Audience.

Audience research is the most important part of the media industry as a whole.
For instance, media producers tend to think most about their target audience.
Target audience is important because it can set you up for the production of the media itself.


If your target audience are teenage girls aged 14-17, you might consider making a magazine about thing which the stereotypical 14-17 year-old girl would like, e.g.

• Celebrities
• Gossip
• Fashion

If your target audience is 30-45 year-old males, you don't want to make a T.V. show about furry ponies named Daisy, Coco and Bubbles. It's not grabbing your target audiences attention.

'Family Guy' is a good representation of this fact.
'Family Guy' is a cartoon. 

You may think cartoons are for children, but Family Guy plays upon this stereotype and intends it for older audiences, it contains sexual representation, violence, bad language and everything children shouldn't see.

This is good because adults, as much as they will deny it, like to watch cartoons, because it takes them back.
So therefore 'Family Guy' is a cartoon intended for adults. 

Audiences are categorized using 'demographics', which are peoples different characteristics. People can be categorized by things such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Musical tastes

Media producers have many methods of attracting audiences. This is by building a relationship with the people they want to send messages to. One method is called 'The Hypodermic Needle Effect'.

The Hypodermic Needle effect, is effectively a way of making your audience believe what you say. This method relies upon building trust with your audience first.
An example of this is the 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, which caused MASS hysteria. The broadcaster made he listeners believe that the world was under attack from aliens. They believed this because they saw the broadcaster as an authoritative figure, therefore believing that they couldn't possibly lie to them.

Toy Story Opening Scene

This is the opening scene for the movie 'Toy Story'.
The film is an animated, family, fantasy, comedy, adventure.
The conventions of an animated adventure movie are:

• Characters have a set time to accomplish an act or task
• Comedy moments
• Catch-phrases
• Heroic acts/stunts
• Big Set Pieces

The opening for the movie shows us that the film itself is about toys.

I have seen this film more times than I can count, but if I had just watched this opening for the first time, I'd expect the film to be family friendly.
From the opening, the film looks like it could be really entertaining, and it's practically saving you for something magical.

The target audience for this film would appear to be children aged 5-10, but really it is intended for all ages.
For children, it's a fantasy that toys really do come to life when they aren't there.

For teenagers and adults, it's them reliving their childhood days, and missing their favourite toys.

The film is an absolute classic, and the opening has inspired many remakes on youtube.
The opening scene for Toy Story 3 is also a remake of the scene.

Time has been kind to it, and future years I imagine will still be kind; a classic is forever.

Analysis of a movie poster.

This is the poster for the movie '28 Days Later'.

'28 Days Later' is a Survival Horror.

The film involves a shed-load of zombies and guns.

The conventions of a horror film are to make you scared.

You might also expect to see people die, get injured, or break down.

If we go into specifics, you also tend to expect:

• You may not survive the movie if you have sex. 
• You may not survive the movie if you drink or do drugs. 
• You may not survive the movie if you say "I'll be right back." 
• You may not survive the movie if you ask "Who's there?"
• You may not survive the movie if you go out to investigate a strange noise.

The poster doesn't specifically prove this point.

Although there are some signs which indicate that this poster is designed for a horror movie.

For instance, the colour red.

This can indicate a number of things, such as:

• Blood
• Stop
• Danger
• Evil
• Fire
• Hell

The title for this poster is an important key signifier.

The font that the title is presented in was actually designed for this movie and is now used a lot in titles for indie films.

If you look closely, the font is cracked and broken.
This could represent the cracks that have appeared in society throughout the film.
The characters all 'crack' during the film, they all have key moments during the film where they just change.

The title could represent this.

The designer seems to have gone for a minimalistic approach for this poster.

The poster doesn't display much.

In fact, this is key to the film, although there are hundreds of zombies, there are only a select number of characters within the film that we pay attention to.

We don't see inside many of these characters, and some of them can seem like strangers when you watch this film.

Although it's very obvious, another pointer towards the fact that this is a horror, is that at the top of the poster it says: 'Danny Boyle re-invents the Zombie-Horror, and It's scary as hell'.
Like I said, this is obvious, but really helps people to understand what the film is about.

 

The Descent movie still analysis.

This is a still from the movie 'The Descent'

The shot is a medium long shot.

Low shot

The still is set in a forest.

A forest is usually the setting you would expect for a horror film... Usually.

The girl in the still is covered in blood.

This is another stereotype for horror movies.

You wouldn't expect a girl crawling out of the ground covered in blood from a  Romantic Comedy.

The girls facial expression suggest that she may be in agony or is trying really hard to escape from wherever she is.

It could also represent the fact that she is very scared.

Although the lighting doesn't really reflect that of usual lighting from a horror movie, you can still see that it's from a horror because all of the other ingredients for a horror are there.

Camera Shot analysis.

Close up shot.

A close up shot takes you into the mind of the subject in-shot.

The camera angle is neutral.

This subject is possibly feeling angry, or happy at the fact that they are angry. Maybe they like being angry because it means they can go and kill somebody... I don't know.

But this picture scares the hell out of me.

Sorority Row Trailer analysis.

This is a good film with an interesting plot-line.
The serial killers image could be used in our film.
And maybe some of the plot.

Our group members and film ideas.

The members in our group are:

• Me
• Curtis Meredith
• Joseph Gorman

Our current idea for a film is a horror.
We are currently looking at a plot-line for the film.