
would reinforce this idea. Microsoft word is also good iconography for a teenager as it is a
piece of software used largely by college student to do their homework such as essays
etc. and it would make the teenage audience feel that the protagonist can sympathise
with their workload and make them relate and begin to find the protagonist likeable.
7. We also used magazines as props which like the posters display many famous
popular teenage artists such as Arianna Grande who like Selena Gomez is very
popular and iconic to young teenage girls and will attract the audience to
watch the sequence.
8. Overall…
The structure of our media product will also attract the typical
coming of age genre teenage fan as we have constructed the
structure from being inspired by other coming of age film
opening sequences so it will contain the general structure as
well have similar qualities that they find appealing within this
genre. Overall with this structure being combined with the
iconography to represent and attract the stereotypical girl of
today, our product will be found appealing and be enjoyed by
our target audience and therefore we will have achieved our
targets and the concept we wanted for our media product.
