PLANNING: Mindmap

This is our mindmap for our film. 
 

Planning: My Target Audience

Our target audience is for teen girls ages 12 and above

I have started to investigate how brands define audiences in preparation for creating my own audience profiles for my AS foundation production. For example, I saw Bauer Media and NME.

Who is my target audience? by Fia Brown

1) who is my primary target audience?

Teen girls ages 12 and above 

2. What kind of films and television are they likely to prefer?

High school movies like Mean Girls, She's a man, Confessions of a Drama Queen. They would watch tv series like Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Keeping up with the Kardashians.  

3. What platforms do they choose to watch films and where are they likely to see information about films?

Netflix, social media, ads on tv, youtube etc. 

4. What brands do they prefer?

Snapchat, Instagram, Zara, Pretty Little Thing, StarBucks, Mac Cosmetics, Boohoo, H&m etc  

5. What makes my film stand out from the competition?

My film is different from the other high school movies as films like Mean Girls or Confessions of a Drama Queen are about how the main character changes to become popular but for my film it is staying yourself and watching how people will like you for who you are without having to be someone you're not.

6 . Why should my audience watch my film? 

My film is relatable to teen girls in high school; the struggles and things that every girl goes through.

PLANNING: Treatment

For our film we considered a coming-of-age comedy featuring a teenage girl finding her way in life through hardships of friendship and love. Set in a secondary school in surrey, the film follows our protagonist Lara's journey of self discovery.  Lara– a shy, awkward teenage girl discovers the hard way that there’s more to life than popular boys and superficiality. After undergoing a makeover by popular girl Becca, Lara receives attention like she has never received before. The odd-looking outsider transforms from an ‘ugly duckling into a beautiful swan’ with the assistance of her ‘friend’ who later becomes jealous and resentful of the ‘new beautiful and cool Lara’ that she has created as her minion. Audiences ask here ‘is this the real her?’, relaying the idea that people do not need to change in order to fit into societal norms. Lara in turns learns that these people are not her real friends – only on the surface. After losing who she once was, Lara eventually learns the meaning of true friendship and true self-worth and self-identity through discovering her own image and voice. Our film portray the important theme of of growing up and moving from one part of your life to the next that every audience can relate to. 

PLANNING: Target audience & Similar films

Kezia Williams, of Entertainment One UK, on the FutureLearn Film Distribution by the Film Distributors Association, speaks about how film distributors build a 'comp list' of comparable films that their target audience would enjoy. 

She highlights the importance of knowing your target audience. She asks questions like "what drives them to the cinema" and "what interests do they have". She also says distributors will compare data of films that are similar in their genre, selling points and story. The target audience and budget is formulated from what box office take was like with previous films and the types of audience that saw those films. The target audience can be analysed to find the gender gap, and which cinemas the target audience usually frequent.

 'KEZIA WILLIAMS: Really important to understand who your audience is and what motivates them and what’s going to interest them and drive them to go to the cinema. So you start, often, by examining similar films that have been released in the past– comparable films is a way in which we refer to them in the industry– and create a set that we can then look back at data so we can look at lots of different data and do research, really, on those comparable films to identify who the audience was on those films. So it might be that we look at demographic data and think about, did it skew more male or more female? What’s the age group that it appeals to?

0:46Skip to 0 minutes and 46 secondsDoes it have multiple different audiences that that can appeal to? And there’s lots and lots of cinema-going trends that you can dig into from that comparable set. We’ll also look at box office data to understand regionality, to look at the cinema-going skew– so did more people go to a certain cinema chain to see these comparable films? Right down to which cinemas performed. So it might be that there’s a cinema in London that had a fantastic box office share, and that’s an important aspect for us to consider. And then once you really understand who the audience on those comparable films were, you can start to talk about the differences and similarities between those films and the film that you’re working on.'

Here is our 'comp' list:

Our Target Audience. by Fia Brown

PLANNING: Advanced Production

 PLANNING: TASKS (this is the title of the post) Copy / paste the list below (and edit it!).

