Audience Research : Opinions on movies

At this moment in time, my initial survey has had 39 replies and this allows me to analyze a wider audience to see potentially which audiences are interested in my film.


Gender

56.4% of replies were from Males, 43.6% from Females
There was little to no real difference in tastes in movie from the audience selection


Age

We have had

Under 16s: 3

16-25: 7

26-35: 8

36-45: 12

46-55:9

So, as a whole, I have a range of statistics from the everywhere from Under 16 to 55

Genre

As a whole, the most popular genre was Comedy, which 13 Votes / 33.3% of people ranked in their top 3, however my trailer fits, potentially, into Thriller and Action which received 11 Votes/ 28.2%, both at joint third behind Drama. The definite popularity of these two genres is reassuring to me, showing that there is a large potential audience



I also chose to put a second Audience question about Genre that would help expose what audiences thought about each other. My question was "My reasoning behind this question is that it would potentially help me see whether I was latching onto a niche audience or whether I could capture the Mainstream audience, however there was anoter motive behind this question, to discover whether audiences felt un-catered for, for example Andy answered my questionaire and said that he believed that people his age's tastes were 'less diverse' and this opinionof his was probably triggered by the fact that the films aimed at people of his age range (36-45) did not contain enough 'Action' and 'Arthouse', the two forms of film that he specifically mentioned. So essentially, in theory there is an untapped audience, there was an overwhelming 1/3 of people answering my survey stating that they felt that many people their age enjoyed Drama, when they themselves enjoyed Action and Thrillers.

Regularity

The regularity with which people visited the Cinema showed that a resoundingly large figure of 56.4% of people visited the Cinema twice monthly, this would suggest to me that people go and see films pretty consistently and this may suggest that people aren't too picky about going to see films and they, due to the regularity of their schedule, might want to go and see something odd. The 7.7% of people who go 3-4 times a month, and the 2.6% who goes weekly or more, would in my opinion go to the film sheerly because they enjoy the cinema experience or they are very interested in film, at which point they would be willing to go and see up coming directors.

As well as this, the quantity of DVDs bought per month is quite staggering, with a vaste majority of people buying, renting or downloading films, 2 or more times a month, this probably means, unless my audience are incredibly wealthy, the price of the DVD on release should be low, because with low-budget films, there is no way that you can ask for a large price, and people will be much more likely to take a risk buying a new director's film if it costs £5 than if it costs £16-20

Effective Methods of Advertising

Conclusively people ticked the box for 'Word of Mouth' 69.2% of the time and Reviews 56.4% of the time, no-one who filled in the survey did not fill in either of these two boxes, which means that these are the two most effective ways of advertising to people, other than perhaps the Trailer itself. Suggestions as to where they got their information were places such as: Rottentomatoes.com (3), Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo (3) , Empire Magazine (1), The Guardian (8), The Metro (1), Youtube (3), facebook (2), Time Out (3), Twitter (1), Observer (1) and the New York Times (1). This showed that actually newspaper and radio were still an effective way of reaching the audience and people still trust written review over youtube, facebook or twitter.

What people look for in a film

This was one of the few questions where there was a spread of answers with over 10% of people voting for each diffent section; 'Famous Director, Famous Cast, Storyline, Genre, Trailer and Nominations' - However Storyline won conclusively with 41% of the vote with Trailer and Nominations both as 15% or so, however if you think about it a Trailer is meant to express a storyline and show nominations and reviews, so I took that trailer is actually the most important way of demonstrating the aspect in question

Poster Work: Gone Baby Gone

I like this poster because it highlights the single, central character, due to his pose, he looks like he is potentially mourning. The gun in his hand shows that he is willing to go to extreme lengths for vengeance, and also the background and the way that the sun is rising suggests that he has limited time. This of course fits in with my theme. The simpleness of the font and the use of a simple tag line means that not too much is going on in the poster, often posters try to have too much in them, this however gives little away as to the plot of the film. The rising sun also provides rich colour, so there is a contrast between the light at the bottom of the screen and the darkness at the top.

