Audience Profile & Analysis

Profile
The general target age for the audience I am basing this trailer on is from mid-teenagers to young adults as this will be the age of the characters in it. The morals brought to life in it are also more abundant with that generation because it is something that they should be aware of. Although there is no sexual content or physical violence, we decided to give the film a certificate 15 as there is some verbal abuse and aggressive behaviour.
Despite the film being targeted at both males and females, it is predominantly a female based film as the main character is a female and they will be able to connect with that character more, especially as the issues brought to light are those that affect women more than men. At the same time, the film does include some violent natured scenes and this content often appeals to men more than women so hopefully, the film appeals enough to both males and females that we will have a larger audience.
Both characters featured in the film are of a heterosexual nature and in the beginning have a relationship. The film trailer highlights him being overprotective and aggressive to his girlfriend which highlights a stereotypically male heterosexual trait. The girl on the other hand is weak and helpless, which is also typical of a girl in that position. The audience will typically be of a heterosexual background to be able to have a better understanding of what is being portrayed and because of this, there will be a larger audience to base the film on
This film is based mainly around the middle class lifestyle and there are no issues of money or poverty involved. Luckily, nowadays, people of a higher class aren’t as opposed to having involvement with people of a lower or middle class and will have no objection to watching it which means we can aim it at all classes. Some people, though, may find the nature slightly distressing or may object to their children watching it which could put them off.
The main character in the film is a student who is only around 16 years old whilst her boyfriend is around the age of 20 and would have just left. Although his occupation is never made clear, based on the stereotype we are using on him, I think the audience would assume he works somewhere in the labour field. People watching this film will be predominantly students, as that is the target age we are hoping to reach, however people of any occupation can watch it. It would be stereotyping to assume people with more professional jobs such as accountants and lawyers will object to watching it, but I believe there will be a narrower audience around that market as the narrative isn’t as appealing to that audience.
The setting for this film is in rural Britain as it makes the location appear more isolated which will be more fear-provoking for the audience as it will make them feel as if there is no one around to protect the character and will increase a sense of foreboding and loneliness. As well as this, the British film genre is accredited for bringing to light ideologies, usually about the working class, however this will make the film less frowned upon as it would be amongst some societies due to the content of it.
As it will be mainly students watching the film, education levels will vary as different people will be studying at different levels, however the film doesn’t set out to target a niche audience as the bigger an audience, the more money can be made from it and therefore people of every educational background should watch it. Although, as mentioned earlier, people with a more professional educational background may not be as likely to watch it as someone with a less professional background as, based on stereotypes, we automatically assume people with a lower level of degree will be more open minded and won’t have a problem watching films with some scenes involving aggressive behaviour.

Overall, the film is going to be targeted at as large an audience as possible, but predominantly it will be younger adults and those who are into movies with a more thrilling/adrenaline seeking nature. They will probably have an open mind to as some people would be opposed to the nature involved with the film and wouldn’t want to watch it because of this, although there is no gore involved, which would be likely to put more people off. Luckily this film targets a large audience and would be watched by people from all sorts of backgrounds and ideologies.

Analysis
The genre we decided to do was thriller, which means the film is based at people who enjoy watching films that keep them on the edge of their seat and makes them jump. Enjoying this genre myself, I am aware that it sells so well because of the adrenaline rush people get out of watching it. The scarier a film, the better the adrenaline rush and the more likely people are to want to watch it again, similar to going on thrill seeking rides such as rollercoaster’s. We tried to make this film based on a large degree of reality as this makes the audience more aware that it could actually happen and therefore it is more likely to scare them as they are left thinking ‘what if that happens to me?’
We are trying to follow the codes and conventions of a typical thriller as best as possible as this is what the audience want to see. To try and pick up on the best codes and conventions, we did some research into a few horror and thriller films, and ended up focusing on Taken, Gothika and Creep and found some common ground between them. Firstly, low key lighting is used to build up suspense and create a spooky atmosphere, which works especially well as the audience don’t know whether there is something in the dark either. As well as this, fast cuts are used when there is more action so that everything appears faster and more dramatic.
We have picked up on a few of these codes and conventions and have involved them in our film so that hopefully we can connect better with the audience.
To promote this film, we would probably put a trailer on the television, as this can be viewed by a wide audience and will get more people interested. As well as this, we might use viral marketing on web 2.0 by putting trailers on sites such as Facebook and MySpace that will be viewed by a larger audience but predominantly the target age group we’re looking to appeal too. When it came to distributing to cinemas, we would probably use a Modified Wide Release Pattern which means we would open the film up in a few large markets, and then once awareness has built up via trailers and word of mouth, we would proliferate to other markets whilst constantly advertising, and then eventually, maybe advertise on a National Level.