1. The name of our film: 
2. The name of our Production Company and our co-production companies: TFL Productions and star studios 
3. The name of the director that will appear in our trailers: Malcolm Duffy
4. The name of the 2-3 main actors that will appear in our trailers: becca, jake, Lara  
5. (Optional)  "From the director of..." 
6. The names of the film festivals where our film will be screened (more festival names here): Puglia festival of love, Venice film festival, London film festival 
7. Pull quotes from reviews etc; wording: The Times, 'witty, brilliant and down-right jolly'  'beautiful coming of age story'
8. Our location recce - take photos and collate in an attractive way + written explanation
9. Our target audience: teenage girls 
10. Social groups and issues in our film... students, young people, romantic high school relationships, coming of age, finding your true self
11. Our props list - photos + stereotypes + clothing
12. Our social media - write down decisions about who is taking responsibility for which platforms: Instagram - Fifi, Twitter- Lulah, Facebook- Lauz  
13. Our music - we researched (this type of music) as the background track... and narrowed down our choice to include... 
14. Our call sheets are being written by ... Laura
15. Make your storyboard - include.... 

• how you plan to frame shots - identify establishing shot, wide shots, two- shots, three-shots, CUs, ECUs,
• words of any other inter titles
• release date - decide on wording: 1/07/22

Plan: 

first clip 

Girl walking through hallway or coming down the stairs - odd looking, at school, v busy

Camera work- tracking shot, moving with the character, in front; moving backwards

second clip 

cuts to close up of a hot boy (Jake)

third clip: 

cuts back to the girl being pushed over/ against the side  

fourth girl: quick conversation of girl and friend saying why do none of my friends like me 

fifth clip : close up of popular girl and boy together 

sixth clip:  friend says lets do makeover  

seventh clip: shots of makeover 

eighth clip:  body shot of lara looking cool and popular 

ninth clip: cut back to friend saying i think you should try and get fit 

tenth clip: lara running at gym falls off running machine 

eleventh clip: boy seeing lara looking hot

twelf clip: becca getting jelly and mad at lara 

thirteen clip: lara playing sport really well 

fourteenth clip: lara becomes cool popular 

'But is this the real her?'

locations: science block

                 fia's house

                 Tallulah's house

RESEARCH: When are trailers shown?

Normally, the trailers are produced at the same time as the film is being edited. It is important the timing of the trailer campaigns get released; it has to be shown a lot in advance to get excitement for the release of the film but not so early for the audience to forget about the film before it even comes out. 

Toy Story 4

What do you think will be the main talking points from these trailers?

• it is a sequel- familiarity 'There are old friends"
• a new childhood film (1995 toy story - 2019 toy story 4)
• Summer fun- excited for school to end to go on road trips, funfairs etc
• Little Bo Peep is a character for girls as she is a strong female character 
• The quality looks very realistic- animation is very good
• Sound track of the Beach boys also appeals to adults as it is a band from their time
• Relatable for the americans- RV trips 
• Familiar voice- Tom Hanks
• It is also suitable for parents as there are reassuring comments throughout the movie like "Everything will be ok". "your going to create happy memories" Protecting your children "never knew protecting a child was this hard"
• Feel good summer movie.

Yesterday

What do you think will be the main talking points from these trailers?

• Well known actors such as Lily James, 
• Guest appearances  Ed Sheeran, James Cordan 
• From the writer of Love Actually 
• Summer feel good movie; festivals, concerts eating out in sun
• About one of the most famous bands in a the world
• Adults will find funny as they grew up listening to The Beatles 
• Would already be singing along to the title:"Yesterday" 
• The English could relate to the movie such as the houses. 

The brink

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What do you think will be the main talking points from these trailers? 

• Targeted to adults
• Political film 
• Nigel Farage- former UK politician (almost like a celebrity guest)
• Documentary- like (factual)
• About Steve Bannon and how America rejected him. 
• right wing
• It could inform people about the situation in a more involved way. 
• Reviews from newspapers such as The Guardian and The New York Times informing the audience that it is a political "must see". 
• Needs to be released when there is still interest around the issue 

RESEARCH: Where are trailers shown

Trailers are shown in many different ways, in cinemas, on TV and digitally like poster and radio campaigns. It also gives advertisements for new film releases. On dedicated trailer websites and film websites it shows their trailer and made for their audience whereas watching trailers in the cinema, it will show trailers of the similar to the genre of the film you are watching. 

