Research - Thriller Openings (Elliot)

Research - Thriller Codes and Conventions (Elliot)

Audience Profile (Elliot)

A target audience is a collective group of individuals that a media product is specifically aimed and tailored towards.It is vital for media producers to tailor and target an audience in order to suit them best for maximum achievement of their product. For our thriller the target audience will be 15-25 year-olds as we feel that our media product would most appeal to them and would attain most success from this age group. Not only this, but this group can also be described as 'the key demographic' for media products as they are very active and have a sum of disposable income that makes them key consumers for media products. Below are some examples of typical members of our ideal target audience and some questionnaires completed from a focus group.


16-year-old female

An example of a typical audience member would be a 16-year-old girl, who would fall in at the younger end of our audience. She enjoys spending time with her friends and is very active, often spending what money and spare time she gets on recreational activities with her friends such as shopping and visiting the cinema. Of average intelligence, she can grasp complicated plots and story-lines and is a fan of dramatic novels and movies and is an ideal fan for our thriller as she loves thriller movies, in particular The Sixth Sense - which is considered a psychological thriller, much like our thriller. She is at the start of her two year course at college.



Favourite recreational activity/activities: Shopping, going to the cinema, sports
Favourite genre/s of film: Romance/Drama/Thriller
Favourite thriller: Sixth Sense
Favourite genre/s of book: Adventure
Favourite book/s: Arcane
Favourite genre/s of music: Indie
Occupation: Student




23-year-old male

Another example would be a 23-year-old male. Having completed his BA degree he is now in full-time work and has the disposable income to afford recreational activities with his friends. Although he doesn't go to the cinema often, he buys DVDs of movies he finds interesting. Of average intelligence, he can grasp any plot to any movie.

Favourite recreational activity/activities: Going to the gym, going to the pub
Favourite genre/s of film: Horror/Thriller/Action
Favourite thriller: Inception
Favourite genre/s of book: Mystery
Favourite book/s: The Detective
Favourite genre/s of music: Rock/R&B
Occupation: Customer Assistant


Questionnaires from a focus group

Research - Thriller conventions (Evan)

       Thriller convention for Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) and The Sixth Sense (Shyamalan, 1999)

                       

Research - Audience Profile (Elliot)

Audience profiling allows media businesses to narrow down their audience/customers to find their target audience and it is best for such industries to define their target audience before marketing their products. This allows for maximum success, particularly in the film industry where marketers can tailor marketing campaigns to reach their specified audience and construct their media pieces to suit them. A target audience is an audience that is most relevant to the media product and to whom the product is targeted towards, hence the name 'target' audience. Factors to consider when marketing to a target audience may include, but are not limited to:
 - Age
 - Gender
 - Religion
 - Race
 - Sexuality
 - Education
 - Occupation
 - Income

The FDA - Film Distributors' Association

With regards to the film industry, the Film Distributors' Association Ltd. (FDA), originally established in London in 1915 is the trade body for theatrical film distributors in the UK - the companies that release films for UK  cinema audiences - and liaises and works with individuals, companies and organisations. FDA's Council, or board, comprising a senior representative of each member company, normally meets six times a year and considers only matters of generic interest to film distributors.

The website includes a calendar informing users of the UK Film release schedule - past, present and future. Here you can view the scheduled films for release in the UK over the recent and coming months. Moreover, it features a section on the UK monthly cinema admission for each month and year. Additionally, they have a featured section on the top 100 films of all time and top 100 films in UK cinemas

The BBFC - British Board for Film Classification

The BBFC (British Board for Film Classification) is a non-governmental organization, founded by the film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom and set guidelines for age ratings of films.Two key principles that affect the rating of a film are: (1) of intent to protect children and vulnerable adults from potentially harmful or otherwise unsuitable content and (2) to help those with responsibility for children such as parents, to make informed viewing decisions. The BBFC has a variety of age ratings and, as a group, we feel that 15 would be a suitable rating for out thriller. This means that no person(s) under the age of 15 would be allowed to view it in cinema or buy/rent it.

What might I see in a 15 rated film or video?

 - strong violence
 - frequent strong language
 - portrayals of sexual activity
 - strong verbal references to sex
 - sexual nudity
 - brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
 - discriminatory language or behaviour
 - drug taking

In a nutshell, the product must not display or endorse any discriminatory language or behaviour. Also, it must not promote or encourage drug misuse or self harm and easily accessible substances also may not be shown. At 15 sexual activity can be portrayed, but usually without strong detail. 

If this is the case however, then why would our product not be rated 18 instead? A good question - but in general, 18 films contain significantly more graphic references to sex and strong portrayals of violence. 

18 works are for adults and can contain strong issues such as:
 - very strong violence
 - frequent strong/very strong language
 - strong portrayals of sexual activity
 - scenes of sexual violence
 - strong horror
 - strong blood and gore
 - real sex (in some circumstances)
 - discriminatory language and behaviour

BBFC’s public consultations and The Human Rights Act 1998 states that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment however, very dangerous or criminal  material that has been a commission of a criminal offence may be cut.

Due to the fact that our thriller would be lacking in this as most of the 'thriller elements' will come from psychological aspects not physical, it would be foolish to cap-line the age rating for an older audience. Although it could be argued that perhaps some 15-year-olds might not be able to understand the content, this is not the case as the content will be simple and the plot not overly complicated. In addition, by having a younger age rating, the film becomes available to a wider audience and so allows for greater success. Not only this, but by turning to recent thrillers such as Lucy (Besson, 2014) or The Hunger Games - Catching Fire (Lawrence, 2014) we can see that similar thrillers were also very successful amongst the ages of 15-18 and so this age rating would be most suitable. Finally, this rating is at the bottom of the key demographic for film viewing, thus, having such a rating could be strategically clever.

Film Openings: Institutional analysis - Men In Black (Evan)

Men In Black:


Presented below is my timeline of the opening title sequence to the film Men In Black. On this timeline you can see each credit that is viewed during the title sequence. For example the first horizontal line depicts vertical line's at various points in time which mark a new credit that is viewed during the sequence. Whereas the lower horizontal line depicts how long the title song last's until the end. As you can see, the song ends 10 seconds before the end of the title sequence.

Located below is an example of 9 of the title screens that were in the sequence.

Research - Film Openings: Institutional analysis (Elliot)

Forrest Gump (1994)

The opening of Forrest Gump begins with the image of a floating white feather in air. The camera follows this feather until it reaches the end of its journey onto Forrest's shoe. From this the feather acts as a synergetic image for the movie and presents the theme of the movie; destiny and its theological ideas. Throughout the title sequence credits enter onto the screen. Music fades into the sequence from the start and then fades out towards the end. 

"Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get" - Forrest Gump

Actor Tom Hanks:

Our destiny is only defined by how we deal with the chance elements to our life. That is the embodiment of the feather; here is this thing that can land anywhere, and it lands at your feet.

Actor Sally Field:

Part of the picture is about fate. The feather blows in the wind and touches down here or there. Was it planned or was it per chance?