Audience research

I have created a SurveyMonkey to find out what my target audiences like about a film trailer. I uploaded the finished survey onto a social networking sight (Facebook) and asked people to fill it out. Within two day 26 people had filled it out and here are the results.

These graphs show the age and gender of audiences who took the survey and the majority of these audiences were female, within the age range of 17-21. The target audience would be around the ages of 17-21 as 69.2% of audiences who took the survey were between these ages. Even though more females took the survey that males, this doesn't show that a films trailers are more suited to female audience. This only shows that more females took the survey rather than male audience. My film trailer will be targeted towards a unisex audience and this audience will be between the ages of 17-21 as this genre would appeal more to this age range. 

This question had more than one answer and I asked the audience 'Where do you watch films?' 88.5% of the audiences chose 'At home', 84.8%  chose in the 'Cinema' and 76.9% chose 'DVD's' these were the 3 most popular answers and this shows the the majority of audiences prefer to watch films at home or in the cinema. 

This next graph shows the number of times the audiences watch films. The results showed that 18 out of 26 people watch films at least once a week. This helps get an understanding of the target audience, as the majority of the audiences who took this survey were between the ages of 17 and 21 this shows a clear indication of the interest in film from this age range. With this in mind, on average the target audiences watch approximately over 70 films a year based on these results.

This graph shows the audiences favourite genre of film. There were numerous answers to this question, however the most popular choices were 'Thrillers/Psychological thriller' and 'Comedy'. These two choices were most favoured rather than the other genres. Equally 18 out of 26 people selected these two choices as the favourite genres. As my film trailer is a psychological thriller, this looks promising for the trailer as the 18 out of 26 audiences chose this genres as one of there most preferred to watch. Again this shows that there is a good enough market for the trailer as the genre appeals to audiences between the ages of 17-21.

These results show the opposite choices. Here 72% of the audiences said that the 'Western' genre was there least favourite to watch. None of the audiences chose Psychological thrillers as one and thats is very good as it shows the target audience prefer genres such as that and they appeal to them.

The impact of technological advances

Today technology has become so advanced that the quality of films are becoming more common due to the new technologies that are available in the film industry. For my trailer and photography, I will be using a Canon SLR camera to complete the majority of my work. The camera produces amazing, good quality pictures and film. The camera is an affordable price which is another reason why there are very good quality films are being produced. With advanced affordable technology like an SLR camera, the trailer that I’m going to produce will be a high standard.

Due to many new technologies now available, there is growing competition in the industry to make special effects and close to perfect quality films. This such equipment is a lot more expensive, however with a high budgeted film, these technologies can be purchased and used to create very impressive  films, special effects, pictures and illusions.

When talking about different technologies to produce films there are a huge difference between some films and what equipment they use. For example ‘The Hobbit’ had a budget of  $300 million, where as a film such as ‘Cloverfield’ had a budget of $25 million and there is a huge difference in quality and special effects.

Looking at the genre I have chosen, psychological thrillers such as ‘Red Eye’ had a budget of $26 million and used  no special effects and stuck to the same type of camera throughout the film. Whereas, the film Inception used special effects to create the film and had a budget of $160 million. With the huge budget, 'Inception' had a larger advantage over ‘Red Eye’ due to the fact that the budget was bigger and this allowed ‘Inception’ to have new technologies that small budgeted film cannot afford on their budget.

(Inception) Nolan said, "It's always very important to me to do as much as possible in-camera, and then, if necessary, computer graphics are very useful to build on or enhance what you have achieved physically." Here are the trailers for both films, they are both extremely high quality film however 'Inception' was able to incorporate special effects and illusions within the film due to more advanced technologies. Here is the link to the article and how Nolan went about creating Inception.

http://www.quora.com/Inception-2010-movie/What-kind-of-CGI-and-visual-effects-were-used-in-Inception

Inception Red Eye

 By using the Cannon SLR cameras, I hope that the quality of the picture will allow me to make minimalistic changes when editing my trailer. Picture quality is very important and reflects on the production of the film to the target audience. With a trailer that has awful quality is very hard to bring back and make the audience interested, the synopsis would have to be absolutely amazing to interest the audience again. In my trailer we plan to use a GoPro to film underwater and car scenes as it is a small compact camera and easily moved around. Its also brilliant to use as it is waterproof and very sturdy, this allows us to produce intense and interesting scenes. However the quality will not be as good as the SLR, but with a variety of different scenes and shots, this will keep the audience interested throughout the trailer. 

Difference between The Haunted Castle 1896 film and Evil Dead 2013. The difference in quality back then and now has changed dramatically due to the advancing technologies over the past 100+ years. The Haunted Castle is a silent horror movie from the late 1800s and the quality is very poor. However back in that era this film would have been considered scary. Although today, due to the advance in technology films like the 1800s one would not be classed as scary or frightning, whereas films like Evil Dead which came out in 2012 would be considered scary because of the different technologies used to create the film. Because of these advanced technologies, Evil Dead has many different clear camera angles which gives the film that scary edge to it and if we were to compare the two films which are both about the paranormal, Evil Dead would definatly win in terms of being scary and frightning. 

