Demographics

My target audience will be middle class teenage girl’s between the ages of 16-21 this is because of the subject I will be focusing on in my film may be harder to understand in younger audiences. With the different type personalities of teenagers my film will be focused more towards the alternative girl especially because my film isn’t a traditional Romantic drama it is breaking the mould making it an art house film. There are three main areas that we can use to make our film appealing to my demographic;

·         Mise en scene

·         Intertextuality

·         An unusual/non-traditional lead character

Mise en scene means everything in the frame of the film which includes props, style e.t.c. This can help with the characterisation of a character. With my film’s protagonist being a teenage girl the type of mise en scene I will be using will be things that will help represent her as an average teenage girl. Such as high street clothes, makeup, posters on walls, dialect and books. Mise en scene can help audiences, according to the uses and gratifications theory, gain their affective needs. Because they recognise something in the film as similar to their life or what they do this will make it easier for my demographic to empathise with my lead protagonist thus meaning they will be more likely to get emotional at the film which, with it being a romantic drama, is what I am aiming to do. In my film I will be using a quote from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, to show that the girl is a student to make the audience empathise with my protagonist especially if they are students too and also if they have studied any of the Brontë sisters work. This is also an example of Intertextuality because in my film I will be using Wuthering Heights to help explain the themes conveyed in my film which intern will help them understand the film. Intertextuality can help make a film popular because an audience might recognise something shown in the film which will make them want to see it, as long as it is popular in their demographic, e.g. a young girl stuffing their bra in a film, this may be something that some younger audiences may do so they could look up to the characters because they are like them complying with the self integrative worth seen in the uses and gratifications theory because the film could raise their self-esteem. The use of a non traditional lead character is important because it makes your film stand out against the others because it is not complying with conventions, with my protagonist being a normal middle class teenage girl who you are unlikely to see in most teenage films, which, according to structuralism theory means that the audience will find it easier to empathise with my lead protagonist because they are someone like the audience themselves, meaning that they will find it easy to fulfil their affective needs.