Target Audience Research Conclusion

From these findings, we decided to go against codes and conventions and base our
film on a teen pregnancy and make a female the main lead. This is to shock our
audience and not give them something that theyve seen represented in the same
generic way multiple times. We are targeting our film to an age group of mostly 16-
20, and occasionally 21-25 year olds, as they were the ones who had experience with
social realism films, and felt the most that they could relate to this type of genre.

I found that most people expected to see a family/friend culture within a social
realism film and some portrayal of relationships moreover. Most expected to see
gangs and violence, but we did not want to depict this due to the mismatch it would
have being based on as female character rather than the general male main character.

They expected a social realism film to have indie music or rap/dubstep/hip hop music,
in which we are planning to incorporate in our film. A slightly marginal larger
majority of males watched social realism films in which we will have many male
roles, but the added difference of a female lead. Most people watched films we have
closely followed and expected those types of codes and conventions.

We planned some aspects of abuse and arguments/fights within the main character
and her boyfriend as it was what people thought they would see in such a film. Home
life was also quite relevant as was education, and so we thought we would also
disobey conventions and depict the character being quite adamant on getting an
education, and worrying about her future.

The target audience research highlighted that they expected the film to begin with a
focus on characters rather than location and so we took that on board. They also
believed a successful social realism film to be relatively fast-paced, which we will try
to achieve through the editing process.

Overall, this research has been extremely beneficial to me to see what my audience
would expect, in order not to completely throw them off and to make it representative
of the genre by asking people who have watched numerous depictions of the genre.
This has given me background knowledge and a basis on which to plan our film, of
which therefore has given me a confidence to carry out this task. Thus, this has
resulted to me gaining a deeper understanding of the social realism genre and its
audience.