Audience Research

In order to find out what it is about musical films that my target audience, teenagers and young adults, particularly enjoy, I have carried out research in the form of a questionnaire.

The way in which I have chosen to collect this information is through an on-line poll which I have posted on my blog (see opposite), the results from which I have used to expand my research. I have posted the address to my blog on a variety of social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, as the majority of the people on these sites fit the age criteria of my target audience. Therefore, the information I gather will be directly relevant to my own trailer.

100% of the people who took part in my pole were aged between 17 and 22 years of age, which means that all results are directly relevant to my product as this is my film trailers primary target audience. My pole revealed that the majority of my voters, 57%, considered themselves fans of the musical genre, which tells me that ny film is more likely to appeal to my target audience. 66% of voters have also been to see a musical film at the cinema within the last 6 months, which tells me that my target audience will be influenced by trailers, which aim to persuade people to see the films at the cinema. This also gives me a sense of how going to see musicals is a popular leisure activity for my target audience.

I also asked voters on their favourite songs to feature in musicals. The most popular two choices were memorable, sing-along tracks, with 17 votes cast, and well known, iconic, classic songs, with 15 votes cast. For this questions I allowed voters to choose more than one option. These results have convinced me that the song I want to feature in my trailer should be catchy, memorable and familiar to the audience, whilst fitting in with the fast narrative pace of my trailer.

I also asked the people who took part in my poll on their favourite aspects of musical films. These results will give me a clear picture on which elements to focus on in my trailer in order to make it appeal to my target audience as much as possible. The two most popular options were singing and dancing. Singing gained 17 votes overall, and dancing was cast 15 votes. Other popular options included learning about the characters and costumes, but a fewer amount of votes were given to setting and backing tracks. When I come to writing the script and storyboard for my film trailer, I will make sure to give more screen time to shots focusing on the characters singing and dancing, as this is what my target audience seem to enjoy the most in musicals. I will also pay attention to developing the characters in the on-screen narrative, although this is already a conventional feature of film trailers.