audience research

FOcus group. what will i ask. what will i show them. what will i do once i have answers.

The comparable profile above is the one for the film Fright Night which is a horror move. As you can see the audience for this is 65% 15-25 year olds. This is the audience i intend to aim for as i want it to appeal most to a younger audience. We can also see that males and females are equally for the gender to will appear to, again i wish to aim the same sort of gender because i want it to be able to be seen by males and females and that they both will enjoy it and so it is not orientated towards one gender. Another thing we can see is the Class of people it has been appealing to, the C1 to the DE class.

This is the comparable profile of the paranormal activity 3 film, this film is my main inspiration for my trailer so this is the best comparable profile for me to follow. Again we can see that the 15-25 year old category is the most popular category, this is definitely the kind of audience i want to appeal to. The gender of my audience is going to be evenly spread just like on the paranormal activity reader profile where it is 53% male and 47% female which shows how close the difference is. This Class category is Class C1 through to DE and they are all similar in percentage, I want to have the same kind of audience in the class category also because it appeals to most people therefore being a very popular film.

mood board

This is a mood board showing my chosen genre, I have chosen these pictures to represent my genre because they are some of the most stereotypical things to see in a horror film or in the horror genre. We expect to see knives, blood, monsters, possessed people and dark locations and settings.

textual analysis

Posters

Above there are some film posters which advertise the same kind of film that i am hoping to replicate. To be able to replicate them successfully i am going to have to make sure i get the design for my poster correct as i want it to be as believable as possible.

As you can see the paranormal activity one, two and three are very similar which shows continuity between all 3 films, this is the way i want my film poster to be, simple, easy to replicate so people can suspect a sequel. I am also going to use the same kind of locations in my film trailer, eg, inside the innocent looking house but then at night it will be dark and scary. 

The posters look very plain but i think this is effective because it makes the picture stand out, this is also helped by the black background which makes the text stand out.

My Chosen Genre

In conclusion to me discussing the 4 different genre's that i have analyse above, i really think that best option of film genre for me is to do a Horror film. The reason for this is because it is realistically better for me to get props and costumes and get the locations that i need for filming. There are locations that i can access quite easily as they are quite close to where i live and they have the right kind of mood for a horror film if i could go there when it is dark. There is an old church that i can access, there is an old abandoned house and various side streets and cuts that i can also access. Another thing that will be quite easily accessible are props and costumes, this is because i could go to any sort of charity shop and buy an old black long coat with a hood for the antagonist to wear. I can also get some black boots and black leather gloves for the antagonist to wear too. I have clothes of my own that the protagonist could wear and also my friends could help me out with that. I could get props such as a fake knife or something like that. I can get sound effects and music as i could make them on garage band, also I have friends that are in a band and i could get them to play something and record it. All of these things above will help me in making the narrative set pieces that i need, i am able to get all of the cast, locations, costumes, sounds and props that i need to make this trailer. There are other films that have inspired me to make a horror film, such as Paranormal Activity 1,2 and 3. This is because they are all filmed like a camcorder home video kind of film, this is effective in many ways, such as they make the viewer feel closer to the characters as they are kind of drawn in to the home video feel. Another thing that is effective is that you never see the actual antagonist, you just see what happens inside of the house and you see a person get possessed by the antagonist which makes it scarier because we never get closure on what it actually was that was haunting them as we don't see it. Also the locations in the films are all effective as they are in a normal everyday house which again makes it seem more real and that it could happen to you, this is effective because it makes it scarier and it makes you hope that everything will be alright so that we get a definite ending to the paranormal activity in the house. 

Discussing Genre

Horror

In a Horror film the characters we expect to see are:
- Some sort of bad character who kills someone and also a victim. These are usually the main two characters.

The locations that we expect to see are:
- Dark dingy places, churches, abandoned houses, graveyards, these are all typical types of places.

Props that are typically used in Horrors are:
- Guns, knives, weapons, some sort of object the villain is scared of.

Costumes that we expect to see are:
- The villain is expected to wear dark cloaks, masks, hoodies. The other characters are supposed to wear lighter coloured clothes to make the villain stand out more.

