When looking at true
story films, I looked at the target audience for ‘The Lovely Bones’, which is
mainly the female population, ages 13-20+. It would also target crime/mystery
lovers, true movie fans and fans of the original book.
Using the website http://www.barb.co.uk I found that ‘Call the Midwife’ had a ratings of 10.18 million viewers on 30th December 2012 and 10.85 million viewers on the 3rd February 2013. This shows there’s a huge audience out there that enjoy watching films/TV programmes based on real life. This research helps with my marketing campaign as it shows that I need to persuade a wide audience range to see my film.I also found the last ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ rating was 42,000 viewers on 28th March 2010, which again shows there is a wide audience range.
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| Questionnaires for my focus group |
I undertook primary
research through a focus group by asking them questions about my idea, noted
down their answers and adapted my work towards their responses. From this I
decided to target my film towards the female population aged 12 +. Using the
website http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/12a-and-12 I looked at the requirements of the 12
age rating. I kept this age rating as it allows me to retain most of the real
story, without offending the audience.
As my film covers a range
of genres, it will appeal to the general population. My primary target audience
is the female population aged between 12-30 years old, as the protagonist is
shown through the stages of her life as she grows up, and true movie fans as
this is a different type of true story. My secondary target audience would be fantasy-drama
lovers (mentioned above), and would appeal to them through the concepts of the
film.
I went on the look at
audience demographics. Using; http://www.howtodothings.com/business/a3607-how-to-identify-a-target-market.html helped me to justify my target audience clearly.
Everyone in the world is categorised into a ‘class’ which are: upper class, who are the very rich e.g. The
Queen, middle class who have enough money to live a luxurious life style e.g.
Manager, and working class, who are average/everyday, people e.g. shop
assistants. Due to this their incomes are considerably different which would
affect my target audience of my film. My target audience involves the working class
more as they would understand the plot line more and are more likely to have
gone through something similar/ know someone who has. I’m going to target
mainly the female population, as the film is female based, aged between 12-30.
This is my primary audience. I also looked at the psychographics for my film.The personality of the audience is significant as the more ‘timid’/shy person
is more likely to watch my film than a ‘bold’/outgoing person. The interests/hobbies
of the audience is significant as not everyone likes true story movies.
Knowing target audience, I researched audience theories. The
one that applies to my work is the uses and
gratification theory because it reflects my work and it shows how an
audience relates to what they see, which is how I want my target audience to
react to my film.
My film idea has a range of genres combined into one plot. The main genre is true story, which means that it is non-fiction and factual. I chose this genre as a friend of mine had an unpleasant childhood and I wanted to show how, not everyone has the ‘perfect life’ and how they deal with these imperfections. To ensure anonymity, I altered the characters names and situations so more people could relate to the idea. As this story is close to my heart I studied the codes and conventions of the genre, to ensure my information was correct, shown opposite.
