THRILLER AUDIENCE RESEARCH

How do brands profile their audiences?
Brands use viewer profiling to distinguish who they are aiming their product. The brands tend to group society for example age groups, gender and hobbies. Today I started making notes on who I think we should be aiming our film opening to. I started by researching by looking at brands that are already on the market and who they aim their product at. 

Firstly I looked at KISS fm:

KISS 100 continues to successfully hit the mark with its young London target audience, reaching more 15-34s than any radio station in London. Every week 1.9 million listeners tune in to the best dance music on offer in London. Rickie, Melvin and Charlie reach 1.5m listeners across the UK and 783,000 listeners in London each week 

KISS is an iconic youth brand, which began life as a pirate station driving the dance and urban revolution. KISS introduced DJ’s like Judge Jules, Danny Rampling, Roger Sanchez, Spoony and Trevor Nelson and never stopped providing that passion, innovation and desire to break new ground, ensuring all the best new artists and DJ’s play their music on KISS with over 40 hours of specialist programming.
KISS showcases Drum & Bass, R&B, Hip Hop, Dance, Garage, Dubstep, Deep House and Nu Disco and are always on the next big sound.  Shortee Blitz and DJ MK, Majestic, DJ EZ, DJ Swerve, DJ Hype, Sinden, WideBoys and DJ Pioneer all represent their music on KISS FM UK and the KISS Fresh channel showcases even more of the hottest and newest tunes with DJs like Ray Fox, Tough Love, DEVoultion etc and the KISSTORY channel provides 24/7 old skool & anthems.


 Secondly I looked at Topshop:

Their product was described as being targeted at 15-30 year old females. Also thought to be 'the latest fashions at affordable prices'. 



Marketing can be defined as: 
‘The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.’ 
This is the task facing the marketing manager who must realize a company cannot serve all the customers in a broad market. The customers are too numerous and diverse in their buying requirements. Instead marketing managers can become market focused by identifying their target market, anticipating their needs and fine tuning products and marketing programs to successfully meet their needs. The Arcadia Groups Ltd is the UK’s largest clothing retailer, with over 2000 outlets. The group comprises seven brand names – namely Topshop, Topman, Evans, Wallis, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins and Burton. Each brand targets distinct market segments and many of them operate within leading positions in their respective markets. 

For this exercise we will look closely at the Topshop brand and its focus on the target market: 

Ø 15 – 30 Year old females 
Ø Who like pubbing, clubbing and have a sense of fun 
Ø Driven by a need to be fashionable and trendy 
Ø Like all trend setting magazines 
Ø Should remain loyal customers if the retailer maintains a reputation for being fashionable 

After some further research about finding a target audience I found that these are some of the main points of finding your audience for your band:

• Look at the age and gender of the people who would use your product ( take a survey).
• Find out your consumers income levels, this will make it easier to price your product.
• Notice the status of your target audience ( family,single,children). 

BRAIN STORMING

In Fridays lesson my group and I watched some of the previous years film openings and discussed what we thought was effective, for example, camera angles, sound, miss-en-scene and editing strategies.

Next my group and I went on to brain storm what genre we wanted to do for our film opening and we managed to narrow it down to a stalker/thriller film opening as we really enjoyed how in examples we had watched had used up beat sounds and creepy settings to create a thriller opening.

Furthermore as a group we decided that we wanted to use a fish eye lens in our opening; this involved us to do a lot of thinking to see how we could combine it it into the theme that we wanted to produce. I had the idea that the fish eye lens could represent that a  character is mentally not thinking straight and that as an audience you should be looking through that characters eyes.  

LES BLEUS DE RAMVILLE

I have watched and analysed the opening of Les Bleus de Ramville as research for the film opening that we are going to make. 

In this opening shot, as the audience we experience what it is like to be in the locker room before a game.  It is a mid-shot that dose not show the players face almost creating tension and expressing the pressure that the players have before each game. Finally gives the audience the feeling that they are a fly on the wall in the pre game process making them feel involved. 

