Reserach: Target Audience

For my audience research I created a questionnaire so that I could receive as much knowledge as possible. I carefully picked out my target age group so that the results from the questionnaire would be accurate to my initial ideas for the film. This would make it much easier to adjust to my findings from the questionnaires. For example, what they would like our short film and poster to be like.  The group and I came up with a bunch of and chose the most relevant ones. Once we had chose our questions we put them together and printed them off.

Our questionnaire consists of film type questions such as their interests and opinions. It was important to carefully select questions which would give me both accurate and sufficient feedback.


Here are the questionnaires which I created, the questions chosen took a great deal of time to chose so that they would be relevant to what is needed to create a successful film.

Our questionnaire was a basic questionnaire with simple questions to see what peoples likes and dislikes were. We asked our target audience to express their feelings so that when it came to the main production we could relate to our results from the questionnaire so that we could produce a poster/film with the best interest for our target audience.

Here are the results of my questionnaire:

1. The results of our questionnaire showed me that the audience all liked the idea of a film, but at the same time they all linked different types of films depending on their gender, females chose comedy, romance and horror, males on the other hand preferred crime, comedy and action.

2. When I asked what age group I should aim for, I received mixed reviews, many said 18+ and others said 12+. I therefore chose 15+ falling in between both age groups using the results and my research to help me decide that this was a suitable age for my type of film. 

3. After deciding which age would be best suitable for this type of film I asked questions on what should be included in our poster to make it unique from others. The results were very positive, many of the answers were to make it eye-catching using powerful image or images, big, bold fonts and contrasting colours to make it stand out. Having effective conventions, its unique but so that it accurately reflects our chose genre. As I began making my ancillary 1 and 2, I kept referring back to the results from the questionnaire.

4. I asked the audience on what sort of images they would like to see on the poster/magazine, however the feedback varied as some people said they would have just liked to have seen a variety of small images. But I felt that using a big and powerful image which dominates the poster would achieve more potential and would be more attractive and appealing to viewers. Many of the responses suggested using photos of the characters/actors/actresses.

5. I then went on to ask what colours the audience would expect to see on the poster/magazine of a crime drama and the majority of people agreed that it would be more suited to use dark, chilling colours would best portray the film. Seeing that our film is based around a brutal murder, I will use a black background and use colours such as red and white which contrast really well together making the poster/magazine unique, relevant and appealing to our viewers.    

6. I also asked what kind of fonts they would think would best fit our poster taking into account our film genre. Nearly everyone agreed that using, big and bold fonts would best suit our movie genre. Many people suggested the website Dafont.com as they have a wide range of powerful texts which could be used for my film title.  

7. The questionnaire results suggested that the film poster should appeal to all audiences as this will attract more people to watch the film and not just that of the particular genre.

8. Using this information I asked what kind of slogans should be used, our answers were as follows:

Sinister ones, catchy ones, rhetorical questions and teaser slogans. From the results I have came to the conclusion that the audience believes that my slogan should be of my own so that it is unique but relevant to my film. 

9. I then moved onto the subject of what kind of tempo our music should be. Nearly everyone replied saying low beat to try and draw emphasis on the story line which I strongly agree with as this would make our film reflect the genre and attract the audience for the duration of the film. 

10. Using the tempo setting which the audience have given us, I asked them what type of music I should use taking into account all of the answers previous. They all again agreed that the best way to do this would be instrumental and computer generated music as it has a positive effect on the audience.     

11. I finally asked out of interest what the audience would like to see in a short crime film, they all had similar answers but the two that stood out to me were murder and police brutality and I would keep these in mind whilst creating my film and ancillary tasks.

Conclusion

This process of creating a questionnaire has certainly benefited the group and we will use the feedback to our advantage to create the best film and ancillaries as possible.

From the results of my questionnaire the group and myself came to the agreement that our target audience was suitable for our film. From the results we found that the majority of males preferred crime films and we thought it would be wise to create our film and ancillary tasks around a male perspective rather than female.
During the questionnaire we made sure that we would find an age group which would suit our film as violence and swearing would be included. In the end we decided that 15+ would best suit our film. From the other results of the questionnaire we received significant amounts of feedback on what to include for our film and ancillary tasks.    

Research into Genre

For the research I will be completing a series of tasks so that I can create the best short film possible.