 

There is a huge difference in quality watching both trailers. This shows how technology has advanced in over 100+ years and the standard of what films are becoming.

Legal restraints in film making

There are many different sections in which to carefully observe and follow when doing film production. Among the rights established under the Human rights act there is the right for privacy for friends and family life. These are the major acts which must be respected.

• Video Recordings Act 2010 (VRA). This is the most recently updated act and the BBFC update the Acts once every four years.

• The Human Rights Act 1998. This establishes the right to freedom of expression and include the prevention of disorder or crime and the protection of health and morals.

• The Obscene Publications Acts 1959 and 1964. Which make it illegal to publish a work in the UK which is ‘obscene’.This is where a film has tendency to deprave and corrupt.

• The Protection of Children Act 1978. This Act makes it illegal to make, distribute, show or possess ‘indecent’ photographs. This Act applies to those under the age of 18 years of age. This is to any film, to be restricted in accordance with the recommendations of the BBFC or the licensing authority.

• The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. This Act makes it illegal to have in possession an 'extreme' image. The Act defines such an image as one which is pornographic and grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character and which portrays in an explicit and realistic way. For any such image, the distributor can be prosecuted for this offence.

• The Public Order Act 1986. This Act makes it illegal to play any recordings or sound that might be offensive, threatening or abusive. For example, Racial and religious hatred, sexual orientation etc.  Such offensive recordings that would be the cause of  any implications that might occur.

• The Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937. This Act makes it illegal to show any ‘organised or directed’ scenes of cruel infliction of pain or terror on any animal.

• The Animal Welfare Act 2006. This Act makes it illegal to show animal fighting in the UK since the time of 2006.

• Coroners and Justice Act 2009. This Act makes it an offence to possess non-photographic fantasy images of child sexual abuse (ie. cartoons, drawings, other depictions etc).

There are other such legal restraints like Copyright. This is one of the most important and widely recognised legal implication that occurs in the film production world. It is enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it.

Another aspect that can link into legal restraints is the Hypodermic Needle Theory which suggests that 'media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message.' The 1990s story of James Bulger (Jamie) reinforces this  theory as the killers who did this, claimed to have been influenced by the movie 'Chucky'/'Childs Play'. This shows that age restricted films are extremely important because it can help prevent tragic events happening such as this. In our own trailer we are going to rate it a 15 because it incorporates distressing scenes which are not age appropriate for minors and audiences under 15 years of age. We have not made it an 18 because this trailer raises awareness to younger audiences as well, and this can make them more aware of certain situations that could happen. Again by rating our film a 15, we can prevent any traumatic scene being seen by minors and this will not influence a younger audience to do the same thing.

Institution information

Institution information

Psychological thrillers are a common genre however this type of genre is unlikely to be produced, marketed or distributed by ‘Disney’, ‘Universal’ or ‘20^th Century Fox’.

Therefore, I researched into more suitable institutions to produce, market or distribute my film. The most likely institution to do this would be ‘Paramount Pictures’ as this institution has been involved with psychological thrillers such as: Shutter Island, Paranormal Activity etc. ‘Paramount Pictures’ has also been involved in many successful films such as Shrek, Jackass, Transformers, The Italian Job and Titanic.

Also another institution could be 'DreamWorks Pictures' as they were involved with the film ‘Red Eye’ which is a huge psychological thriller that I have been majorly inspired by. Other major films that this institution has been involved with is, The Ring, War Of The Worlds, The Lovely Bones and Saving Private Ryan, which have proved to be very popular films and have grossed huge amounts of money.

Another commonly known institution is ‘Summit Entertainment’ who again has been involved in films like ‘Gone’, which is a brilliant psychological thriller, also all the ‘Twilight’ films were distributed by this institution which has provided ‘Summit Entertainment’ with a huge reputation because of the success of these films.

These 3 institutions are very well known worldwide and when producing, marketing and distributing the film, any of these institutions would give the film a great reputation as these institutions already have amazing reputations because of the major films they have represented.

For our film trailer we have chosen to be a British independent production company but will amalgamate or team up with an American distributor to ensure that the distribution of the film (trailer) will be successful because American companies are usually bigger and better known. This means that it will be better to distribute the trailer using a well know company because of the reputation that it obtains. The consumer will recognise the distributor and will associate the film trailer with other very successful films of that genre, distributed by the company.  

The UK film industry is said to be worth over £4.6bn in 2011. It said the industry has "grown significantly" in the last 20 years. I have a found a few articles regarding the industry and here are two BBC articles explaining how the UK film industry is becoming more successful however experts believe that UK films need to become more 'mainstream'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19623067

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16495095

http://industry.bfi.org.uk/media/pdf/c/e/UK_film_production_report_2011.pdf