I’ve spent the majority of my free time looking through the film openings from Mrs. Stoklosa’s class from the last two years. One thing I noticed after looking through about half of them is that nobody really did a lighthearted film. Many of them are dark thrillers or super-serious dramas, and I’m not sure that’s something I want to bandwagon on.
From the beginning, I thought doing a comedy would be a lot of fun. The thing is, I don’t really consider myself a comedian, and I’m worried that once I start scripting, it’s going to be extremely difficult for me to write creative content that will amuse people and make them want to keep watching; however, I figure I can solve that with having multiple people just read through my stuff to make sure it’s not too terribly cringe-worthy.
I’m not necessarily against creating a drama, and if comedy doesn’t work out for me, I’ll probably default to a drama, since they’re very similar to create, and one doesn’t require my incredible(ly bad) sense of humor. I really want to put myself up to the challenge of creating a comedy because, from what I’ve watched, it’s not commonly done and I feel I’m better suited for it, and again, I never wanted to create something dark in the first place!
I had an idea to do a coming-of-age film, since I’m at a time in my life where everything is about to change - I’m 3/4ths done with my senior year and I’ll be going to UCF in June so I think that doing a classic high school dramedy film would be best suited for me. It’s something that’s in my comfort zone plot-wise, but not-so in my comfort zone when it comes to the genre. Or even making the film at all, really.
In realizing I wanted to do a coming-of-age film, I looked into two kinds - one (the Perks of Being a Wallflower) is the kind of high school film I want to create, but not so incredibly serious; the other (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) is an incredible film for comedy, but it’s not an extreme I want to go with. I’m thinking if I can combine the two in my plot, I’ll have the film I want - the simplistic, yet realistic view of high school that the prior portrays, but also the lighthearted, feel-good comedy the latter has.
Looking into target audience, I went as far as to search “comedy film target audience” in Google. (Yes, I am that pathetic.) I obviously didn’t find anything on the first page of Google that would answer my question, I did find a really interesting website that instructs you on how to construct your target audience. So it made me think, who do I want to reach with my film? Since it’s coming-of-age, it only makes sense that I target teenagers, and even a little younger, because I know when I was a kid, high school seemed like the PLACE to BE. (I quickly realized I was mistaken.) From the moment I started considering my plot, I knew I wanted a girl to play the lead role. This also makes it easier on me because if I need to, I can act in my film as well. So, to conclude, I don’t really have a set-in-stone target audience yet, but it’s safe to assume it will be somewhere close to 12-18 year old middle-class girls and boys.
As fun as this research has been, I have to say I really enjoy blogging. This may or may not become my favorite part of the project.
Until next time
Corina
Brubaker, J. (2016, July 19). How To Uncover the Proper Target Audience For Your Film. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.filmmakingstuff.com/define-your-movies-target-audience/
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