Textual Analysis - Pre-production Essay
My research has helped my with my pre-production and with identifying my target audience in the following ways.
I conducted a survey which I sent out to the public. I asked them questions concerning the genre of films that they enjoyed and what made a film appeal to them. The results allowed me to plan out the kind of film poster I wanted to create that would appeal to my target audience. I knew which demographic I was aiming at by corroborating the information from my survey into one profile. This profile included a 16-18 year old female who sat mostly in the C2-E demographic of the socio-economic scale (as they paid less money to watch films, often downloading them or buying DVDs, suggesting they have a small amount of disposable income) and who viewed mostly romance films (which stereotypically, women are more likely to watch as they often contain attractive male roles) or on the other end of the scale, viewed horror films (which may have also been influenced by the male survey takers). This difference in prefered genres gave me the idea to create both a horror and romance film poster, as this would show the contrast in the two genres considering that they both have very different conventions and also appeal to a secondary audience of 16-18 year old males of the same socio-economic status.
I conducted a process of textual analysis on several films from the same genres that I was focusing on, as well as two separate genres of films that were also popular amongst my target audience’s choices in the survey. I focused on several film posters that contained typical features of the genre that they aimed to meet, and analysed the conventions. This allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of how the posters are composed, what the general features are and therefore what I needed to include too.From my textual analysis of romance film posters, I learned that they are typically lit with high key lighting, as it creates a sense of happiness and purity, which romance is often associated with. I also noted that the people included on the cover are often in an intimate situation with one another, such as kissing, holding hands and commonly being in an embrace or lying down together. Most commonly mid shots are used as this allows the viewer to see the couple’s main body language as well as facial expression. In some cases long shots are used, which allows the viewer to see the entire body, allowing them to read body language more effectively. This is important because often body language plays a role in creating a romantic atmosphere, such as physical contact etc.
For horror film posters, my textual analysis revealed that often low key lighting is used as this creates an atmosphere of darkness and danger, which has connotations of fear and horror. The main image is often a close up and usually displays the face of the main antagonist in the film. The close up allows the facial expression to be seen, which is often considered scary as the image is so close to the audience physically that it can create an unnerving sense. Sometimes long shots are used which display the antagonist’s full body. This is often used to show the dress of the antagonist, commonly white against a black background. Black is used as it has connotations of darkness and fear. This creates a horror atmosphere, and is why I too will be using the same colours in my film poster. I conducted a process of textual analysis on several films from the same genres that I was focusing on, as well as two separate genres of films that were also popular amongst my target audience’s choices in the survey. I focused on several film posters that contained typical features of the genre that they aimed to meet, and analysed the conventions. This allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of how the posters are composed, what the general features are and therefore what I needed to include too.From my textual analysis of romance film posters, I learned that they are typically lit with high key lighting, as it creates a sense of happiness and purity, which romance is often associated with. I also noted that the people included on the cover are often in an intimate situation with one another, such as kissing, holding hands and commonly being in an embrace or lying down together. Most commonly mid shots are used as this allows the viewer to see the couple’s main body language as well as facial expression. In some cases long shots are used, which allows the viewer to see the entire body, allowing them to read body language more effectively. This is important because often body language plays a role in creating a romantic atmosphere, such as physical contact etc.
Word count: 601
