Focus Groups & Target Audiences 1

In light of the results of our survey, I interviewed members of our target audience in order to get a better idea in terms of qualitative data what it is about a film that gets people watching. Three boys were interviewed and one girl, all seventeen.
Fitting our assumptions, two of the boys were into the action and thriller genre, and they were attracted to it because of the promise of excitement and adrenalin, although it was mentioned that violence should not be overtly gratuitous and should be done right. The girl agreed that action films are watched for the purpose of entertainment and do not need to develop on any other elements of plot, yet interestingly this was reason that our male interviewee did not like action films. He expressed that he enjoyed drama, romance and comedy because they included an "emotional connection" between the characters that was involving, and particularly that character development is a rewarding process. This view is at odds with the other male interviewees, one of whom stating that human interest stories were not really of interest of him because he only watched films for entertainment and escapism, not as a mirror to real life.
Thus, documentaries were not high on the watchlist of the the action-and-thriller boys, but all the participants agreed that a big factor in making a documentary interesting is presenting a subject that is unfamiliar to the viewer, so learning about a completely new topic is a rewarding experience. Popular criteria for a watchable documentary is that they be somehow relevant, maybe containing 'current affairs', or 'trashy' in the style of Channel 4, with human interest being a strong factor as long as it is entertaining. One of the boys mentioned that he only watched geographical/wildlife elements, but yet it was still the aforementioned element of discovering the unknown, and not "stuff form day to day life" that appealed to him.
In terms of the 'gritty' urban thriller genre, there was a general agreement that its portrayal is often heavy-handed and cliched, and so stereotypes must be avoided in order for a film to gain credibility, and perhaps incorporation a plot twist to keep the genre exciting. As our female interviewee said, once you have seen one generic urban thriller "you have seen them all".
Viral media such as Youtube was the most effective form of getting mass publicity for a film, but the most valuable of exposure was recommendation from a friend. Thus it is important for our film to strike a chord with a certain demographic for it to get good reviews, but attempting to reach as many markets as possible because 'human interest' stories have a fairly universal appeal. Furthermore, the trailer should showcase accurately the vague premise of the film without giving too much away so that the viewer has a notion of what to expect from the genre.

SL.