Audience Research Task

Audience research is very important to the people who are making films such as directors and filmmakers and the people who want to advertise the films in a way that they know who their audience is and what to show in their trailers in order for their target audience to become interested in the film. It is very important to find out what genre of film people would want to watch so you can find out the most wanted genre an audience would like to watch and make a profit by making a good film that a target audience would like to watch. It is important for filmmakers to find out what they need in their films to attract people of different demographics such as making a film with a female lead character in an action film even though men are usually lead roles for their masculinity and this is in order to attract more women to their films and as not to stereotype women in film as being sidekicks or a ' damsel in distress ' or releasing a family film during the summer in order to attract families as the holidays is when they mostly watch films especially in the summer as these are called summer blockbusters as they make a lot of money from families watching them. Filmmakers also now try not to stereotype in their films like they used to such as an american action film would always have an american hero saving the world from the evil soviet russian or the chinese and stereotyping them as always being bad and themselves as the good guys but now you see americans as the bad guys and also villians now usually have more depth and a past story in order for the audience to associate more with that character and to relate to them.

There are three main theories that we use in film :
Hyperdermic needle is the theory which suggest that media can manipulate people and their influences. This is by filmakers trying to make their films believable on the audience such as the blair witch project which was shot in documentary form as the directors wanted to make the audience believe that it was based on a true story as it says at the beginning that three student filmakers went missing and now footage has been found of what happened  to them. This makes the audience tense and believe that there is a killer out in the woods and the legend of the blair witch exists.

Two step flow is how the film is spread through more traditional means such as word of mouth and is a way of advertising such as a person will watch a film and if they like it then they will tell their friends and recommend the film and so they will tell their friends and the cycle will continue such as the blair witch was spread mainly through word of mouth due to it being a low-budget film.

Reception analysis is how each person of the audience will view a film and view it differently from another person as they will view the film and find their own meaning for it. A good film will be where certain things in the film will have different meanings such as in Donnie Darko most people would have a different view as if the main character is actually seeing a man in a bunny suit and travelling in time or if he is just schizophrenic and this is how people view a film differently from each other.

Filmography : This is all the information about a film such as the title, when released and the genre.

Bibliography : This gives you all the information of a book such as the title and when it was published and who the author is and what it is about ( blurb )