Target Audience Research

We asked our primary target audience (upper middle class teens and young adults) a few questions to get an overall idea of what we need to put in our opening sequence in order to fulfill the audience's needs and meet their expectations.

We asked them 14 questions:

1.  What's your Favorite Film Genre?
2.  Do you enjoy and often watch drama films?
3.  Any Sub-genres that you know of?
4.  How likely, on a scale from 1 to 5, are you to see the following sub-genres of drama film?

> Crime Drama 

> Historical Drama

> Horror Drama

> Comedy Drama

> Psychodrama

> Romantic Drama

5. Can you name any drama films?

6. Have you heard of the following:

> Boyhood

> Gravity

> 12 Years a Slave

> Perks of Being a Wallflower

> The King's Speech

> Goodfellas

> Final Destination

> Silver Linings Playbook

7. What is most important to you in a drama film?

8. What themes do you enjoy in drama?
9. What storylines are interesting to you in drama?

10. Can you name any typical character type that you would expect in a drama film?
11. What characters do you enjoy watching the most?

12. What conventions do you enjoy watching the most?
13. What locations do you think would be most appropriate for a drama film?

14. Overall, what do you think makes a good drama film?

The Results We Got:

In Question 1, the most popular answers we got were Horror and Action. However, there were some selecting Comedy, Thriller, Crime and even Romance. Through Question 2, we found that 3 out of the 5 participants don't particularly enjoy watching drama films, which is good for our range of audience, since we were able to get the feedback that can potentially help us attract audience that doesn't necessarily keep up with drama movies. Question 3 was a leading question onto Question 4, since we were able to introduce the participants to Crime Drama, Historical Drama, Horror Drama, Comedy Drama, Psychodrama and Romantic Drama. We got them to rate them in terms of how likely they are to see them, 1 being the least and 5 being the most. For Crime Drama, the interest was between 2 and 4, which falls in the middle of the scale. For Historical Drama, the interest was low - 1 and 2 being the only answers we got (which was expected for the audience we aim at and interviewed). The interest in Horror Drama, however was on two ends, having half of the participants saying there is no way they would watch it and the other half giving it ranking of 4 and 5. The ranking for Comedy Drama was varied around the whole scale, so the only conclusion we got was that it is a very hard genre to investigate and define. Most of the participants have low interest in Romantic Drama, except for one, who gave it a rate of 4. In Question 5, where we asked for examples of drama movies, we got 3 answers - 12 years a Slave, Pride and Prejudice and Lucy. This means that drama movies are only remembered if they have an exceptional storyline and grab the audience - giving us the overall impression of the genre as competitive. From Question 6, we found out that the most popular drama movies are Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and Goodfellas. The slightly less popular films were Perks of Being a Wallflower, The King's Speech and Final Destination. The only movies half of our participants have heard of were Boyhood and Silver Linings Playbook. Question 7 told us that the only things that make a good drama movie are storyline (mentioned by everyone), theme and characters. Most popular themes, as we find out in Question 8,  are Loss (mentioned by everyone), Coming of Age and Bullying.  When asking about storylines in Question 9, we got Family Struggles (being a popular answer) and Bullying. The most popular characters from Question 10 the hero, the villain (them being a killer, a double faced friend or a bully for example), the character who our protagonist confines with (a friend, family member, love interest, etc.) and damsel in distress, which is usually the main character at some point. From Question 11 we found out that sometimes the audience needs a relating point with the character in order to build an emotional bond and keep their interest, while others like to watch characters completely different to. In terms of conventions (asked in Question 12), people seem to enjoy Conflict and Struggle the most, followed by Character Development and Real Life Stories. In Question 13, we asked about locations expected from drama movies. The Answers we got were Big Cities, High Schools, Hospitals and Countrysides. We finished our interviews with Question 14, where we asked what makes a good drama film, where we got answers such as Story, Characters, Good Romance, True Story, Action and a good plot twist. 

Credits Research

For this task, I looked at two opening sequences - Step Up (First Image) and The Dark Knight (Second Image). They are both openings for drama movies, which means they would have similar conventions and a certain theme. The first thing that I noticed was that they had quite simple fonts, relying on the content showing to make the scenes and the names memorable. Both sequences were action packed and had a build up of their own to show how intense and thrilling the movie would be. In the Step Up one, we see a lot of dancing and deep contrast between the two social groups, hinting on how the conflict in this movie would be binary opposition - driven. Even though The Dark Knight opening relies on visuals created by CGI, it succeeds to build up tension through the music and the type of animation we are introduced to, which is made to mainly compliment the titles. What surprised me during my research is that different titles had certain pauses between displaying the next name - depending on the importance of the role they are crediting. Names were mentioned in certain order and smaller actors and crew members were mentioned in groups. The difference between the two opening sequences is that In the Step Up one, we had the name of the movie in the beginning, to give a good introduction to the scene and start it off, while in The Dark Knight, where the action and tension was a main theme, the title of the film was mentioned as the thing the audience has been brought on their toes for. Soundtrack was another important key in the opening sequences, as it sets a tone to the scene and for the whole movie. The music in Step Up stays the same throughout the whole opening, telling us that the film would be quite simple and one track minded. The Dark Knight, however, has a lot of music changes, different moods and tones, setting the audience up for an intense,complex and layered storyline.

The Amazing Spider-Man Movie Clip #1 - Connors Is Coming To You (2012)

Camera Work:

- Mid Shots - used a lot in this clip, to show the characters and accent on the importance of their actions in certain shots. Respects their personal space, but is also close enough to show us their reactions to different events.

- Long Shots - they are used to show the environment in the scene presented to us. Portraying the mass panic in the beginning, and then showing the result of Gwen's actions.

- Close-Up - only when Gwen is in the closet - breaks the boundaries and lets us determine her emotions through her face features.

Effects:

- Machine sounds and visuals - the beeping and the flashing of the machines around Gwen create a tense scene, keeping the audience on their toes and accenting on the rushed situation,

- Shaky camera and lights going out - a sign that the situation worsen - carries on the tension of the scene, grabbing the audience's attention before they get bored.

- Music - The soundtrack is loud and adds onto the tension, being typical for action movies. Starts off with a 'hero in trouble' type of music, but towards the end it focuses more on the damsel is distress aspect of the story line, helping us see Gwen as more vulnerable.

Genre:

This movie is clearly an action, super-hero movie. in the beginning, we can see it has the typical side-kick aspect to it, as the main hero is somewhere else, giving commands to their close side-kick. However, as the clip continues, it transforms into another popular narrative for action - damsel in Distress. Suddenly, Gwen is in trouble and helpless, telling us that she is actually a more complex character. The type of shots used in this clip are simple and straight-forward in order to focus on the action and get the best angle, keeping a shot for longer times, so the audience can take in the environment. Another identifying factor to the genre is the soundtrack used - it is very tense and upbeat, or slow and dreadful - the two main choices when showing a tense, action scene.