Target audience

To research into the specific target audience of my film opening, i looked into previous analysis of audience and genre preferences according to age and gender in particular.
Blockbusters are generally comedy drama's  or alternatively romantic comedies and therefore have similar target audiences to those we would attract in our two minute film opening. Blockbusters tend to attract larger audiences over a wider scale as compared to independent films due to bigger budgets (known actresses/actors) and therefore better marketing, however, because our film opening is independantly produced, research into UK and British film audiences was essential.
The BFI conducted a survey called 'Opening our Eyes' and found in relation to my genre quite simply that female audiences preferred romantic comedies, younger audiences preferred comedy, while older audiences preferred drama and male audiences preferred action/adventure. This means that Gina and I would be targetting younger audiences and attempting to grasp female audiences through the comedy aspect of our film, older audiences through the drama of our film and struggling to gain males audiences through our genre at all.

Another survey was conducted by Nick Redfern from 'Research into Film'. He found that males had a wider spread of preference to genre than female audiences but tended to stick to action/adventure. Males aged 15-24 and 25-34 were found to be very closely linked in genre preference whereas those over the age of 55 were singled out by their preferred genre of drama films. He came to the conclusion that males under 35 were more suited to comedy films but it couldn't be proven that they would watch the same comedy films throughout.
This means that our film opening will attract a wide audience because of its genre, mostly younger generations and mostly females due to the comedy aspects but also male audiences and older audiences due to the drama aspects.

Film research presentation

Film Research on Prezi

Comedy Drama Films

In comedy and drama films, serious issues can be addressed lightheartedly through contrasting features such as music that can have an upbeat tempo or written in a major key that fits the comedy in the film. Examples of this technique are used in:
50/50
I am sam
500 Days of Summer
Juno
In our film opening, Gina and I will create our own music to fit this technique, using acoustic guitar and/or keyboard to create a lighthearted piece of music.
Camera angles are also used in order to portray a particular genre, using long shots and mid shots as well as stationary camera movements and continuity to contrast with the dramatic storyline or melancholy script to create humour.

- Two-shot mid-shot.

- Extreme close up

- Close up

The acting in our film opening is also very important as they must put across a realistic performance that can also be taken as humorous and entertaining.

Discussions

Gina and I will be working together to make our two minute fim opening. We were introduced to a variety of examples from many different genres and first decided we wanted to create a film opening of the thriller genre. After producing research and a storyboard based on this idea, we had a sudden inspiration for a very different kind of film and are now working toward a film opening in the comedy drama genre.
The original idea was focused on a girl with OCD who's world is turned upside down when her parents tell her they have decided to divorce. This would involve three characters and we then conjured a fourth to add to the comedy in the film; a rebel sister who would make her sister's life just that little bit harder. We will be doing research on the genre chosen, research on existing comedy drama films to fit to the genre as much as possible.