Audience Research (Primary)

Before starting to produce our title sequence, I had to conduct a survey in order to fully understand our demographic. I set up a questionnaire on ‘Question Pro’ and then using social media such as ‘Facebook’ we asked people to do the survey.  After a week of our questionnaire being online, I collected the results.  50 'teenagers' took part and 27 were male and 23 were female. Here are our results for every question;

Teen drama research

I continued to research into different teen dramas that are out there..
Teen dramas have got to be one of my favourite styles of film and TV because I can personally relate to them in some cases, as they are based on issues that teenagers will probably have to go through at least once in their teenage life. These issues/ problems are:
1.Coming of age
2.First love
3.Rebellion
4.Conflict with parents
5.Teen angst
6.Alienation
7.Sex
8.Drugs
9.Alcohol
10.Sexuality- (gays and lesbians)
Codes and conventions of the teen film genre are different depending on the film, the most common conventions of a TV drama can include but they can include alcohol, drugs, high school and parties. This shows that when dealing with a teen drama we have to focus on the codes and convections so the audience understand our representation of teen drama as they can see it in our opening sequence. The classic codes and conventions of teen film come from American films where one of the most widely used conventions are the stereotypes and social groups. The stereotypes usually used include:

 •The Geek/Nerd

 •The loner

 •The outcast

•The new kid in school

Apart from the characters there are many other codes and conventions of teen film. These films are often set in or around high schools as this allows for many different social cliques to be show.

THE 10 BEST TEEN DRAMA FILMS OF ALL TIME

1) The breakfast club
2) fAST TIMES AT Ridgemont HIGH
3) Ferris Bueller's Day off
4) Dazed and confused
5) Empire Records
6) 10 things i hate about you
7) Ghost World
8) Donnie Darko
9) Juno10) the perks of being a wall flower

As part of research I watched some of the following teen/drama films to get the sense of what the codes and conventions are of a teen drama, displayed above are the top 10 teen drama films brought to you by pepsi.com
http://www.pepsi.com/en-gb/d/content/15536483/The-10-Best-Teen-Drama-Films-of-All-Time

What do teenagers like and dislike? (Primary Research)

What do teenagers like and dislike? (Primary Research)

I interviewed 20 teenagers between the ages of 15-19 on what they like and dislike. I gave them a range of things to like or dislike (from food to fashion), and here are the results:

-Food: 20/20 liked, 0/20 disliked
-Drinking: 17/20 liked, 3/20 disliked
-Parties: 16/20 liked, 4/20 disliked
-Smoking: 8/20 liked, 12/20 disliked
-Sex: 15/20 liked, 5/20 disliked
-Fashion: 17/20 liked, 3/20 disliked
-Social networking sites e.g. Facebook/Twitter: 18/20 liked, 2/20 disliked
-Smart phones: 20/20 liked, 0/20 disliked
-Taking photographs: 18/20 liked, 2/20 disliked
-School/College: 1/20 liked, 19/20 disliked
-Parents: 20/20 liked, 0/20 disliked
-Friends: 20/20 liked, 0/20 disliked
-Films: 19/20 liked, 1/20 disliked
-Music: 20/20 liked, 0/20 disliked

From conducting this survey, I have found out that on average, teens mostly like food, smart phones, friends, parents and music. Because it was a minor survey, that does not conclude that all of these things should be included in the film. It simply allows a few themes and ideas to include within our film.
The knowledge that most people from my survey do not like school or college is also useful, because from that information, we could include some sort of rebellion against school in our film.

Things I included in my survey

What do teenagers like and dislike? (Secondary Research)

What do teenagers like and dislike? (Secondary Research)
Continuing my research on our target audience for our film - teenagers, I decided to get to the bottom of things and find out what teenagers actually like and dislike. From this, my group and I would be able to include these things in the film (or not), and be more aware of what appeals to our teenage audience, and what doesn't.
From my secondary research, I have found out that teenagers like:
-Loud music/Ipod
-Sleeping in
-A messy room
-Hanging with mates
-Ditching parents
-Phone
-Hot boyfriend/girlfriend
-'Cool' mates
-Social networking sites e.g. Facebook/Twitter
-Junk food e.g. McDonalds
-Food in general
-Taking photos with friends
-Taking 'selfies'
-Being alone sometimes
-Parties
-Drinking
-Porn

And apparently they do not like:
-Nosy parents
-Chores
-'Bitchiness'
-School
-Homework
-Being bored
-Babysitting

(Research carried out from www.wikianswers.com)

Of course, this is a large generalisation and not all teens will like and dislike all of the above. But as an average list, this research will help my group and I to consider our film content.

                                          Typical 'teen' situation

Our Teenage Audience

Our Teenage Audience

Our film 'Isn't that Illegal' is aimed mainly at teens from 15-19, although it may also attract young adults.
Because our film is specifically a 'teen drama' and, of course, has its main characters played by teenage actors, it is important to know what the teen audience will like and what they will most want to see in our film.
I started by carrying out some secondary research on what matters to teenagers. Here are some thoughts:

Teens share five characteristics that make them 'uniquely young':
Detached: No one desires the company of teens—they’re not unreserved as the way children are, which is why adults and children love being around each other. Because adults have reservations about spending time with teenagers and teens are skeptical of other teens—that leaves teens essentially on their own.
Oppositional: Teens define themselves not as who they are but who they are not—so the street savvy girl is highly focused on, say, not being the girl who likes riding horses.
High on influence: Teens develop special mix of exalted optimism and self-confidence when they discover their ability to understand and influence areas they’re interested in, such as politics and NGO causes.
Boundless: Teens experiment with limitations—they don’t try to experience their existence (like children do to feel the love of their parents) or to seriously engage in activities on the other side of social norms (as when adults visit swinger clubs to feel “free”). Instead, teens are simply interested in answering big questions about their abilities.
Fleeting: Teens feel entitled to change their mind and shift their fundamental ideas about the world—not because of insecurity or a lack of reliability but because that ability is seen as a fundamental privilege exclusive to being a teenager.

(Research used from www.redassociates.com)

By discovering these five aspects of what makes a teenager, well, a teenager, I can now get some further ideas of how to portray 'typical teenagers' in our film.

                                           Photo of variety of teenage girls

Reflecting on original idea

Notes from pre-production process

As shown above, the original plan for what our film opening would consist of is very different to the outcome. Some changes include:
-Showing only four characters (Georgia, Jason, Jacob and Nalika) rather than six
-Titles in the sequence were embedded differently to make the editing simpler
-Music soundtrack was changed to 'F For You' by 'Disclosure' instead of music by 'Don Broco' - we changed this because the soundtrack fitted a lot better
-We shortened the 'pregnancy' scene due to timing and so that the opening would be less dramatic
-The settings we used were a bathroom and three bedrooms, instead of shops and outside houses, as the setting flowed better with the idea of 'teenagers getting ready'

Hopefully the changes we made during editing will help to create a flowing and successful opening sequence!

Dawn of the Dead - Opening Tilte Sequence Analysis