Teaser trailers

• Shorter 
• More concise 
• Brief outline of the storyline 

Main trailer 

• normally 2 minute and 30 seconds long 
• Gives a much deeper sense of the movie 
• three act structure 
• montage towards the end to give it more excitement
• social medias, website etc

Trailers in Digital Age 

• Putting pictures on the screen 
• sound 
•  

Where do you see film trailers?

I personally watch trailers on youtube or on social media. I don't really go to the cinema any more so I don't watch the trailers shown. 

Did you watch the whole trailer?

I normally watch the whole trailer unless it isn't looking good 

RESEARCH: How trailers help fill cinemas

 "Teaching trailers' on FDA resource says that whilst a film should clearly show a genre to help the audience make a decision on whether or not they want to watch it and like it, but that the marketing campaign and trailers shouldn't give away the film for the audience so when they watch the movie it should feel like they haven't seen or know what it's all about. This is called as the unique selling point (USP). 

Given 3 trailers, I identified what was the USP in each:

LION KING 

in the trailer there are only animals but they can speak and the animation is very realistic

LATE NIGHT

Strong female roles, well known actors- Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling 

Spies in Disguise Animation is very clear. very known actors like Will Smith and Tom Holland, action  

RESEARCH: Who are trailers aimed at?

I watched the trailer for three films: Vita and Virginia, Frozen II and Apollo II.  http://thefilmspace.org/teachingtrailers/2019/secondary/theory/who/

Trailers are usually aimed at the same audience as the film they are showing. People like different types of films but can there can still have a group of certain people looking for a same features. I analysed trailers and attempt to match the potential target audience to the categories below:

My conclusions:

VITA AND VIRGINIA is suited for literary, prestige couples ages 25+. This could also be aimed at woman who like to know about the past of how woman had to be and how times have changed as this film is about two woman falling in love with each other.  This wouldn't be targeted to younger audiences as there are mature themes. It was filmed at a national trust park called Sissinghurst where Vita lived. People who go to national trust parks would enjoy as they would be familiar with the setting. 

FROZE II is suited for both children and adults as the production values are very high making the animation look so real. Disney is targeting young woman to make them feel female empowerment as the main character is a powerful and confident role model. It could also be considered as action as there is battles with magic as well as comedy with the small snowman that some how doesn't melt. Disney promotes wholesome films which is family friendly. 

APOLLO 11 is suited for teenagers and adults particularly audiences that are interested in history and space craft. Having solely real footage makes the film have an authentic feel to it as it is also good quality. "We were one" has a sense of national pride and value the west achievement. Recently I have watched the trailer for Gravity which appeals more to people who like drama. 

RESEARCH: Why is a film trailer made

 I looked at three trailers on the Teachers Trailers resource published by the FDA online in order to further my understanding of why trailers are made and how they signal the films genre 

In The Mustang it came across as a drama as it was about a prisoner who learns the ways with wild horses. Along the way he also becomes in touch with his feelings as you can see clips of his talking and arguing with his daughter. By the end you can see him crying with her as he accepts his wrong doing and it is when he relaxes and bonds with the horses too. 

The trailer of Hobbs & Shaw clearly shows that the genre is action like the rest of the fast and furious franchise. In the trailer it has hints of comedy but with all the fast pace camera shots, explosions and fights it is clear that it is action. 

Artemis Fowl is a movie to target younger audiences as it is set in a fantasy world where the protagonist is a boy around the age of 12. This allows pre teens to imagine themselves in the main characters' position as they can relate due to age. The special effects and magic grabs the eye of a child and will want to watch it more.  

Film trailer analysis

  

