WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR MY PRODUCTION?QUESTION 4

CERTIFICATE OF PRODUCTION

PROHIBITION (2016) would be categorised as a 12 certificate. I believe this due to some cases of strong language that would be included in the production itself. I would not cast this production a 15 due to the low level of strong language used throughout, and much of it is not used aggressively towards another person. During the production there will be some sexual scenes that are brief and discreet, this is mostly directed at the femme fatale as she is flirty with the way she is portrayed in the production. This is towards the audience, her lost husband and her lover. In the OTS especially, there is use of drinking and heavy smoking. I have decided to leave it at the 12 certificate due to all issues being minor and brief. The only slightly more detailed events would be the heavy drinking from the femme fatale.

These two images are different scenes in my production that shows that drinking and crime elements have been used.

FINDING A TARGET AUDIENCE

There are many ways in which production companies can find the target market for their productions such as questionnaires, the context in the production itself, borrowed interest, focus groups and by looking at different theories. There are many factors they must consider including: age, gender, disposable income, culture, media interests, buying habits, education and many more.

TARGET AUDIENCE

I have decided the certificate for PROHITITION (2016) would be 12, this means that a varied audience will be able to watch the production rather than just older audiences. I believe that the target audience for my production would be white males that are between the ages of thirty to forty-five. I think they would be left wing and a social status of either C1 or C2. This is explained in the chart below of demographics, where people are split into status and occupation. I have decided to state this because of the strong content and explorative scenes in my production such

as the heavy drinking and smoking at the beginning of the OTS.

PETE BUCKINGHAM’S AUDIENCE THEORY

Another genuine target audience that I know would be interested in my production would be those that grew up and discovered the film noir genre when it was introduced in the 1940’s. From Pete Buckingham’s theory of Audience Types I believe that Hero Seekers, Impulsive Materialists and Film Fanatics would be interested in my production. Especially, Impulsive Materialists due to their etiquette of ‘film-dinner-drinks’ and Film Fanatics that are usually male and in the age category of my chosen target audience.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

By applying the five stages of Maslow’s Theory to media I can use them to try and understand the motivations behind my target audiences. I can use this Hierarchy below to determine my audience, for example the I

By applying the five stages of Maslow’s Theory to media I can use them to try and understand the motivations behind my target audiences.

red is considered as a child and continuing up the levels the child progresses into adulthood. I believe those in the ‘Self-actualisation’ and ‘Esteem’ stages are more likely to watch my film as opposed to those in the the other categories because they are generally the ones with more skills and are maturer than those in the below categories. Audience pleasure is a key thing in media too, the production company wants to please their target audience, I believe I did.

TRADITIONAL/HEDONIST/POST-MODERNIST

Traditional films such as James Bond, has borrowed interest and often have multiple productions under the same storyline and characters. Hedonist films are films that have been produced to create ultimate pleasure for the audience. Post-modernist films however attempts to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterisation. I would agree that in some category PROHIBITION is a post-modernist film due to it being close to a neo-noir in terms of stock characters being reversed, also due to attempting to bring the film noir genre back into focus I believe this makes it post-modern.

FOCUS GROUPS

The focus groups that I had used were my media studies AS class and people from social media. These people gave me feedback on multiple occasions about what needed improving, what I needed to add and they told me their thoughts on my progress and how to refine my work. Using social media for a focus group was an innovative idea seen as the people who would feedback my work wouldn’t all know me and therefore could be more fair towards the production and its feedback. Those in my media class were able to give me feedback on items such as voice overs, sound and camera and composition as they have the knowledge for it. However, I also wanted feedback from those that didn’t have the knowledge to apprehend as to whether they understood the narrative and cast.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS GROUP

The social media feedback ranged from those of very different ages as you can see from the screenshot. This also demonstrates that many different kind of audiences have viewed my production such as both male and female. From this focus group I had 30 responses whereas in the class there are only around 20 pupils.

AUDIENCE PLEASURE

This feedback form seems to be around my target audiences age and that they ‘like dramas set in different eras’. From looking at the feedback we can understand that they enjoyed the production saying: ‘the credits were great’ and ‘I found the beginning to be intriguing, I wanted to know more of the girl’s story’. This shows I have pleased at least one member of the target audience.

FIRST PRODUCTION

The first production I had created as you can see on my blog was a minute shorter than the final edition and does not have as many scenes. I created this one just to test out different scenes, camera angles and mise-en-scene for the femme fatale. This first production does not include any enigma of the anti-hero and therefore seems to not make much sense. The target audience was very much the same as I was still going to progress and add the anti-hero and crime scenes in, this was just a quick focussed production. The budget was the same for each production as I was kindly lended the mise-en-scene props of costumes for both characters all I bought were some pearls and the glass jar used for the whiskey.

FIRST PRODUCTION NARRATIVE

The first production I created didn’t have a narrative as such, it was just a female heavily drinking and undressing herself. Many of the audience were confused by this and as to why she was so upset. This is when I had decided to add in the anti-hero and a short voice over from the broken femme fatale. The narrative for the final production, PROHIBITION was widely different. As I had more time on this production I was able to cast another member, a young man acting as the anti-hero the famous Detective of the film. This added enigma and drama to the OTS as opposed to confusing the audience without a narrative at all.

FIRST PRODUCTION FEEDBACK

The feedback for the first production was mainly other people on social media explaining what I could refine and generating ideas on how I could include more to create such enigma and mystery. As you can see this is an example where a person has said I should add foleyingand more drinking/loss of control scenes to give my femme fatale more attitude and a story. I took on these ideas to help my final production exceed the best marks.