Research- Narrative theorists

I decided to look into Narrative theorists within media trailers and then apply them to my own trailer I am creating. I found this useful as it helped me understand how I will make my trailer look professional and effective, as well as using primary research to help me understand the different types of narrative within a trailer.

Update - Week 2

Research - Target Audience

I took part in some audience research for my trailer as I knew it would help me tailer my trailer to please my audience, in order to achieve the most professional and successful trailer. When analysing my target audience I based a lot of research upon similar films and TV programs with a similar narrative. When research my audience I took into account all different aspects of their lives such as gender, age, hobbies and everyday lifestyle. Narrowing down my target audience helped me a lot when deciding on certain aspects of my trailer. 

Planning 

For the planning of my trailer I will take into account what I learned for my target audience research, this will include; 

Casting - I will cast girls of a similar age to my target audience so that they can aspire to them and relate to these characters. A lot of films use this technique as due to the current generation being so fixated around social media, it is easy to find more about the characters and actor and admire them.

Release- Due to a lot of my target audience being at school or in some kind of education I will make sure that the release date is during  holiday so my audience will be able to attend the premier or first week of release. This will be very important when choosing the date on my movie poster and magazine. 

Content- Although my audience will be over the age of 15 I still feel as if gore and extreme violence will not be appreciated by my target audience. So when storyboarding my trailer I need to make sure that I do not include anything which could put them off watching it or make them feel extremely uncomfortable.

Research - Target audience

In this post I created a mind map where I detailed all the different types of audience I would have for my Trailer, this was important to do as I could evaluate who would be my audience for my trailer so i could the tailor it towards things they would enjoy. I think this was a very positive and effective way of researching into my target adenine as I could understand easily which market would be appropriate for my trailer. 

Research - Distribution of Movie Trailer

For my trailer I decided to research into the different distributions of movie trailer and evaluate each one. The different types of distribution helped me understand the importance of distributing your product so that your audience can see it. I covered many different types of distribution and these are all relevant to ways I can distribute my trailer. 

Research- Focus group

As part of my audience research I created a focus group where I asked multiple questions on topics to do with my thriller trailer, these questions were ;

•      What is your favourite thriller trailer/ film?
•       What type of thriller movie trailer do you prefer to watch and why? E.g. action/            physiological?     
•      What keeps you engaged when watching a thriller trailer?
•       Do you prefer trailers which tell you a lot of information about the Film or ones which keep a large amount behind to create mystery?
•      What type of music do you like to accompany a thriller trailer? e.g.  fast paced/ popular music?

      I decided to ask these questions as I felt they would be very beneficial to make my trailer successful for my target audience. The people I chose for my focus group were between the ages of 17 -18 and I decided to use different genders to understand their views in contrast with each other. 

        What is your favourite thriller trailer/ film?

     In this question my focus group named a lot of thrillers which they enjoy, this was interesting to know as I could then research the narrative of these films and how they are then displayed in the trailer. This gave me good market research which i could then apply to my trailer. 

      -Inception 
      -Regression 
      -Shutter Island 
      -Taken 

     What type of thriller movie trailer do you prefer to watch and why? E.g. action/ physiological?
      A lot of my focus group seemed to be a lot more in favour of a physiological thriller as they like the way there can be a twist and how it 'uses your mind' this was a response I predicted as it is a common genre for my age group. However during the duration of this response the popularity changed more to an action and physiological thriller (mix of the two).  A reference was made to Taken 3 in this conversation so for my trailer i will definitely research this genre and apply it to my thriller.  

     What keeps you engaged when watching a thriller trailer?
      It was clear with the response from this question that things which engaged my audience when watching a trailer are;
      -Short / Punchy trailer durations - This is due to if the trailer is too long you 'forget what is going on'. But it is still important for it to be long enough to gather some information. So I need to keep this in mind when deciding the length of the trailer as its clear it cannot be too long. 
     -Rhetorical Questions- The rhetorical questions were also something which was deemed as engaging for this group as they enjoyed the way it involved the audience. I will be sure to find a way of including this in my trailer or something of the same effect.  

     Do you prefer trailers which tell you a lot of information about the Film or ones which keep a large amount behind to create mystery?
      I was interested in seeing what my group would respond to this question as my view is very varied but it seemed the most popular choice was trailers which keep a lot of the information behind to create mystery. However they did say there needs to be the right amount of information as you need to know what the film is about. 
      They also said they like it when trailers have subtle hints, I will defiantly include this in my trailer as i also think it will make it very successful. 
   
     What type of music do you like to accompany a thriller trailer? e.g.  fast paced/ popular music?
      My audience came up with a number of different ideas for music they like to accompany a thriller trailer, these included;

•      Intense  
•     Strings and piano
•      Scary but not too scary 
•      Builds up and back down 
•      Change scenes to music 

From this I found that the music my target audience want is very appropriate to most thrillers and was the type of music I wanted to usr for my thriller anyway. It is clear they enjoy music which created suspense and i will be sure to do this in my thriller Trailer.  

      I found out a lot of valuable research through this focus group and I will be sure to use it during the production of my trailer. 

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Research - Thriller Survey Analysis

I have analysed three of the questions which I asked my target audience to fill out. I have chosen these three questions specifically due to me feeling as though they will be the most influential upon my trailer and i should really refer back to these during the production of it.

 This question was to find out more about the editing side of my trailer as it is important I tailor it to something that my audience will want and enjoy watching. From this I found out that a large proportion of my target audience (94%) would want fast paced editing during the trailer. This is what I predicted as I feel the fast paced editing really and a professional and interesting feel to the trailer as it created a great deal of suspense and my target audience of teenagers and young adults enjoy this.

 My next question I analysed was whether my audience like it when trailers give an in-depth look into the lives of the characters so you get a better understanding of who they are and can judge them on this. It was clear form this graph that my audience prefer it when you wait until the film for this kind of information. I very much agree with this as I feel like it detracts form the suspense and dampens the desire to then go and see the film to find out more. So it is very important to now make sure in my trailer I preserve the identities of my characters in order to create mystery for my audience.

The final question which I analysed was whether my audience liked seeing the names of the actors during the trailer. I was very curious as to the response of this question as I myself didn't know whether this would make the trailer either look more professional or not fit well with the genre. However it was shown in my graph that more wouldn't want an actors name during the trailer, (although this is only by 2 more people) so I will abide by the most popular vote to make sure my trailer is suited to my target audience. 

Research - Thriller Film Trailer Questionnaire

 I created a questionnaire for my Thriller trailer so that I could get a good understanding of what my target audience would want so I could then tailor my trailer to my market. I printed out a number of questionnaire and handed them to random people in my year (to get un bias results). I asked them to then return them back to me and I received 32 copies from both male and females of ages 17-18. 

Research - Mood Board

Here I created a mood board of different images I thought would relate to my trailer, this included pictures of hooded figures, abandoned fields, the feel of being followed and unknown phone calls. I have created this to give me a realistic idea of what I want my trailer to include. 

Update - Week 1

Research - 7 minutes film trailer analysis

Research - The Dark Knight Rises Trailer Analysis

Research - The Riot Club Trailer Analysis