 This is a low-shot again still not showing the players face to create  further suspense. Again making the audience feel as tho they are involved with the preparation for the game as they are witnessing even such a simple job as putting on their shoes.  Also the lighting gives a misty feel to it creating the feel of pre match intensity. 

This is a birds eye view angled shot/ high angled shot. The way that the shapes move on the page show the plan and the tactics of the game and it proves to us that although you have to physically prepare for a game you also have to mentally prepare.  The way this sequence has been created was through istop motion (onion cutting)  and I have had previous experience with the method if I were to use it for my final film. 

This is a low angle shot looking up to the middle of the players pre game huddle. This allows the audience to feel as tho they are in the middle of the action for the first time. The lighting is also dark creating shadows under the players faces making the pre game chat feel extremely serious. 

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE

Preliminary Exercise 

TASK: 

My group and I created our preliminary film. 

We devise, film and edit a short exercise in film making which OCR asks us to complete prior to our film opening. We watch examples of the exercise such as those undertaken by Claremont students last year and others like this one.
Here is another example

RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE

Today I looked at the title sequence of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as research and inspiration for my film opening.

This films genre is thriller/crime. We can see this from the title sequence as the music is an upbeat fast song with a strong drum beat. This fits well with the fast camera work that consists mainly of panning shots and extreme close ups.

The opening also has a metalic tone as through out the majority of the sequence it is only black and white apart from the use of fire in the middle of the sequence. This creates excitement in the audience as is suddenly derastically  changes from black and white to a bright orange.

Through out the sequence there is a black liquid that is poured over different objects. As black connotes evil and suffering it is seen as blood like and represents death, telling the audience that the film is going to be violent.

Following on with the black and white theme, the font it all consistent and in white. It is very clear to read as it comes up on  a black background.

The mis-en-scene in this opening is dark and misterious as there are flashes of light almost like lightening, with the black liquid covering objects. This makes the audience wonder what is to come in the film as it is not clear at the beginning.

RESEARCH: NOWHERE BOY

The opening shot of the film 'Nowhere Boy' is an establishing shot of a old, stone grand looking building, and we then we see John Lennon running across the front of the building. This shows the audience that John is not very significant as the building makes John look so small. Interestingly the building is old and made stone giving the film a grey dull feel but in contrast there is upbeat jolly music playing. 

Through out the next 15 minuets of the film as the audience we understand that John has a very different relationship with his uncle than he does with his Aunt Mimi. Mimi is represented as the responsible motherly figure where as his Uncle is more of a friend to John. We see this when  Johns Uncle presents him with  a harmonica, the way his Uncle looked over his shoulder to see if Mimi was looking before he gave it to John tells us that music is something that only John and his Uncle share and that it is special to them. Presenting the Uncle in a soft, childish way as he jokes around with John. in contrast Aunt Mimi is stun, traditional and sensible and her character is shown through what she wears. 

Furthermore we see that John is rebellious in this opening as Aunt Mimi has to constantly remind John to put his glasses on, also we see Johns happy, free side when he rides his bike with his friend with no hands on the handle bars. Finally when John arrives at school and is  greeted by some girls at the gate shows that he is popular at school and cheeky.  

DISTRIBUTION: PRIDE

We investigated how the film 'Pride' was attracting their audiences. 

• I started by browsing the official film website, http://www.pridemovie.co.uk The website included a live twitter feed that would tweet regularly important and exciting information about the film to get the audiences exited for the release and give them the opportunity to follow the film.
• The website also included a sound bite of the leading actor Andrew Scott advising people to rush and get their tickets as there is only one week left. By the audiences hearing it from Andrew Scott will create buzz for the film as it shows that the actors are getting involved with spreading the word of the film.
• The LGSM and starts of the film marched with a live band to Odeon Cinema in Camden on Tuesday 2nd September for the Premiere of the film. This created buzz as it is nothing like any other film has done so it makes it original and exciting. They then posted photos and footage of the march on the Pride website to excite fans and persuade them to go and see the film. 
• Backstage footage from the premire was posted on the website so fans and watch it and be inspired to go and see the film.