Audience Research

Appealing conventions

Whilst doing our audience research we decided to ask about appealing narratives to see what appeals to people the most when deciding to watch a film. We thought this would be helpful as it allowed us to gain an insight into possible advertising strategies such as what to focus on when creating posters as well as what to emphasise within our opening if it was going to be real film. The research tells us that graphics was the least popular factor when encouraging people to watch a film; therefore graphics will not be a dominant part of our opening. The chart shows the stars gained half the vote for appealing conventions so we have decided to make sure the stars we select will portray the narrative in the best way possible and be relatable to the audience as the stars are what the audience will connect with the most when watching our opening.

We thought finding out the popular ways in which our audience consume media was important, not only for realistic advertising in media industry but also for the “relatable” aspect of our thriller. As T.V and posters were the most occurring ways of media consumption we will consider incorporating some elements of media within our opening, creating a direct link to the audience and “on screen action”, adding realism.

When considering production for our thriller we wanted to ensure we was using the most popular production company in order to appeal to our audience and gain a wide audience. We discovered that mainstream was the most popular production company when selecting a film for our audience due to its popularity (highlighted in the reasons for desired prod. chart) as mainstream appeals to a mass audience such as companies like “Universal”,  unlike independent film labels that appeal to a niche audience, for example “Coffee Films” appeals to an Indie audience. Therefore, we have decided to create a mainstream film in order to increase our audience.

Genre was the most important aspect to consider when making our thriller. Even though our main genre is Thriller we considered the possibility of creating a hybrid film, due to other popular genres. While completing our research we discovered there was a possibility of adding romance somewhere within our narrative as it was one of the most popular genres along with action, which we have decided to incorporate elements of within our opening. Horror was the least popular, meaning we will not be using it within the opening, however comedy was the third popular so despite our serious narrative we will ensure there is a slot left for an element of comedy that we will decide.