How films attract audiances

I looked at the goonies and how they used certain techniques to attract their target audience, I chose the Goonies because their genre and plot is similar to ours.

One of the main techniques that the Goonies use is the use of a different variety of characters. For example there are characters which are more dominant and take charge, for instance Mikey and Mouth. Then you have characters that are more intelligent, and are always there to solve any problems such as Data. Normally in most cases there is a character that is larger than their peers, isn't very intelligent and often gets picked on in order for the others in the group to entertain them. This is something we could need to consider when casting people to act in our film opening as a wide range of characters attracts a wider range of people, as there is a variety in personalities, which all films similar to ours use.

Another thing we will need to do to attract our main target audience, which is children and families, is to use basic language that the target audience would use in everyday life. This means that no inappropriate language should be used but maybe mild innuendos, slang should only be used if younger children would understand. This would help us attract more people from our target market as the adults/parents are the people who are going to take their kids to see the films; therefore if we use language that is inappropriate for younger kids, the parents will not want to watch the whole film as it is inappropriate for their children.

we also need to consider when making our film opening is to make it as realistic as possible, meaning only using things that younger kids would use, for example bikes, and only use situations which kids would be able to understand or are likely to be in. This would make more children enjoy the film and let them imagine and recreate those situations after the film,  if there was an unrealistic scenario being played the children may be confused and not enjoy the film as much.

Another thing we are doing to make sure we attract a British audience is using British actors. There are some characters being played by big name American actors/actresses such as Eva Mendes; however some are being played by big name British actors such as Hugh Laurie. This will attract more of a British audience to the film as Hugh Laurie is a very established actor in the UK and America, therefore he will attract a wide range of British audiences to the film.

depending on what genre and target audience the film openings are targeted for, audience theories have to be taken into account. for instance if a film was targeted for the male gender then the film could use the male gaze theory to really in engage the males into the film, by doing this the male audience will enjoy the film a lot more.