Deconstruction of The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Deconstruction of The Odd Life of Timothy Green focusing on target audience

Shot type: Opening shot is a point of view shot, which tilts up to a mid-shot of a nervous couple sat at the receiving end of the desk.

This shot contains a document on a clean tidy desk and you see a pair of manicured hands touching it. The document it then shut firmly, all this connotes seriousness and a sense of professionalism, letting the audience know and understand that this is something serious. This is heightened by the fact there isn’t any non-digetic sound, silence is used to promote that seriousness. It also shows us that this is unlikely to be directed at a younger audience as they wouldn’t understand what’s going on. Especially when the dialogue comes into play and says “You couldn’t of tried harder” as the camera titles up to show the couple at the receiving end of the table in a mid-shot allowing us to see their estranged facial expressions, the fact it is a point of view shot and they are looking directly at the camera/the audience it makes us feel involved and helps evoke our emotions, making us feel slightly uncomfortable. The lighting is also quite dark and gloomy with simply their faces lit up so we are able to see their facial expressions, this all shows they are going through a hard time and things aren’t looking good or hopeful. Their clothes are also very dull and dreary making us feels as though they have no hope left in them and that they’re going through a particularly rough patch. This again revokes the idea that this is not a film for a child, but more aimed towards couples, but particularity as the dialogue continues it seems it is aimed at mostly women above the age of 25. This is something that some women have to go through, so they can find a sense of hope from this movie, it also appeals to women who have had children as it provides a sense of comfort.

Edit: The next shots are fast fades of shots to the house; these shots show the family car, the family house and the nice surrounding in which a family could be brought up.

 

This expresses to the audience the eagerness and desperateness that this couple have to become parents, the faster paced shots expressed the eagerness, but the fades help to add that softness taking away that initial sharpness of quick cuts, the fact that the shots themselves show vast fields, the big house and the car show that it’s a safe haven for them/a family, but the fact the car is driving away from the camera adds a distinct distance suggesting that there is no hope left and that they have built this life to suit what they have always wanted, a child, and yet things aren’t turning out as they have planned. This is something that would appeal to the target audience of women ages 25 and above, because this is something that they would be able to relate to, enabling them to feel comforted by this story and helping them to see things differently.

Edit: From these shots it then goes into a black out shot before there is a wide shot of them in their living room.

 Shot Type: Wide shot

This shot shows the inside of the house, the main area of the house, it is shown to be quite snug and homely; the colours are very warm although they are dark, and they come across in a friendly way. You can see the whole of both of the actors so you are able to analyse subconsciously their body language in order to understand the situation. Through their body language and dialogue you are able to see that they are having a discussion about what happened at the doctors, one is still hopeful even after what the doctor said, this is shown and enhanced through the open body language and desperation in the tone of voice, compared to the closed off body positioning of woman who has given up hope. This is again something that women aged 25+ will be able to relate to when watching this.

Editing: The next shots show another range of shots that are put together, beginning with them pouring a glass of wine and then writing on pads of paper about what their child would be like, it goes from different shots with black fades between; this is very conventional of a trailer and also makes it looks very professional.

The film gets more and more hopeful, this is shown through the distinct change in lighting, it becomes a lot lighter, they seem a lot happier, non-diegetic music gets added, it then shows them laughing with their child and so on, this is why it would appeal to woman 25+ plus, it gives them hope that they can have that too, but it also gives to comfort for people who have gone through this or know someone who has. Even though it is clear at the beginning of the trailer that the intended target audience is for women aged 25+, it then changed slightly when the little boy comes in; it feels like it is then more aimed at families as the fantasy element of the film plays into effect and the storyline becomes more unrealistic as Disney films tend to do, this is why it makes me think it is then not aimed at adults because they would prefer a story that was more realistic, because the fact it is so unrealistic diminishes the hope, however in some cases it could still work. I still think it was intended to be aimed at woman aged 25+ as I think the overall storyline could end up boring and hard to understand for a child.

The length of the trailer was 2 minutes and 7 seconds which is something I will have to think about when creating my own trailer.

Analysis of Generic Questionnaire

These are two samples of the feedback I got from the people who I handed out questionnaires to.

From the research I thought it may have been slightly biased as I was only able to get a range of women to fill out the Questionnaire, but after analyzing what I had found, I found a large range of answers.

Out of the people who filled out my questionnaire, 70% were girls aged 13-17, 20% were women aged 18-30 and then other 10% were woman aged 30+.

The third question let me know how many times people go to the cinema, this is key because it lets me know when people view films but also the trailers that happen beforehand. It was apparent that the majority of the people went once a month, and the rest said that they didn't go very often.

The most common way in which this group of people view movie trailers was my next question, this is something I felt would also be important for future reference, this enables me to understand how different age groups and people view the movie trailers. Knowing this I would be able to distribute my film in as many ways as possible, ensuring the widening of my potential target audience through the advertisements through the various media platforms. 90%+ of people said that they viewed trailers online, most people circled more than one, so a staggering 80%+ people also said they viewed trailers on their TV. Just under half of the people said that they saw these in the cinema, 5 said billboards and 2 people said posters. This didn't surprise me as I was pretty certain that the majority would see these trailers mainly online or on their TV's.

