Audience Profiling
Much like I did for the Demographics: Target Audience and Demographics and types of Audience blog posts, I took a look at films similar to my own and discovered more about the audience and the audience members that would come to watch my film. Firstly, I would say that my audience type is most likely to be within the Aficionados category as my they are likely to portray themselves as ‘anti-hollywood’, which is close enough to being something similar to my own film as it is a more specialised - The kind of film Aficionado's seek out. Looking at Pearl and Dean, I was able to find a film, The Batman, which is very similar to the 1995 thriller Se7en, which is a film I used heavily for inspiration, so I am comfortable to profile my audience based on analytics from The Batman. I would estimate that my film has a demographic directed more focused on the ABC1 social status.
Ethan is a young white man in his mid twenties, born into a middle class family, he lives just outside of London with his girlfriend, Stella of three years. They live in a one bedroom flat that they’ve been renting out for the past year. He works as an actor in west-end and starts as one of the lead roles in a recent hit show. Stella works as a journalist at of the UK’s leading papers, The Sunday Times. He was studying business at a university in London until he was spotted by an agent who got him on board to act on stage.
Ethan consumes a great deal of news from The Times news paper as he wants to support his girlfriend in any way that he can. He enjoys watching movies, visiting art galleries and music (concerts) performances. He consumes mainstream films regularly with his girlfriend Stella, but on his own he enjoys looking for and watching niche titles that aren’t surrounded by a large mainstream audience, but rather a small tight-nick fandom he can be a part of. He is the kind of film viewer who keeps a list of the films that he has watched so that he has a wide range of films that he can discuss with the various communities that his a part of.
My film is presented in a rather abstract manner, I can't think of many narratives that reveal the films killer right at the very beginning. There is no direction that presents the film as ambiguous, and I'm hoping that most audience's would agree, there is one main interpretation that I would hope they would understand, which relates to the idea that nobody is really who they seem. This is continued as the character, Mr Fantasy, has no clear drive for anything in particular, and the only goal I ever imagined him having would be to live a quiet life, which is presented in the film as he gets ready for work relaxed in a blissful morning. This would appeal to the people who I have analytically analyzed to watch my film as they would want to be challenged, however, revealing the killer gives them their answer. The shift in direction is that there is likely to be a new and abstract style of seeing how detective type characters solve the puzzle and chase down the killer, just in a different perspective. Playing around with the though that the audience has to wonder whether they support the killer as he is the main character, or the detectives as they represent justice.
My film would be the type to offer an audience the satisfaction of an excitation transfer. I studied the theory back when I was learning about why we watch scary films. I specifically agreed with the theorist, Dolf Zillman, who theorized that an excitation transfer is the residual excitation from stimulus that will amplify the excitatory response to another theory later in time. I think that this theory is further apparent within my own film as the fears that I explore are relevant to my audience, in fact any audience for that matter. The fear that everyday people aren't who they seem and there could be a killers amongst the people and family we surround ourselves with truly terrifies us as nobody has any desire of being close to someone who takes the lives of others. My film and audience has no relation to catharsis as Mr Fantasy is the kind of character to commit utterly brutal murders, so unsettling that nobody would want any way that they relate to a character like that. This links me back to the excitation transfer theory, as the audience would bare witness to Mr Fantasy's crimes, they would build up excitation from the previous stimuli's (crimes) which would eventually reach a pinnacle of satisfaction when justice is brought upon him.
Due to Mr Fantasy being the main character of my film, it might evoke the subject matter of we as people have evil lying within us, which is a thought that might truly frighten someone. We are sometimes drawn most towards the characters that we spent the longest with throughout a film, watching their development and journey from start to finish. However, as I am presenting the audience with a main character who kills for pleasure, they might have more conflicted emotions, or not. I believe that ideologies are a completely subjective and personal matter which relates to ones own ideals. I am always reminded of the final line in the movie Se7en, "The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for... I agree with the second part.", as Detective Somersets own ideals are a clear demonstration of his character. Which is why I gave my audience such a conflicted decision to make, do you support the killer because you have an attachment to him? Or do you support the detectives because it is the right thing to do? Or maybe there is a third option? You choose to support the detectives because you don't want to acknowledge your attachment to the killer. In addition to all of this, there is a linkable theme of rich harming the poor that revolves around Mr Fantasy. This is apparent with his sophisticated and smart dress-sense and mannerisms, much like a very 'proper' person. Therefore, there is an appeal to the further educated and upper classes as they would both have a recognition and deeper understanding of the character(s) presented as they are more accustomed to that similar lifestyle.
The characters presented in my film are the rich upper class with selfish attitudes, even to the point where ones pleasure is worth more than another persons life. What I might say could be a bit of a stretch, and I am not sharing my own personal opinions, but I believe that my audience might possibly identify with Mr Fantasy in the same ways that some people might have moments of self reflection when watching John Doe talking about the terrible world we live in. This as well as having a possible love/hate relationship with Mr Fantasy, as they have come to know him, but still cannot stand the crimes that he commits. Mr Fantasy is a reflection of the world my film is based on, the real world. My film reflects our societies in real life, we have no idea who people really are, even the people closest to us, and that is something that would be heavily apparent in my film. This would appeal to my audience as they would be able to gain a greater understanding of my film as they have a direct reference to the world that we live in real life.
The tone of my film feels quite mixed, there are moments where the tone feels dark and gritty, even reaching slightly ominous feelings. To contrast this, there are some moments of ease, with heavy undertones that feel witty and overwhelming. To me, the film is quirky, it doesn’t feel like a conventional thriller opening. Its for this reason that the film would engage the audience, it gives them something different, something new that isn’t seen very often.
Whilst my film doesn’t present the action from Se7en, there are definitely similarities drawn from it that are clear to see. The film follows a consistently intriguing narrative instead of moments of action to maintain and elevate the audience’s interest and excitement. I think that my film is elevated not by its action content, but more by its characters, Mr Fantasy draws some levels of similarity to Se7en’s John Doe and The Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lecter. Both characters are made out as well-educated individuals, which is an aspect of my character that I implemented into my film as one of its major themes, that being rich vs poor.
Distribution Strategy
I think it is fair to say that my film is small in scale and it has not been made by any big production companies. Because it is niche, it is likely that it would be incapable of competing with movies shown at the cinema and the mainstream audience that watches them. A reasonable and low cost way to find a distributor for my film would be to present it at a film festival and try to catch someones attention. Or what might be even better, a larger company such as Disney or Netflix would be interest in adding the film to their streaming services. Having my film added to a streaming service would bring in a much wider range of people in a greater number who would be able to watch my film. I would release the film around Halloween as there will be a build-up of people who are getting ready for the horror and thriller feelings of the festival. It also means I could be creative with the marketing strategies used for the promotion of the film.
Marketing
I think that an effective way I could market and promote my film with the use of social media, more specifically I would focus on using Instagram and Twitter, both have large user-bases which I could take advantage of. Since I would be aiming the release around the time of Halloween, I would hope to try and create mini trends that people would try and eventually spread onto other platforms such as TikTok which have trends that blow up in days. This was done with SpiderMan: No Way Home, where a user could replace Spiderman’s face with their own and swing through the city of New York. I would also hope to make posters for people to recognise and spread around the different platform, this is where I believe Twitter would be most useful as the #trending section would be a great way to try and make the poster and awareness of the film more viral.
