The first question allowed me to determine a mean for the different age demographics of the participants who decided to get involved with my research. I had previously discussed that my film would try and appeal to a much older demographic of people but had never been able to determine a specific boundary age range for said viewers. What I found is somewhat of a reoccurring conclusion that has finally solidified my fair usage of an audience between the ages of 35 to 64-year-olds. The age demographic of 35 to 44-year-olds had been the most popular answer, coming in at 44.9% of the voters, whereas 55 to 64-year-olds came in at third place with 12.2%. This question has also allowed me to discover a more prominent percentage of 'younger' arthouse fans who showed interest in the film's many genre-defining conventions. Coming in at a second place, people aged between 25 to 34 years of age took up 18.4% of the voters, further justifying my appropriate use of a secondary young audience of University and industry newcomers who show a wide appeal in individualist cinema genres. With this secondary target demographic, I will target people between the previously mentioned ages of 25 to 34-year-olds.
Much like the previous question, the gender of my target audience has been a reoccurring debate across various documents of my brief. I started the project off by thinking that my audience fell under a fair split across all genders, but was further shocked that the research paper I evaluated for my proposal suggested that the western audience of art-house cinema sided with a stronger female demographic. When finally targeting progressive communities online that are equal in audience participants across all genders, I was able to produce a fair outcome to go along with this question. The final result has supported the research paper and shown a spike in female participants with an overall 52% > to 37.8% Male> and 10.2% Other. With these results, I now know that my film must encapsulate the same progressive themes found throughout much of the art-house cinema I have discussed. I will mainly target a female audience and further reinforce my references and relations to Georgia O'Keeffe's liberating art style.
When I first began my journey through art-house cinema, I tried presenting a fair argument that the high-class stature embedded within this style of filmmaking wasn't so evident in the real world, only acting as an ill-informed stereotype rooted within the genre's pretentious reputation. The benefit of using all of these different online tools like Reddit, Discord, Quora and The Student Room is that I was able to reach a wide spectrum of people found scattered throughout the social class ladder, being able to closely explain what each social class meant in the post description with the hope of receiving a more grounded and accurate set of results. My hypothesis had ultimately fallen short, with my survey results proving me wrong. The most prevalent answer, coming in at 54.1%, was social class C1, with social class B in second place with 23.5%. Although the third place had gone to social class D, with 9.2%, it made sense that the surprising spike in younger participants would take up a lower social class due to their lower-income and inexperienced work standards. I will use social class D for my secondary audience and employ social classes C1, B and A to cover the wide range of upper-class female adults.
After getting the mandatory audience profile questions out of the way, I decided to begin building a portfolio of idea centred questions that will further assist the production processes of my final product. I decided to get people's general opinion on art-house cinema to see what their general opinions were. The most popular answers chosen depicted arthouse filmmaking as 'mind-opening', 'the most creative genre of filmmaking' and generally beloved by most individuals. By linking back to my original plan, I want the audience to have a mixture of confusion, appreciation and disconnectedness from the narrative given. This question has further justified my need to broaden their thinking when interpreting abstract forms of art: having them comprehend the odd but familiar editing techniques of the nouvelle vague, the strange non-diegetic way text compliments the on beat cutting when illustrating a story with no dialogue, and the spars ending which exposes the unorthodox way in which our artist protagonist is able to conceptualise a complex bone structure into a bizarre surrealist reimagining. I will show creativity through my many inspirations, widen someone's perspective on the surrealist way of thinking, and underline various typical conventions that make art-house cinema so distinct.
It is undeniable that the importance Wes Anderson's style has brought to my work has further shaped the unconventional way I have tried to frame large sections of my narrative. Other than his distinct Colour Palates, crucial to the plot uses of God's Point of View, carefully crafted Planimetric Compositions and La Nouvelle Vague-like montage editing dependent on music, I have decided to encapsulate much of the dry comedic tools he uses alongside his comically cartoon-like characters. With such a profound metaphor used throughout my narrative, I was unsure if this comedic tone would take away from my overall message. I decided to summarise my plot into a brief but in-depth synopsis and ask my audience if my style would further benefit from this comedic undertone that fuels much of the bizarre Dada-like references scattered throughout. With the results, it was clear that a larger majority of the participants agreed with my fair hypothesis into the beneficial nature of this undertone my supply my final product, with 59.2 of the voters answering with Yes. Because over a quarter of the individuals who took the survey answered with an unsure Maybe, I will be careful with how much dry comedy is employed when driving the plot forward, trying to not overdo it and take away from my final product's vital goals.
