Question Five

How did you attract your audience? 

 In October we decided that we wanted our film to be a romantic comedy.  In order to gain some information on what our target audience wanted from a film of this genre, we conducted some interviews and filmed their responses.We did this in order to gain information on the psychographics of our target demographic in order to know how to attract them to our media product. 

As you can see from these interviews, we learned that it is important to both our primary and secondary audience that there is always a happy ending this is a key idea which both interviews with Mrs Rivett and Mrs Tubman talked about and expressed it as a major theme that a Romantic Comedy must have.We also learnt that the more older women, see when the actors or actresses were attractive or not really doesn't bother them but that actually, if they were less conventionally attractive it adds depth.As you can see from these interviews, we learned that it is important to both our primary and secondary audience that there is always a happy ending this is a key idea which both interviews with Mrs Rivett and Mrs Tubman talked about and expressed it as a major theme that a Romantic Comedy must have.We also learnt that the more older women, see when the actors or actresses were attractive or not really doesn't bother them but that actually, if they were less conventionally attractive it adds depth.
There is a strong comedic theme running through the whole of our media product. We incorporated humor into our script, such as the BJ scene between Jonathan and Jay and the interruption of the kiss.  The aspect of comedy, whilst quintessential to the genre as a whole, appears especially important in attracting our secondary audience of males under 35.
There is a strong comedic theme running through the whole of our media product. We incorporated humor into our script, such as the BJ scene between Jonathan and Jay and the interruption of the kiss.  The aspect of comedy, whilst quintessential to the genre as a whole, appears especially important in attracting our secondary audience of males under 35.


The more younger target audience we interviewed said it did have an impact on whether they watched a film or not and said a more attractive male and female leads are better as it adds that dimension of 'oh i wish i was that girl' while at the same time you wanting the on screen romance to work. Our Secondary target male audience, Kain and Will highlighted that as long as they had a good reputation, then there looks didn't matter.  

None of our interviewees highlighted any elements of distraction other than contextual content of media or political events (but she highlighted this may because of her job as a sociology and citizenship teacher)  but there appeared to be a general agreement that if there was too much going on, or if the characters weren't relatable, then the audience was less interested in what happened to them. 

With these ideas in mind, we drafted two ideas incorporating these themes, and, with the help of a large sample of people from our target audience, picked one idea.  

We thought it was important for our film opening that we follow these conventions as much as possible and deliever to our target audience what they know and enjoy best as we believe a good romantic comedy has to have all these elements. We hop we have Achieved our goal. 

Actors:

The importance of attractive actors within our media product was something we valued highly when choosing our leading roles.  This ties in with the romantic aspect of our film as both males and females (especially at the lower end of our target audience) claimed they would prefer to watch a film where the protagonists were attractive. Jess Codd played Lucy one of the key characters in the film. She is the stereotypical 'girly,' pretty Romantic female lead and we believe had the perfect look for our film opening. She felt confident in front of a camera and this helped add to the reality of our film opening. 

Romance:

Various members of our target audience mentioned the importance of a happy ending, and how 'the guy must get the girl' at the end, so we have ensured romance plays a large part of our film opening.  This is, obviously,  a large part of the romantic comedy genre, and one that we, and our target audience deem important.

Enigma and plot complexity:

Throughout our film opening there are many examples of enigma, which increases the perceived complexity of the plot. For example, we wonder straight away how the two couples are related, which creates depth.  Another example would be why does Jonathan dislike Jay - What has he done to cause this? All of this enigma means the audience are forced to pay attention with the hope that one of these questions will be answered.  This is one of the most effective ways to keep an audience interested.

         

Our Titles: 

We believe our titles will attract our target audience as they are fun and have that home-made style about them that I believe our target audience will appreciate and attract them to our product. 

Costume: As you can see from the prezzi bellow we took a lot of time deciding and organising the Costume part of our Mise-en-scene. We believe the costumes are an important part of our media product as often people who enjoy Romantic Comedies also like fashion so good fashion and costume choice was important as it allowed our target audience to focus on the storyline instead without having to think "god what are they wearing?" 

 In conclusion, we have chosen to attract/address our audience by giving them exactly what they want - A classic romantic comedy starring attractive protagonists, with strong aspects of romance (the basis of our film) and comedic references.
Whilst adding plot complexity by using enigma and an additional, very traditional, feeling of forbidden love between the leads.