Secondary Audience Research: Reflection

How will the design and ideas for my promotional products be altered to attract the right audience?

Having defined my audience as predominantly males of age 18 and over, I will ensure that my film trailer meets their needs and expectations by endeavoring to have snippets of action and possibly violence (to cater to the expectation of conflict in the crime genre), show iconography such as typical props (guns, weapons, blood) and somewhat conform to conventions our audience would expect and be attracted to. Crime genre film trailers usually aim to spark an 'adrenaline rush' feel, so to achieve this for our audience, I think my group's trailer should dramatically increase in pacing by having the shots, as it progresses and the action comes to a crescendo, shorten in duration and become quicker in succession, possibly synchronized to the soundtrack to make it engaging and exciting.

However, in order to make it unique, we want to create our own cinematic style, such as through making our cinematography more varied by including slow-motion shots, and unusual types of camera shots which will make the trailer more distinctive and memorable; additionally, we plan to use 'glitch-y' and 'pixel-y' footage to be in keeping with the theme of a vengeful hacker character- our intention being to intrigue the audience.

As I previously defined our audience as being interested in TV shows of such as Breaking Bad, which revolves around the theme of drug-use, I believe that the trailer would be more original if we were to make use of unconventional styles of lighting to create symbolism (as this is a technique I have seen frequently in the TV show). For example, one idea is to use contrasting colours in a cross-lighting set-up for a scene such as blue and orange (as opposed to blue and red, which might portray binary opposites, which I want to refrain from doing) to keep it visually interesting and further demonstrate a conflict between characters.

In terms of dialogue, because our audience is composed of mature adults, I think it would be conventional to include words such as swears, where appropriate: this would clearly show that the film is tailored for an older audience. In addition, I don't believe that dialogue should be used to clarify or explain the film's plot, as this might imply that the audience isn't deemed as capable of understanding it for themselves. It might also defeat the purpose of keeping the trailer enigmatic and mysterious, and may patronize the viewer. Another detail I would like to keep in mind is that depending on where the film is set, to maintain accuracy, we should use the appropriate dialect (for example, a particular accent), although, this will likely depend on where we are filming the trailer, too.

The locations we use will need to be appropriate for the situations the characters are in and convey a certain mood; for example, our murderous hacker character's isolation could be conveyed through situating them in a very dark studio with blank walls, (as to not give away any indication of an identity), illuminated only by the screen of the laptop on which they work. The drug user characters should be situated in a run-down shack or abandoned house to give a feel of illegality and a 'hide-out'. The room could be made more atmospheric by using a smoke machine (which implies they're smoking drugs) and natural lighting, perhaps through cracks in windows, to make it seem hazy and surreal. Other locations for this purpose include streets or alleyways; typical places in which drug deals could be made.

The costumes for our characters will be made appropriate according to the character's occupation: with the main characters being a hacker and the drug users, this can be fairly simplistic, for instance, the hacker will likely be dressed in dark or black clothes, along with the 'Anonymous' mask, which we plan to stain with fake blood to make it more menacing and easily convey that this character isn't the stereotypical hacker the audience might first assume. The drug users, as we plan to portray a type that aren't 'drug lords' or dealers themselves, should be dressed in very casual clothing, perhaps baggy hoodies and tracksuits to illustrate that they aren't very materialistic and instead their main priority is to be 'high'.
To conclude, my aim is to include these elements in our trailer in order to attract and engage our target audience, and I think that through the techniques I described, we will be able to achieve our goal of creating a trailer that is both exciting and enigmatic and conveys the plot of our film well.