Audience Profiling- Green Street

Green Street

Released:	9th September 2005
Genre:	Drama
Price:	C
Estimated box office:	not specified
Director:	Lexi Alexander
Film cast:	Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam, Claire Forlani, Marc Warren
Certificate:	18
Distributor:	UIP
The Story:	Elijah Wood continues to move away from his Lord of the Rings characterization in this tale of modern-day football hooliganism. He plays Matt, a student at Harvard who takes the fall when his room-mate's drug habit is discovered. He visits his sister in England and is drawn into the ultra-violent world of the football hooligan.

Snatch

	Age:	%:	Gender:	%:	Class	%:

	4-6	0%	Male:	71%	AB	26%

	7-11	0%	Female:	29%	C1	35%

	12-14	0%			C2	24%

	15-24	38%			DE	15%

	25-34	39%

	35-44	10%

What this tells me about the making of my movie.

Although this doesn't really have any action in the movie, it is a really good example of an urban film and so we can identify how British urban people are shown in movies. The gender that watches this movie the most is males and I believe this is because the theme surrounding it is football and hooligans which shows to be more popular among the male population.

    A really good thing that i can take from this movie is that the class that watch it are very split up. This tells me that all age groups will be interested in my idea of an urban action film. I am rather surprised that the upper/middle class watched this movie more than the lower/middle class. This movie is based around working class characters so my general assumption would be that it is for a working class audience so it tells me that these types of movies have a very wide "class" audience.

One thing I must think on though is the theme of my film as it shows what sort of genre will watch it. If i go for a football related film, then i expect to aim it at males of all classes of course above the age of 18 as my target audience will be for the 15-34 year olds.

The way it attracted the male audience was through the fights and language used in the movie. As many males go to watch football matches they can identify some chants, and also see some fight break out so they also may be able to relate to the film.

    Moreover the fact that this movie has an American actor, it may also attract the American audience which i believe i can do in my movie; include a character from a different ethnic backround so it will bring a wider audience.

                 What Are we doing to appeal to this group?
One thing we are doing is having young actors as well which will help gain the interest of the younger audience. Moreover, we are also going to show strong violence in our opening two minutes as there will be a fight scene and a death almost instantly which will appeal to this audience as i believe that the sub-genre for this movie is action. Furthermore we have been looking closely at what the characters were wearing and what class they are. It is rather easy to see that the main character is from a working class background and likes wearing all black thus we will have our main character wearing all black in our scene because this movie tells me that having a working class character(s) attracts all types of audience including the upper class.

R&P Soundtrack music (non Copyright)

Most movies open with some sort of non diegetic sound which means that only the audience can hear it. The reason for this is that it will psychologically make people will be able to identify the movie with the soundtrack and also to give the audience a feel of the movie. One example of this is Rocky where people still identify and associate the soundtrack with Rocky. this also helps the audience remember the movie. Another example is the James bond movie where they have the same soundtrack that people asosiate with bond, but also have a sub soundtrack which is a famous song. I will use the most recent movie skyfall as a further example. The sub soundtrack used in this is Adele's song;Skyfall which is a huge hit and also think about James bond when listening to it. This is why i will need the perfect soundtrack, not only to set the scene but also to ensure that it compliments the opening two minutes and thus the audience will remember it better.

The use of sound in urban action films:
In Urban-action movies, soundtracks have quite a quick tempo to it because it must complement the fast pace of the action movie. As I am doing an Action movie, i will be looking for a soundtrack like this. Moreover it is vital that we find a non copyright soundtrack to ensure that we don't break the law.



The reason I have chosen this non-copyright soundtrack is because it has a lot of sound and offers different elements and tempos so we can edit the right sound for the right time. For example, we will have one character that has just got beaten up and so we will use the heartbeat sound effect that is also on this soundtrack (towards the end.)  Moreover, there is a fast pace section in this soundtrack which we will use during the fight to complement the fast cuts and help the audience identify that the fight is fast paced.