Research and Planning : Sound

To be honest, sound is possibly the most difficult aspect of the trailer, it is very difficult to make my own music due to the fact that it is difficult to construct my own music for the project. I am currently looking at http://freeplaymusic.com/ because it has a large selection of copyright free music, however I do think that this website can be a little vague in terms of genre and sound on occasion.



As well as free sites like freeplaymusic, I looked at a site
that I am a member of, http://www.looperman.com/ which is based on the idea of creative commons and credited use and so if I were to use their tracks, I would have to credit them for their work and seeing as I have designed a slate, having more names to put in it could do no harm. So far, I have found a few tracks and a few artists that seem to be potential choices, I am already in contact with one of them due to a video I made outside school. So far, I have found the website to be easy to use, and I have decided that in the end the 3 categories from which potential tracks will come are Cinematic, Industrial or Metal because all three contain dark and heavy tracks that would suit the film. I am also planning to see if more electric tracks would fit with the trailer itself.

Here are a few URLs of good sounding potential music :
http://www.looperman.com/tracks_detail.php?tid=28588 (Some parts of this)
http://www.looperman.com/tracks_detail.php?tid=30432
http://www.looperman.com/tracks_detail.php?tid=11982
http://www.looperman.com/tracks_detail.php?tid=7915

Research and Planning : Titles, part 1.

I have decided on a temporary title and have been applying various effects to titles to make them look intriguing and not boring, the name of my film is currently 'ABSOLUTION', despite the religious undertones of the term, I think the word has connections with contemplation, redemption and potential revenge. As well as this, there may potentially be a church scene in the montage scene. These titles are the first simplistic design for graphics, I will soon be posting a collection of fonts that are possibilities. These are mainly simple filter jobs on Photoshop Creative Studio 3, but they show three clearly dissimilar concepts.

Research and Planning : Idents

First of all I searched for independent idents that looked reasonably professional and attempted to notice trends in the industry, I noticed that essentially one of most recurring factors in idents is the stationary logo. Many independent film companies have stationary logos central to the screen, and the more high budget company has a full screen animation. So, to begin to work on making a low budget ident. Below are examples of independent logos that are prime examples.

As you can see, they often have a 'boxed' image with text below, the image is often quite simplistic and preferably quite bizarre and memorable , sometimes they are connected to the film, e.g. (A high-budget example) the color changes and additions to the Warner Bros. logo in the Matrix or Harry Potter an often film companies that make certain kinds of film have logos that relate to the genre of film i.e. a thriller will not be made by a company that is represented by a cartoon bunny.

My first ident is designed to look like an independent studio. It has a stationary image that is

meant to look like some sort of scientific cell, the name 'Green Bros.' is both a pun on the idea of the Warner Bros. name and is also an anagram of my name. The colour of the logo is

of course, green. The image is meant to look like a green cell, there is no real reason for this other than it looks good on screen and does not disrupt from the mood of the trailer, in fact I would say that it retains it's own dark qualities. However, it does contrast from the general colour scheme of the trailer which is mainly going to be slightly greyscale footage and reddish maroon titles.

Recce - 3rd and 4th Shots.

Shot 3

I thought that this shot had an intriguing aspect to it, the angles of the walls all avoid strict 90 degree angles and I think that this makes the shot look sort of off. The arch under which someone could easily stand would make a good meeting place for two characters. I think as well that the shade and colour of the bricks (particularly in the first photograph.) are not too colourful and thus allow the shot to appear drained of colour and thus perfect for the idea of grieving and the negative themes of the film. I think it would be easy to film nice shots here, and it easy to travel here, but I may have to ask the permission of local resident.

SHOT 4

This final little alley way is once again, very close to my house and other locations that I will be filming at, unlike the areas I have looked at, this has significantly less space which might suggest less space for cameras, but at the same, it captures a more claustrophobic and tense scene, which could look better in a trailer, it gives a sense of pressure. As well as this, this area has more vegetation and appears a little more colourful on camera, to be honest this may be a negative thing, on the other hand, the area, if I am choosing to portray this as a meeting place arranged by the main character.

Research and Planning : My Trailer Animatic.

As well as making a storyboard, I scanned it in and made an 'animatic' from the original frames, I chose some temporary music and used a temporary font for the title, it is in no way perfect, but it is a vague overview of the order of my trailer.