The next question was about Genre. Around 75% of people circled Action/Thriller, this surprised me as I thought that it wasn't as popular as that, especially as the majority of the class were females, it didn't surprise me as much that the teachers chose Action/Thriller as I think that although these types of filmed are aimed at men, I think it's clear there is a thirst to create a story line that women will also enjoy. 15% said that Sci-fi was there favourite, this shocked me again as I didn't really expect the girls to be interested in this genre. The others got minimal people in their groups, this did surprise me in some ways as I expected horror to be more popular.

 The last question was to simply get people thinking about this, it was apparent that the vast majority thought exactly the same things of what to expect such as weapons, fast cars, high tech systems, a chase and so on.

This information will help me at various stages throughout the rest of the time i have to create this piece.



Generic Film Trailer Questionnaire.

I decided that one of the first things I would do to find out some initial target audience research would be to create a questionnairre for general people to see what they like, generally how people view Film Trailers and so on. I'm going to hand them out to the people within my class, unfortauntely my class is predominantly females as I go to a girls school, so there are only 2 males in my glass and also that the age range will not differ tremendously. However the information will be useful.
To get my feedback i simply used a printed out sheet, however if I wanted to get a wider response from more of a range of people I could use such things as Facebook which is a social networking site to ask people about this, I could also use chat rooms and a range of other social networking sites.

 

Deconstruction as to why Film Trailers are made.

Why is the film trailer made?

I'm going to start with looking at the titles of different films and using the titles to see if I am able to determine the content/genre of the film before I have watched the trailer. This is because it will help to give me an insight into the impact of a trailer, even from the title. This will enable me to understand the importance of the title in a movie but also help me to begin to understand why film trailers are made.

First of all, I am going to look at 3 different film trailers; 

·         Identity Theft

·         Oz the Great and Powerful

·         Robot and Frank

For Identity Theft I am guessing that it would be an action/thriller/crime film, something that would include some type of secret agent and a gang who is using another persons identity that has been stolen, it makes me think that this person who had their identity stolen someone important's or rich or has something that someone wants. It would be a film trailer that makes you tense but excited and make you want to see more. It would typically have such things as documents, computering systems/software and weapons shown within it, with some fighting.

When I then watched the trailer I realised I was completely wrong and it was actually a comedy. I did recognize that it was something to do with crime from the simple words within the title; "Theft". This is a combination that doesn't get mixed very often, but from the trailer it seems very fitting to this as it is quite unrealistic in some sense, but seems to work for what they seem to be trying to achieve with this.

For Oz the Great and the Powerful I gathered instantly that it was something that was to do with The Wizard of Oz due to the word Oz and that he is supposedly great and powerful, I also have been to see a production on the West End called 'Wicked', which is about the story of the witches from The Wizard of Oz, so it looks as though it is another spin off from the famous fairy tale which shows another side to the tale, and this time it seems as though it will be focused around Oz. Knowing this, it is easy to quickly diminish most genres from your mind when you hear the title and instantly expect it to be a Disney film with a lot of affects and be aimed at families as it would be a fantasy film.

From looking at the actual trailer, I understand that I was right when I thought it was a within the genre of fantasy and loosely based around the story of Oz, in fact it was the ‘other side’ of the story. It was a family film and it did use a lot of affects such as animation within it, which is typical of Disney family films.

The title, Robot and Frank, instantly screams to me a Science-Fiction film, I instantly expect it to have high production value and that there will be a lot of use of special affects and CGI. The idea that its called the robot and Frank makes me feel as though maybe Frank is a young boy who creates a partnership with this robot and they become friends, this is simply through the use of the word 'and', it also makes me think that within their friendship, the robot is actually the leader and the one who looks after Frank, this is because the robot comes before Frank, but this also could simply show that they're equal to one another, as you would usually expect the word robot to come after Frank as he isn't a human being.

From watching the trailer, I was very surprised by the idea that this is actually a Comedy film, the story is based around an old man who gets a robot to help him out around the house as he's getting old, he hates him at first but they grow as friends and end up planning a robbery. This is not what I had expected at all, but it is sometimes that in a film which helps to break a niche and expand to different audiences. It's rare that they do this, but it's a good way to draw in as many people as possible. I felt that my story line was quite similar in some aspects as to what actually happened which shows that although the title was meant to not give much away, it was clear that there would be a steady build of an unusual relationship.

From doing this and analyzing the titles the way I did before actually seeing the trailer helped me to understand that it is very important that the title is right and gives out the right messages and signals to your chosen target audience, luring them in to watch it. However, from the Robot and Frank title, I can also see it is good to use your title in a manipulative way, drawing in as many people to your film as you can. This is something that I will have to think intensely about and use a lot of audience research to determine what they would expect from a film title, ensuring that my title complemented what was going to happen in my film.

From this I was able to understand that the idea of a trailer is designed to raise the interest of a film that is soon to be released or is already out, this is to ensure it gets the biggest and widest audience possible. Trailers, like the title of the film, give you a taste of the film, what it is about and what is to come.