My first task will be to research genres however I must discuss our storyline for our film with the group. I wanted to gain as much knowledge as possible so that the group would have a good undertsanding of the different genres.

Action: For an action movie to be successful it needs to have its audience on the edge of their seats. Action doesn't have to run from start to finish, but when the action is there, make sure the audience are on the edge of their seats! As there are so many aspects to consider in a action movie it is vital that everything is perfect, anything but perfect can be a disaster. Below is a few examples of what is required for an action movie: 

• when we dont care about or like the hero, all the action in the world cant save the movie. 
• Almost every good action film has a strong villain.
• Like the hero, the audience must also have a connection with the villain.
• An action movie is not an action movie unless it has some big shiny objects in the form of car chases, gunfights and explosions.

Action films have had wide commercial appeal and enjoy box office success.

Adventure: Adventure films typically require characters to solve puzzles, and aviod traps while journeying to a treasure like destination. Adventure films generally take place outside, in the wilderness. Adventure films get the audiences more involved.

Comedy: Comedy is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. Also, films in this style typically have a happy ending. Comedy unlike other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary. As there are so many aspects to consider in a comedy movie it is vital that the humour

comes across as often as possible. 



Crime and gangster: This genre is usually developed around sinister actions of criminals and mobsters. The story is usually focused and based around the lives of criminals operating outside the law, stealing and murdering. They usually consist of family honour and family rivals with an italian theme.

Drama: Drama is a film genre which depends mostly on the depth and development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Drug addiction, poverty, relationships, crime and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves and others.This film genre can be contrasted with an action film which relies on fast paced action and physical conflict. All film genres can include dramatic elements, but typically, films considered drama films focus mainly on the drama of the main issue.



Horror:  Horror films are unsettling movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, disgust and horror for viewers. They usually feature frequent jump scenes that make the viewers jump and startled putting the viewers on edge.



Research: My Brief

At the beginning of the new year our Media teacher (Miss Furness) briefed us on what we would be faced with over the next year. Miss Furness began by highlighting the importance of getting off to a good start, and that the coursework would be our first hurdle and would be pivital in our overall result.

In the first few lessons we where given an Advanced Portfolio in Media (Briefs) which contained 5 choices, these included a short film, music video or a 5 minute clip of a documentary. But before we could go any further we had to chose whether you worked by yourslef or worked in a group of upto 4 people. However out of the 5 choices given we were only enabled to chose 3 of the choices below:


1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
• a website homepage for the band;
• a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).


2. A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options:
• a website homepage for the film;
• a film magazine front cover, featuring the film;
• a poster for the film.

3. An extract from a new documentary TV programme, lasting approximately five minutes, together with two of the following three options:
• a double-page spread from a listings magazine focused on the documentary;
• a newspaper advertisement for the documentary.

 4. The first two pages of a new local newspaper, together with two of the following three options:
• a poster for the newspaper;
• two hyperlinked pages from the paper’s website.

5. A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:
• a poster for the film;
• a film magazine review page featuring the film.

After taking much time looking at the design briefs I gathered the group in to disguss my idea's and thoughts. Once the three briefs had been chosen we had to explain the reasons for my particular group choice and reasons for the three briefs, including initial ideas to identify the main brief which we would be focusing on for the coursework (below).

Our Group and why?The group is as follows: Michael Birkett, Lewis Carr, Jonathan Brookes

Our group has been carefully selected to achieve a good, quality standard but also that the group would work well together showing positive vibes, giving plenty of encouragement to one another. As an individual we each have our own strong points, which were indentified when we discussed grouping arrangements.

 Our choices and why?

A Music Promo

As a group we felt that this was a topic which enabled us to use the facilities to our advantage. As individuals, we all have our own experiences, allowing us as a group to bring our thoughts together to improve our knowledge, understanding and experience in the topic.

A Documentary

We feel that this would be an interesting topic, allowing a wide range of discussions to be explored as well as top class local facilities.

Film

In the end we agreed to chose a film as we had various idea's which sounded very positive. Our brief would involve a short story, poster advertising the film and a review page. There are many reasons why we chose this as our brief but we needed to be realistic and take into account the facilties which must be said were limited. This therefore didnt suit a documentary or a music promo. And as this is the topic we have most experience in it would be unwise not to chose it. But our film choice will be exciting and interesting because we all have a wide range of knowledge. Work from our previous year in Media has been a great help in understanding what makes a film intrigue its audiences.