Film trailers

Cloverfield 

The trailer begins with the institutional information (Paramount and Bad Robot) glitching. An inter title comes up using military language such as 'retrieved at incident site'. The hard cut to a found footage getting rewinded. The words 'Surprise' and then a quick black and white snap shot like makes it seem like there was wasn't a very happy surprise as it does another hard cut to an explosion. It does a close up to the explosion and does another black and white freeze frame type. All camera work is hand held so when the head of the statue of liberty came crashing onto the streets, it was very hard to have a clear view. It glitched to another found footage of a man in a dark and scared. It does many rapid hard cuts and then a glitched inter title of the producer. Then more quick moving hard cuts to give the sense of it all being hectic and with no time to relax or you could die. Hard cuts with flashing lights and a man on the phone asking 'where are you?' and a girl saying 'you can't go in the middle of the city' which shows how dangerous it is even though we haven't seen what is causing all the damage and danger. A military officer saying 'there's nothing we can do right now' and 'what ever it is it's winning' which also showing the severity of what is going on. 'Turn that camera off' shows that the authority doesn't want people knowing about whats going on. The sound effects are alien like which gives a slight hint that what is damaging the city is a human. The quick moving shots almost like a montage of the military trying to shoot it down with their huge fire guns to try stop what ever it is. Explosions and smoke everywhere almost resembling a war zone. The guy who had been filming everything that was happening got hit as you can see his feet in the corner of the shot and his friend running towards him. It suddenly went quiet and still filming to create tension and uncertainty about what's going to happen next. The horses walking the empty carriage on the streets and papers floating and falling out of the sky has a very unsettling feel.   

Gravity

The trailer begins with inter titles appearing on the screen "At 372 miles above the earth There is nothing to carry sound No air pressure No oxygen Life in space is impossible". It then jump cuts to an astronaut getting spun around violently in space with broken pieces exploding from the space craft which makes the audience want to know what has happened. Also with the text they showed before, it makes it more intense. the actor is screaming while there is a voice over of someone trying to get in contact with her. The camera movements are very rapid and not very clear which shows the viewer how the astronauts must be seeing. The music is getting more and more intense until when she lets go and her scream fades out and it all blacks out. It then shows the production companies well known name and logo, Warner Bros. It has a voice over like in the movie as it showing the logo. It then does quick, glitchy cuts of objects floating around in the space craft and to reaching out hands to then the astronaut spinning around alone in space with the voice over 'do you copy?' and her screaming desperately for help. As most audiences know that if you are lost in space you should remain calm and not use up all your oxygen as you will run out faster and suffocate which causes uncertainty if she will survive. The loud black outs make it seem like it is a timer counting down the minutes of oxygen. One of the non- diegetic sounds in the background if the low booming of a heart beat while her repeating 'I can't breathe' which infers she is slowly suffocating. The hard cut close ups show her raw emotion. It then jumps to an inter title showing the directors name which is edited to go to the beat of her breathing. This emphasises she is struggling to breathe. In the background of the montage of her lost in space, getting hit by a space craft, things blowing up her harsh and quick breathes make the audience feel uncomfortable. It also shows clips of a man being with her in space which leaves the viewers something to think about; 'where did he go?'. Inter titles showing names of well known actors such as Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. At the end of the trailer is shows the title, when it will come out in cinemas, production names and actor names.

American Sniper 

The trailer 

RESEARCH: WHAT IS A TRAILER?

 Using the FDA's teaching trailers online course, I have started further researching into trailers. Using the resources on the website such as the Booksmart trailer, I have considered the following questions: 

Design by Fia Brown

During my study of the film industry last year, I learnt how both Hollywood majors and UK independent films create different campaigns to achieve their targeted audiences. Film marketing campaigns try and cover many different ways in how the films 'message' is shown to their potential audiences.

1) What do you think are major elements of a film marketing campaign?

One of the major elements of film marketing campaigns are trailers which shows the audience what type of the genre, what actors are in it and what's the film about. For example, Black Panther, the website had convergent links for the trailers, information about the film and links for merchandise. This is very easily accessible to the audience. 

2) Where might you expect to see each of the different parts of the marketing campaign?

Trailers are very accessible to the audience as you can find it very easily such as on youtube and on the website like Marvel. It usually will be shown as an advert in the cinema if you are watching a similar type of film. Also marketing can be found on social media from celebrities giving it recognition by posting about it or by making hashtags. Also posters on transport and billboards in main cities get many viewers as people look at it by accident.

3) What factors make you want to go and see a film? How do you decide which films to see?

For me, it depends on what I'm feeling but the majority of the time I look for horror films. As I have seen many different types I now look to test my foreign language skills by watching spanish horror films as I now feel that they are much more scary. My preference are the paranormal horrors which are based on true events because I later enjoy watching the conspiracy theories about them. I like the ones that have hidden meanings so you need to think along with the movie not where you can guess what's going to happen next; not all horrors have a happy or a complete ending to it.