Sounds that we expect from a horror film are:
- Low pitch speech from the villain, sound effects of blood splatters, low pitch music when someone is getting stalked, fast paced music when there is a chase.

The narrative set pieces that are expected in a horror film are:
- man in dark stalking younger person, villain wielding a knife reveals it slowly, music is slow and ominous, villain gradually getting closer, music gets more intense, victim screams and runs, music gets faster, victim comes to a dead end they start seeing things, one final scream.





Comedy

In a Comedy film the character we are expecting to see could be:
- We expect there to be the "slightly overweight" character, cocky character, main funny guy who is usually the pack leader, stressed out character/paranoid, dopey/dumb character.

The locations we expect to see could be:
- Bars, Clubs, in there own home, places where kids would normally go, places where things look like anything can go wrong.

Props that are likely to be used are:
- Toys, Alcohol, Drugs, Cars.

Costumes that we expect to see could be:
- Bright and colourful, scruffy clothes, clothes that do not fit properly, dirty clothes, big hats, big shoes.

Sounds that we expect from a comedy film could be:
- silly noises, fast paced music.

The narrative set pieces that are expected in a comedy film are:
- Anormal everyday man meets an idiotic character and goes on some sort of crazy adventure, he then becomes a little bit idiotic, they fall out, they settle their differences, become friends again.





Romance

In a romance film, the characters we expect to see are:
- Usually a handsome male and a pretty female, families of male and female, friends of male and female, pets.

The locations we expect to see are usually:
- Beach, at the couples home, holidays, hotels, workplace, gym, nightclubs and pubs.

Props that used could be:
- Flowers, rings, presents, maybe alcohol if in a bar.

Costumes we would expect to see could be:
- Wedding dresses, suits, work clothes, lazy around the house clothes, dress clothes.

Sounds that we would expect from a Romantic film could be:
- Gentle music, slow music, kisses would be louder, whispering.

The narrative set pieces that are expected in a Romantic film are:
- Boy meets girl, they fall in love, one of the characters has to go away for a while, one of them meets someone else, character comes back and tries to win them back, more obstacles throughout, they end up together.





Action

Characters we expect to see in an action film are:
- Main gang/ person, rival gang/ person.

Locations we expect to see could be:
- Streets in cars, on boats, on aeroplanes, in a war, in a office, underground bunkers

Props we could expect to see are:
- cars, weapons, boats, planes, gadgets.

Costumes that we can expect the characters to wear could be:
- Army uniform, suits, Undercover costumes, wetsuits, scuba suits.

Sounds that we can expect in a action film could be:
- Gunshots, main hero's got a distinct voice, villain has a creepy eery voice, water splashes, explosions.

The narrative set pieces that are expected in a Action film are:
- Main person/gang find out there is an object that they need/want to find, rival gang/ person also knows of this object, both gangs meet and fight, good guys win and get the object.

Summer Research Into Market Campaign

Through the summer i researched the film "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" in how the film was marketed and promoted. This film poster above is an ideal example of what kind of posters were placed around towns, in bus stops, in shops, in magazines and so on. The phase "it all ends" is also very effective in the way that they have marketed this film, this is because people will read this and they know that this is the final Harry Potter film and that in its own will get more people coming to watch it.

Again here is another way that the film was marketed, by using a popular film magazine and putting a picture of the cast on the front along with the large "Harry Potter" type. This magazine is sold in lots of major retailers around the world, people will see this everyday and that would have made people look at the front of the magazine and then would go and see the film. Also people who buy the magazine will see it and also will get to read about the film inside and that again will help on how many people go and see the film. 

Another way that they marketed it was by releasing teaser trailers which they would put on television throughout the day as it was a 12A certificate which allows children younger than 12 to go and see it with parents. The fact that this was advertised on television all day is so that it can appeal to all audiences of all ages. This again is a clever way of marketing as more people of different ages will want to go and see it.  

Sold $476 million in tickets around the world on it's opening weekend.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the first film in the series to be released in premium-priced 3-D, sold $168.6 million in tickets in North America alone — the biggest opening weekend in history. “The Dark Knight” previously held that record with $158.4 million.