Q4

Q4
The audience of a film is vital for the films success. If the film is targeted towards the wrong audience then it could have a disastrous effect on the films profits. For example The World's End, even though it's predecessors in the Cornetto trilogy where a hit in the box office with Hot Fuzz making $80m from a budget of $8m and Shaun of the Dead  making $30m world wide from the budget of $4m The World's End did not follow the trend of a high success rate. Will a much higher budget of $28m it only made a domestic gross of $26m and a foreign gross of $20m, not even coming close to the success of the first two. Hot fuzz box office total was 10 times its budget whilst Shaun of the Dead multiplied their budget by 7.5, The World's End didn't even double their budget. This was because its preferred reading, was too heavily skewed towards cultural reference points of an older audience for example its music composed of There's no other way by Blur and Do you remember the first time? by Pulp which were unfamiliar to a younger audience. As it's target market was more focused on a younger teenage audience, due to their alien theme, the frequent unfamiliar references made in many of their jokes and music would have not appealed to a younger audience. The age range that visits the cinema most frequently are 15-20, so this film would not have done as well as the others before it as this film did not appeal to this age range as much as the others.

Our target primary audience would be 15-24. To help enforce this our characters reflect this age range, this means that a younger audience can relate to our youthful teenage characters. Hollie, Harri and Brad are all 16-17 years old. We show this through their obvious outfits. They are all wearing school uniforms in the school scene anchoring the fact that they are teenagers. Even though Harri wears clothing that would connote an older character, the knitted patterned tank top, this only makes him look quirky rather than older. Brad wears a leather jacket in the bad boy scene, this is stereotypical of a rebel and a teenage boy. Hollie wears a pink wooden coat which could be worn by all ages however her ankle socks and skirt does signify a younger character. 

Our sound track also reflects this age range. As the shot moves across the moorland shots and then through the bedroom an acoustic guitar piece is played. This is incorporated and inspired by The Arctic Monkeys, a band which is very current and is enjoyed by many teenagers. 

We have targeted our film at a Male and Female audience and have taken a hybrid approach by having Social Realist and a Rom-Com genre. The social realist and comedy will help with the male audience and the romance, stereotypically will help with the female audience. Therefore appealing to both. From http://pro.boxoffice.com/latest-news/2013-09-11-uk-romcom-about-time-beats-riddick-with-27m-debut , we can see About time, a rom-com, received the largest gross (£2.7m) in the Top 10 Films in the United Kingdom and Ireland in September 6-8, 2013. They commented saying "It posted a comparable debut to films like 50 First Dates ($14.2M Cume), One Day ($13M), and The Time Traveler's Wife ($12.7M Cume). Universal is reporting that the time-traveling romantic comedy scored particularly well in exit polls among females over 25." This shows that rom-coms can do very well with the British public as many big hit films in the UK are romcoms. Usually the audience is mainly female based but due to the comedy aspect it also appeals to men. The age target varies from teen rom-coms' to adult rom-coms', but the romcoms' usually range from 12-44. E.g 10 things I hate about you (directed by Gil Junger) is a teen rom-com' and the main audience age will be teens and adult rom-coms' like About a boy (directed by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz) a larger older audience. Most rom-com ratings are 12 or 15, due to swearing or sexual content which will appeal to the 14-44 rating and that is a commonly used in rom-coms' due to the key love theme. Also You've Got Mail is a rom-com and their font used is very similar to ours, therefore this may signify that our film's genre is also a rom-com. 

Usually in a social realist film the age rating is 15 or above for example in 'East is East', 'West is West', 'Slum Dog Millionaire' and 'This is England', all of the age ratings are 15 or 18. This is generally because the target audience they are trying to promote their film too is an older age group. This is because social realist films don't have as much action as the youth of today want and is not the typical story line they will be interested in. On saying that some  age ratings can be below that  for example 'Bend it like Beckham'. This is because he is an icon and idol to young children therefore the film he makes needs to be suitable for this age category as they are the main target audience. Another factor to age is teen characters. This is shown in 'Billy Elliot', 'This is England', 'Sweet Sixteen' and 'Submarine' as all of these films have characters that teens of today can relate with, making it easier to empathise with them and understand the character. In some cases such as 'This is  England' it is a problem as the age rating is an 18, therefore not allowing the younger teens to watch it. Gender is also another key factor in Social Realism films as it needs to appeal to both men and woman. On looking into further depth about this i found out that 'Tyrannosaur' directed by Paddy Considine does this very well. He uses violence with the main protagonist to promote his film to men but he also uses romance and empathy to promote his film to woman. By using both of these key 'genres' in a social realism film, it opens up the amount of people coming to watch it as it is for both men and woman. 'The full monty' also do this as even though the film has men in it, it has comedy and a feel good factor allowing a bigger range of people to enjoy the film.