Limitations and Strengths of our Planning Documents

I found the planning process fairly difficult as there was so much to take into consideration. I was also worried that there would be a lot more on our shoulders, being A2 students, and that we would have too put a lot more into our productions and this pressure made it hard for us to even come up with a storyline, but once we got into it, everything fell into place.

Luckily the swot analysis allowed us too realise where our strongest and weakest points were and by noting them on paper, they become far more apparent to us. We realised that as we both live quite a distance from the college it may be difficult to film as we needed indoor environments such as houses as much as outdoor, but luckily we happen to live fairly near each other anyway so that meant we could film around the area we live rather than Weymouth. Unfortunately, we also came to an agreement that it might be challenging as the nights are now getting shorter and by the time we get back to ours from college it could be dark. As well as this, it will be hard to use actors from Weymouth whose timetables we are familiar with and we can rely on, as it may be hard for them to travel the distance but luckily we have been able to get around these problems by using the days we finish early on, to shoot and trying to shoot as much as possible in Weymouth so we don't annoy our actors.
Due to the lack of ability to go certain places, as my team mate is wheelchair bound, we would have to only film in places as flat as possible as she might struggle with hills etc. Luckily for us, most of Weymouth and other areas we want to film are flat so we won't have much difficulty.
On the other hand we were grateful for have prior experience with filming and editing during our As years, therefore we weren't complete beginners and knew what we were doing and what to expect. As well as this, we have software available to use from all over college such as Adobe Premiere Pro for editing, cameras and tripods for filming, and recording suites if we want to do voice overs etc. which meant we werent going to struggle finding equipment to use.

By presenting our planning powerpoint to the class, we were able to recieve feedback from other groups which meant we weren't solely relying on ourselves and had outsiders perspectives. We recieved both positive and negative feedback, the positive being that we had thought out the limitations that could affect us well, and that we had a good plot and believable storyline. We were also told that we the audience would be able to relate easily as the characters used are based around the same age group as well as the narrative being very contemporary, means that the teenage/young adult target age we set it at will have a better understanding of the context.
On the other hand, we also recieved feedback telling us that we need more research into demographics and archetypes which came in useful when we were creating the proper storyboard as it meant we knew where to focus on and we tried to use the right continuity and shots to portray this.
We were also told that we didn't have enough background narrative, but we didn't have the opportunity to actually provide our draft storyboard to the members of our class, which in fact shows the girl (Ella) being verbally abused in the beginning, which allowed us to set the trailer up for the audience to understand the rest of what is going on, without giving too much away. As well as this, we were told that we told to acknowledge the quality of the actors, but I believe this is a hurdle everyone has to face and we have gone out of our way to try and find the best actors possible that will be available.

In the beginning we were completely unsure about where to go with our storyline and plot so we just drafted all our ideas onto a piece of paper and came up with the basic storyline. At first I was convinced that, although we came up with a starting point and very basic storyline, we would end up doing something completely different eventually, but much to my surprise we stayed with the idea and have created a script and storyboard out of it. By drafting our initial ideas, it allowed us to see what ideas we each had and incorporate them into one idea, or come up with the best solution to overcome problems if there was a clashing of ideas. For example: I wanted to do a horror and also thought this would be the best genre to cover as we had the right weather conditions and lighting, or lack thereof, for it. On the other hand, my teammate Nina isn't a fan of horrors so we came up with an idea to do a thriller which didn't incorporate such a scary plot but meant we could still use the lack of lighting and short days usefully.

The draft storyboard and final storyboard meant that we could plan our shots to the best of our ability because they are going to be used to position our shots as correctly as possible. The difficulties we faced were that, whilst we had ideas about the location of each shot, we weren't sure of the precise locations and this means that we might need to rearrange some of the shots somewhat to suit the surroundings. On the other hand, it also means that we don't need to spend a long time sorting out the positions or remembering what we had planned to do as we have it all layed out in front of us.

Important things to consider when filming

Main Considerations:-

Mise-en-scene

• Attire.


• People getting in the way of the shots when filming


• Environment: if we are filming horror, we don't want a seemingly bright environment unless it is needed for particular shots


• Pathetic Fallacy if possible

Camera

• Camera Angles: high, low


• Camera movement: panning & tracking, zooming.


• Rule of Thirds


• 180 degree rule


• lighting: probably low key if we are filming horror. Natural lighting when outside, so it is important to film during the day.


• Establishing shots

Editing

• Continuity


• Title


• Effects we may want to use: fade, wipe etc.


• Making sure the sound matches the cutting.


• timing of each shot

Sound

• Synchronicity and asynchronicity


• Diagetic and non-diagetic sounds (may need to obtain non-diagetic sounds from CD's or the internet)


• Sound Bridges


• Non-diagetic music needed over trailer.