Throughout the previous weeks, I have been evaluating the poetic nature I want my final product to acquire. Much like my previous attempts at a film poem, I have decided that the use of dialogue wasn't compatible with the combination of non-diegetic text and cut-on-beat editing I wanted my project to use. I need the poetic characteristic to hold a more metaphorical stance as it drives the unorthodox way of framing shots and supplying the audience with the conscious nature that they are indeed watching a film, mimicking a play of sorts that exaggerates much of the events that unfold. I created this question to see how familiar people were with the use of poetic conventions within filmmaking. Even though the majority answered with Yes (45.9%), having both answers of No (32.7%) and Maybe (21.4%) be so close in percentage left me wondering how much I wanted the poetic contributions to the plot to be advertised within the film's release. Due to me not being able to find any external secondary research on the viewership of film poems, I have decided that the art house element should act as the main selling point of my final product: having the film explore a poetic form of storytelling within the way it provokes the audience when introducing the bizarre links to Dada and surrealist art, encouraging them to seek out their own individual reasoning behind the narrative's structure.
By escaping the confining nature of my survey's set question, I decided to introduce a comment box that allowed the audience to outline one specific factor of both art-house and film-poetry cinema that appeals to their liking. Compared to the other questions asked, this one had been the least popular with the participants who got involved, still supplying me with more than enough information to evaluate and place alongside my research document. As I had outlined a brief portion of my overall influences, much of the given answers reinforced what I already wanted to assess in the following weeks. The flatness of European art-house came up a few times due to my considerations of both Wes Anderson and Peter Greenaway, something I have begun considering alongside my ventures into Planimetric Composition. Another common answer had been the way I structure my film when regarding my cut-on-beat editing used to drive the narrative forwards. Other than my non-diegetic use of text, I could consider a precisely timed BPM ( beats per minute) meter that controls my protagonist's movement. And finally, the last commonly found answer discussed the genres' links to surrealist art, seeing how I could embed its influences on my work through the various abstract shot types I have planned out.
When discussing the various poetical routes I wanted to portray throughout my narrative, I was quite unsure how I would split their importance into equal sections that all work within the tightly confined space of my five to eight-minute final product. Due to this indecisive nature, I decided to create this question as a way of prioritising what my target audience would like to see. The final results showcased a fairly even split within questions two, three and four, but an overall spike with the participants who voted that 'The question of what could be considered art' had been the most crucial aspect. The way I hope to portray this is through the way I have my protagonist go about interpreting and painting the bone structure he finds at the end of the 'inspiration montage'. Even though the painting has a rather simple enough nature, the abstract format should make the audience question the thought process that has gone into its creation, allowing them to abandon the corporately confined way they might view right or wrong art. As it had been my second most popular answer, the surrealist way our protagonist gains inspiration will be explored all through the now comedically dry 'inspiration montage' that may view its various components alongside strong Dada-like practices I have researched and evaluated throughout my research.
And finally, I decided to further back up the small-scale research I had created for my proposal distribution section that outlined how I may go about releasing my final film to the right audience demographic thanks to the perfectly tailored online and in-person resources, After analysing the results I received on this question, I believe that that the answers provided best encapsulate the nature of this piece. I will enrol it on various short film festivals that are more prone to attracting the older demographic of people I want to target, utilise Vimeo and Youtube to attract a strong online presence while advertising it to various small and independent art-house cinemas with the use of a poster.
Conclusion - (Audience Profile)
In conclusion, I will be targeting adult Females from the ages of 35 to 64-year-olds in social classes C1, B and A. I want to attract an individualist psychographic of "Independent thinkers and people who want to be separate from the crowd. They are the opposite to mainstreamers who may be the audience for a larger budget blockbuster". While earning what seems to be aggressively medium to about average income per year, they are more common to obtain a higher level of education than the average percentage of people who attend schooling in the country. These groups of people are highly engaged with the media they decide to consume, well equipped with an extensive catalogue of movie knowledge. They are 'natural' consumers of independent cinema that indulge in more eclectic film cultures. Although they consume Art-house, experimental and foreign releases, they don't shy away from the more commercial side of Hollywood. To fit a much younger demographic that suits the Aspirers sub-heading of up and coming filmmakers that consist of young people who may have recently completed their degree at university and are in search of a job to break into the film industry, I can utilise a secondary target audience that attracts individuals from the ages of 18 to 35-year-olds, still targeting a main female audience but exploring a lower social class like class D. I will provoke the audience through several mind-opening metaphors that play into the poetic nature of the film, now utilising a strong comedic undertone found throughout my inspiration montage while my cut-on-beat editing is complimented by a precisely timed BPM that controls the protagonists and camera movement. I will further reinforce the reasoning behind my influences while now targeting my specific list of distribution methods that will be tied up with the creation of a film poster.
Secondary Research
Here is the research paper I referenced as a guiding point for a lot of the target audience points made in my brief Proposal and Pitch presentation. It is taken from a survey study created by a company called 'Art House Convergence' who conducted these various forms of research with the chance of explaining a properly justified audience profile for the average Art-house viewers in western civilisations. When placed alongside my own survey results, one may point out the blatant similarities that have shown up, meaning that the credibility and uses of progressive and inclusive enough online communities had been able to target an equally fair percentage of individuals across every age group, social class and gender. I believe that this paper provided me with the important idea of targeting a more European take on art-house cinema to a westernised audience, meaning that I had to utilise fairly western-based online resources when publishing my survey.
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Research Paper
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