Audience Research

The audience I have chosen would be appropriate for my idea is teenager men from the age of 15 to adults of 30 yeas old. This was chosen for my idea mainly because of the chosen genres of comedy and action. The action side of the film would be appealing to the older half of my audience and the comedy to the younger side of my audience. I felt this was appropraite because my research of previous similar films showed that people from the ages of my idea tend to enjoy these films as they rated them fairly high and also said what their preferred genre is, which related to my comedy/action idea.

 

To gather information from my initial target audience I constructed a questionnaire and handed out a number of copies. A filled out copy of the questionnaire is below.

The questionnaire has helped me to find out some name ideas for my movie, it has given me ideas for adjusting the synopsis and has given me a clear idea of what is to be include into my idea to make it both original and effective. I am going to use the majority of my research to create a well constructed movie opening that appeals to people both inside and outside my target audience.

The questionnaire included questions asking the person about my synopsis, my movie title and movies similar to my idea. The research about similar movies helped me to realise what to relate my opening and overall idea to.

The two images below are put together as an example of one of the filled in questionnaires. The rest of the questionnaires that I collected included similar forms of answers but there was variety in the useful information.

Description of 2 minute opening

The guys having a conversation about their lives whilst James is getting ready for work. The camera will cut between the two and will clearly show their contrasting personalities as well as their lifestyles. When James is ready he leaves for work and Ryan goes back to sleep, however the disequillibrium is when James is fired at the end of the opening.

Synopsis of chosen idea

Film Idea 3 - Action Comedy

Two contrasting guys in their late teens/early 20's live in a flat together and rely on James, the hardworking of the two, to pay the majority of the rent. Ryan, the slob of the two, rely's on James to feed and look after him and be a mother figure. But all of the things they crave in life become limited when James loses his job and they are being evicted at the end of the month. So having limited qualifications and experiences with drugs Ryan starts to make his own range of drug that becomes quickly popular in the local town and gets them lots of money and LOTS of trouble.

In the jist of all the drug drama, Ryan has a child on the way but doesn't realise how mature he should be acting. But he wants to carry on with the drug business to earn money to look after his child and the mother.

The business is going well until the former drug dealer of the town wants to be a part of the money which James doesn't really warm to the idea of. Despite James wanting nothing to do with him, Ryan goes and discusses business with the former dealer behind James' back, which puts them in a sticky situation. After James realizes what Ryan has done, he decides to take matters into his own hands and plots to get rid of the former dealer, however James doesn't know what this man is capable of.

James and Ryan end up coming into lots of disagreements about the drugs and the former dealer steals Ryan and uses him for his drugs, taking over James' position. Not satisfied with how things are going, James creates one last plan to get rid of the new dealer but he needs Ryan's help.

Ryan warms to the idea after the pair talk about their ambitions and after James reminds Ryan that the dealer could be a threat to his up and coming family. Now they are both in on the job and go after the dealer. During a shoot off in a stranded junkyard Ryan gets a gun pushed to his head by the dealer and seeing his buddy on the edge off death makes James realize his friendship and business is almost at end so he takes one last sneaky shot and defeats the dealer. James and Ryan get rid of any evidence that could get them caught and flee the scene.

Shortly after the death of the dealer Ryan rushes to the hospital after hearing his child is on the way. However when he turns up the child is born but the mother passed away during the birth. Now that Ryan is left with 100% responibility of his child he realizes that the drug business should be finished. They make one last deal to flog the rest of their product and earn theirselves a 7-digit number to split between them.

Ryan decided to name his newly born boy James after his closest friend, he also chose James as the godfather.

Film Ideas

Film 1: Comedy

Concept - A story that follows the life of a man who is based on all of the stereotypes of a 'normal guy'. It follows his life as he finds himself in tricky situations trying to find a 'normal girl'.

Opening - An upbeat sequence of the 'normal' guy getting ready to start his day. Includes waking up and getting dressed etc. Music will be very happy and match his movements. In terms of mise-en-scene, there will be bright colours and props to make the 'getting ready' more realistic.

Film 2: Romantic Drama

Concept - This film is entirely filmed hand held from the perspective of the main characters with the odd camera shot not on the camera. It shows the lives of a teenage couple and their struggles as the girl of the couple becomes extremely ill and is told she doesn't have long left. The boyfriend decides to film their perspective on the struggle and films all of the things that make her laugh so that she can watch them back when she feels down and can be reminded that she had a good time over all of the bad.

Opening - The opening would show the boy getting out the camera for the first time and filming himself explaining what he is doing for her. It would be a simple shot of him and her sitting down talking about the struggles they're going to face.

Film 3: Action Comedy

Concept - Two contrasting guys that grew up together have moved in together and have been living rough for years. However the sensible of the two loses his job therefore the guys have next to no money between them. To creat an income, the slob of the two creates a drug and it suprisingly becomes very popular.

Opening - The opening could be the guys getting ready to start the day and it could end with the sensible one losing his job. This allows a range of camerawork and you could include a fair few props.

Final Choice:

I like the overall storyline idea for number 2 but hte only problem with doing that idea is that the opening wouldn't be very detailed. By this I mean that even though there would be a lot of sound and maybe even props, there wouldn't be any oppurtunites to use a range of camera angles and explore camera work and mise-en-scene. However, I like the idea of doing synopsis 3 as it would be a great oppurtunity to use a range of camera angles and also include lots of dialogue, props and other features. Therefore I am going to go with film idea 3 as it is a better oppurtunity to explore techniques.