Target Audience

The ideal target audience for our film will be people aged from 15 and up and will be for both genders. This is because we are making a movie with an age rating of 15+, which has all the typical thriller aspects you would find in the genre, but is however also comical and humorous. Our film is appropriate for the following audience as it is will not contain any violent aspects or strong language at all, however we are aiming to make a movie that is great for teenagers, as well as being entertaining for adults to. This is why we will include occasional references and themes that the older population will find fun, and will therefore watch the movie. We have also looked into the age ratings of similar films to that of what we are hoping to produce ourselves. These movies include Silence of the Hams (15) and High Anxiety (15). We also discovered that there are some PG thriller parodies out there like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and The Cheap Detective, which helps us as we want to examine a range of different movies of the same genre. This also proves the fact that a parody film can be produced without bad language etc. Since our film will have a small budget, it will be more than likely shown in art house/independent theaters rather than mainstream theaters. This means that we will need our film to target and capture the attention of fans of these types of theaters, the nearest ones being the ArtHouse Crouch End in London and the Ritzy in Brixton. The most popular however is the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, which tends to attract the largest population of cinema goers in the west end. We were also thinking about placing our movie in various film festivals, such as the Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House, as it is a great way to establish your film and create an audience for it. It also helps the directors/screenwriters of a film etc to become recognized. Examples of festival movies include Patti Cake$ and Moonlight.

Comprehensive Analysis Of Genre

We have chosen to create a parody of the mystery/ detective genre. So the following will be an analysis of the parody genre as a whole. A parody is 'an imitation of a style of a particular writer, artist or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comedic effect. Parody films and their components are often defined by their sub genre- meaning that if it's a parody of a horror film (E.g Scary Movie) it will utilize the conventions of a straight horror film such as dark lighting and themes, sudden shocks and other common conventions or cliches of the genre and tip them on their head in order to create a comedic situation.

Parodies will often parody famous or iconic scenes from the film or genre they are parodying: an example of this would be "High Anxiety" which parodies famous scenes from Hitchcock movies without resorting to directly copying them.

The characters in parody films will often be based on common archetypes or popular characters from their respective sub-genres.

The props in parody movies will usually subvert the cliches of the movies they are parodying by turning serious props like a gun into something absurd like a banana.

Initial Ideas

The movie starts out with the audience being introduced to the main character of the film Gordon Harvey. He is a down on his luck P.I. and not a good one at that. Desperate to pay his alimony cheques, he accepts a job from a local mob boss following a man suspected of stealing money from him. During this process, he makes a number of mistakes and almost has his cover blown twice. However, as the film progresses, the investigator finds nothing and is forced to resort to planting some evidence of his own.

The type of trailer we are attempting to create is a parody of the noir detective genre and we will most probably use the same codes and conventions as the other films in this genre.

Detective Parody Film Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HS2T5BS

Above is the link to our detective parody survey. I have begun collecting responses by sending the link to my friends and family as well as posting the link on various social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as various online forums with an interest in media.

The questions I have asked should help us to understand more about what the audience appreciates when it comes to parody films and other important information about the consumption of films in our genre.

Once I have collected a wide range of answers I will analyse them and use them to determine certain features of my film and the methods of it's release.

Poster Analysis

One of the posters I have chosen to analyse is the Baby Driver poster which was released in early 2017:

This poster uses pink, which connotes love, as its main color- this could suggest that 'love' is a main theme of the film and perhaps some of the plot revolves around the main character being in love. Another color used on the poster is red, which connotes anger and violence- as seen on  Jamie Foxx's jacket- there is also tattoo of a gun on his hand which suggests that he is a violent and dangerous character and this helps solidify violence as a main theme of the film.   A Muscle Car is also seen racing away from the police across the highway into the distance:  this could suggest that another theme of the film is 'escape'- perhaps from criminal life or from regular life as shown by the contrast between the casually dressed Angel Elgort and Lily James who is dressed as a waitress when compared to John Hamm's character who is shown next to them aiming a assault rifle. These two used in contrast suggests that conflict is another main theme of the film- perhaps between the characters criminal lives and their regular lives.

The road is in the centre of the poster, attracting the audience's attention to the police chase taking place on it: this frames the importance of the car chases in the film and tells the audience that this is a film about a getaway driver.  This also tells us that us that crime is one of the main themes of the film.  The cast shown in a montage shows the audience who is in the film and gives the audience an idea about the characters - this montage also hints at major plot points in the film, such as the the ear buds that the most prominently displayed character 'Baby' (Ansel Elgort) has an interest in music. Kevin Spacy's character is shown wearing a suit which, in comparison to the more casual or tactical military outfits the other characters are shown wearing, could imply that he is in a position of power above the group.

The film prominently displays the names of the cast and the director. Edgar Wright is a very well known director who has made hit comedies in the past, his name will attract fans of his previous films such as Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead to see his new film. Kevin Spacy, Jamie Foxx and John Hamm are also very well known actors whose name recognition should help attract fans of their films to this new movie. The font that 'Baby Driver' is written in is very similar to the writings on American road signs which further suggests the importance of the driving aspect of the film.