5. How did you attract and address your audience?

With the audience mentioned in the previous question, there were a few crucial things we did to attract and address them adequately.

GENRE
Being an audience of manly young people, the 'Drama' genre is instantly something which insights interest. This is because people in this age bracket people are having lots of new social experiences, potentially dealing with some taboo issues in their lives. Therefore the 'Drama' genre provides things they can relate to and learn from - this is why we chose it.

EXPECTATIONS

Through shows like 'Top Boy' 'Skins' and films like 'Kiddulthood' and 'Attack the Block' we have seen a variety of presentations of teenagers. We maintained some of the stereotypes like the indie fashion conscious skateboarding male character (Freddie from Skins -> Louis) and 'rudegirl' mixed race character (Naz from Flea -> Shaniqua)

However purposely challenged them through the characterisation of 'Melissa.'

On the surface she is a character that Black British Females can identify with. However she is working class and from an estate, she doesn't conform to the stereotypes of someone with this background.
Her love interests are not limited by race or class and she is more fashion conscious than her usual stereotype.
A character like Melissa will generate a variety of reactions ; some opposing her thinking she is not 'realistic' whilst others might find her interesting and unique.
Having a slightly controversial character is important as it generates hype and will get the audience interacting with each other about their opinions.

EDITING TECHNIQUES
Continuity - created a continuous conversation helped to attract the audience as it allowed them to get to know the characters and made them want to find out more.

Cross-cutting - crosscutting between the middle class to working class area attracted the audience because they were maybe intrigued into which environment most relates to them, also it introduced the characters lives to them and made them want to find out more.

ATTRACTIVE LEAD MALE
The typical 'indie' female who would watch our film would like the look of our lead male actor and would therefore be more inclined to watching the film. Also skateboarding males will identify with him and therefore have a natural interest in him.


BUILD UP OF ENIGMAExplored in a Prezi in Q1 - they make the audience want to find out the answers to these questions

To ensure we were successful in attracting our target audience, as a group we made some surveys which were completed

This question was asked to ensure that we roused interest in the correct audience age group

This question helped us identify if the strong British themes brought about a British audience

Here, we learnt that our opening didn't actually connote the genre to most people who watched it.

This was an excellent response, it demonstrated that we enticed the audience and made them want to watch the rest of our film

Mari interviewed her 16 year old brother and this was his response:

I asked my 19 year old sister and my 22 year old brother (members of our target audience) similar questions:
Zoe, 19
Having watched the introduction to growing pains, what genre would you class the overall film as?
Hmmm, probably a drama or a romance - Is it an indie film? Like a British one, maybe its gunna be kind of urban too since you have the girls coming from the hood which was obviously filmed that way to show something, right?
What do you think will happen in the rest of the film and would you watch it?
Well obviously the two at the bus stop are gunna fall in love, maybe the mixed race girl will be pissed off cause she likes him, or cause her friend bailed on her to chill with this guy
I would probably watch it yeah why not
What did you learn about the two characters?
The boy is like typical indie white boy init, probably quite rich because he was coming from somewhere with a nice background - I'd say the girl was working class, but there's something about her which seems different like she seems kinda nice and sweet so yeah

Emeka, 22
Having watched the introduction to growing pains, what genre would you class the overall film as?
Some cross-breed between urban and romance I think
What do you think will happen in the rest of the film and would you watch it?
They will fall in love but it will be a bit Romeo and Juliet, that's quite obvious I mean ones black ones white so film might play off that, or might play off the fact ones rich ones poor
I guess maybe I would watch it because i am kinda intrigued now but not in the cinema, probably on my computer or something haha
What did you learn about the two charectars?
Boy is rich, quite 'cool' as it were, seems like a bit of an introvert. The girl obviously poor, cause she lives on a council estate, but quite normal to be honest

From these responses, we gathered that we were successful in targeting our audience but some things in the film were unclear. like the genre and the problem that the whole film was built around which is race. I think from these surveys we did grab the attention of the audience but we have to work on making them want to continue watching.