Planning Documents

Initial Planning
Swot Analysis
Planning Powerpoint
Storyboard (Draft)
Final Storyboard
Script

Advertising Industry Codes of Practice

• When producing our trailer, we had to look at the list of rules and regulations that would apply to us if we were producing it on a National scale, as well as some that apply to us now filming on a smaller scale. To do this, I went to the BCAP website. BCAP stands for the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice, and it is the company responsible for setting the correct codes of practice for advertisers.
  From there I went to the Television Advertising Standards Code document. Looking at of the Regulations, it is apparent that many of them don't apply to us as our trailer is not being broadcast to such a large extent, but some of them do comply with our trailer and therefore we decided to pick out the most important and relevent ones such as:
  

Section 6: Harm & Offence

• 6.1 Advertisements must not encourage or condone violence or cruelty- This is important as our film is about someone escaping a violent relationship and our trailer includes one scene at the beginning with mild violence. Fortunately rather than promoting it, the trailer implies that domestic abuse should be stopped.


• 6.4 Advertisements must not, without good reason, contain material which is likely to cause serious distress to significant numbers of viewers-Some of the material in our trailer could be deemed slightly distressing, which is why we tried to keep the scenes as mild as possible.


• 6.7 Advertisements must not encourage or condone behaviour prejudicial to
  health and safety and advertisements must not use techniques that may
  directly harm viewers-As we are creating a thriller, some of the scenes have implied dangerous circumstances that people get into but once again we are condoning a message to people about being stalked and trying to make people more aware of the fact that it does happen.

Section 7: Children

• 7.4 Advertisements must not contain material which could lead to social, moral or psychological harm to children-Because our trailer contains a scene that could be seen as distressing, we have given it a PG rating, which means that parents don't have to let them watch it and it should only be seen with them. Other than this, our trailer focuses more on abuse within relationships and has nothing to do with child abuse therefore it is not encouraging it.

Section 10: Religion, Faith & System of Beliefs

• 10.13 No advertisement may exploit children, or the hopes or fears of any other vulnerable category of viewer-Whilst being stalked is a fear that could affect some people, we are not exploiting or condoning it and as mentioned, we are trying to increase people's awareness of an issue that does occur. The genre of the film is thriller so it is supposed to be found slightly scary but it is also supposed to bring to light just how dangerous situations like these are.

BBFC Classifications

The main things films are classified on are:

• Violence


• Sexual Nature and Nudity


• Drug and Alcohol use


• Use of Language


• Genre
  

Because our film only contains mild violence with some bad language, and has a thriller genre, we decided to give it a certificate of 15, which means it is illegal for any one under the age of 15 to watch it. This is because it is not overly distressing to teenagers who might see it, but some parents may have an objection to their younger children viewing it due to the nature of certain scenes and occasional swearing.

On the other hand, the ratings often depend on the messages and morals portrayed by the films, and if there are clear messages in them the rating is often lower. For the trailer we decided to give it a lower rating so it could be viewed by a larger number of people. To do this we used little violence and showed no bad language which brought the certificate down to a PG (Parental Guidence). This means that the trailer can be viewed by children of any age, but it is advised that a parent or guardian is present as they may not wish their children to view certain scenes. Because of this, it would allow us to advertise on a broader scale which would increase our sales figures overall.

Film classifications differ between regions and each will have their own film classification board which will decipher the certificates for individual films. Films that may be rated PG in the USA could be rated 12 in the UK for example

Response to Feedback

In the feedback we recieved, we were asked about setting and questioned on the locations we are going to use. This has been an issue for myself and Nina-my team mate-that we are still having trouble deciding on. Unfortunately, living far away from college it poses a problem as we don't want anything filmed on college grounds, and we need to get to places far away fairly quickly before it gets dark. We have planned to film it at one of our houses and are still in question as to who lives in the most sufficient area that would be easily accessible and fit with the location we want to portray. We were also faced with the problems of having a long point of view shot that would show her well in the distance but from above. Eventually we decided on filming along the marine parade in Lyme regis, where we can stand in the gardens that over look the walkway and film it from on top of there.
Another limitation we were presented with in our feedback is getting actors/actresses that can portray the atmosphere we are trying to create by pulling off the right emotion in their acting abilities. We have decided to try and use people from the drama department who already have experience in acting and will know what to do better than someone who has never done it before. They will also be less camera shy, having been on stage enough times to cope with stage fright.

We were told that our strengths were that we have really thought about the gender representation we are trying to portray which I agree with as we want our male character to appear tall and powerful whilst the female appears weak and vulnerable, highlighting the stereotypes that focus around masculinity and femininity.
As well as this, our feedback stated that the narrative we decided to use related to every day occurences that people need to be more aware of which was what Nina and I initially planned to do. We wanted to make a trailer that would portray societal morals that people should have a higher awarity of and in this case, its stalking which is becoming increasingly common nowadays expecially with the constant increase in Web 2.0