Annotating 2 mins of an opening scene of a movie (Expendables)

The film I will be analyzing is The first of two expendables movies. The genre of this movie is action/ thriller. I believe the genre's are introduced straight away with the non diegetic sound which complemented the gloomy opening to the movie where you couldn't really see anything as everything was distorted. I believe that these affects would have got the audience o the edge of their seats really expressing the thriller side of the movie. Unfortunately there wasn't much in the opening two minutes to show the action genre but towards the end, we experience a lot fast paced shots suggesting that there is a lot of controversy happening and a action scene is about to begin. Another bit in the opening two minutes that support this is when the motor cycle turns up and the camera does an extreme close up of the expendables sign which just gave an indication that something is about to happen.
     We don't really identify and specific characters so I can't really state how the characters are represented but it does show the expendables as a group and so suggests that all the members of the group are the main characters. The group seem quite mysterious and again builds the suspense which shows that it is a thriller movie.
     Another aspect I find interesting in this movie is the lighting and is shot in the night. This again helps build the scene with the non diegetic sound and the foggy opening. This is because dark denotes dangour. Most burglaries in movies tend to occur in the night. So this tells me that some action is about to happen.
    The props used such as the motorbikes suggest that that the characters are old. I say this because the expendables turned up in a rather historical motorcycle which supports this.
   What I can take from this opening when thinking about mine is how the pace suddenly changes in the movie. This has helped me see how fast paced shots show action waiting to happen in practice and makes me realize that the pace of the movie is vital for the audience to understand the actual context.

Conventions of a typical action movie

Most action films share similar conventions. These are:
1) Fights; almost all action movies will contain fight scenes because the main purpose of an action film is to get the audience to feel excited.
2) Crashes and explosions; having this convention helps the audience gain the excitement they were looking for.
3) Music tends to be high tempo to supplement the fast tempo of an action movie.
4) There also tends to be the murder of someone close to the main character.
5) This leads me on to my fifth convention which is that there there is always a motive and a example would me the murder of a loved one.
6) Destruction
7) Missions still waiting to be completed.
8) Weapons

                           

Conventions of Romantic movies.

1. Hearts, which indicate love and happiness.
2. The most common story line is "boy meets girl." I believe this is the case because a lot of people can relate to this type of story line. Examples of movies that share this story line are friends with benefits  Love happens, Leap year and many more.
3. The main topics romantic films cover are Status, Gender, Relationships and sexuality. 
4. There are often a lot of emotional feelings involved. One really good example could be "this means war," where they experience love in a near death experience.
5. The main target audience for a romance film is females.
6. Just like this means war and Leap year, romance films ted to have a sub genre which influences romance films a lot. In the modern day, people are identifying Romcoms (romance/comedy) as its own genre which really shows what an impact sub genres play on romance films.
7. The typical story line also includes a break-up and towards the end, they get re-united again.

 

Opening two minutes planning

                         

 Above is a power point showing our planning of our opening two minutes of a movie. What we have included is basically the research into mise-en-scene as our powerpoint talks about costumes, props and location which are all sectors looked at when looking into mise-en-scene.

21 jump street

21 Jump Street is a comedy movie with a sub-genre of action. The two main characters are Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. 

The movie begins with some non-diegetic music which (Eminem) with the camera slowly zooming towards the bus where a Jonah Hill exits the bus and the camera zooms into him and avoids the others coming off the bus. This suggests that he has a lot of prevalence and thus the movie will somehow be based around him.
The singer in the background is Eminem. This also gives a indication that Jonah is getting the most prevalence via using up the camera time is the main character  The reason I think this is because he looks just like Eminem.
    For almost one full minute, Jonah Hill who came off the bus occupied the majority of space on the camera. This again assumes that he has more prevalence and so he is the main character in the movie.
    His Clothing suggests that he is a teenager as he is wearing a backpack and also as it is set in a school. This also tells me that the target audience will be for teenagers. Moreover the film cuts into a shot of a poster which has the word "prom" on it in big letters. This suggests that the movie will be again aimed for teenagers.
    Jonah Hill is presented as a geek. Some of the ways that 21 Jump Street have tried to portray Jonah Hill as a geek are:

1. Plain Clothes- He is not wearing anything that really stands out or similar to the majority.
2. No friends- throughout the two minutes, Jonah isn't around any friends whereas the other main character is around friends and so is shown to be popular  Furthermore, I believe that 21 Jump Street also try to show this by how the characters are wearing their bags. Everyone in the scene are wearing one strap whereas Jonah is wearing both straps which tells me a few things. Firstly, it shows that he differs from the majority and again suggests he's a geek, secondly it shows his status in university. Wearing "two straps" as opposed to one and this tells me that he is not influential popular.

    There is a lot of panning and zooming in on the main characters. The best example is when they are coming off the bus and the camera avoids all the other people effectively and then focuses on the main character. This is done by zooming in on him. Moreover as Jonah is speaking to the girl about the prom, there is a shot, reverse shot used. This is an effective way to film a conversation as long as you abide by the 180 degree rule.

   What i think I've learnt from this is when different shots will be most effective. For instance when filming a conversation, i will do a shot reverse shot action. Moreover this movie has taught me how important stereotypes are because it helps identify the type of character they are.