task 2 My Movie

Pitch Perfect 2

If people were to watch pitch perfect 2 it is easy for you to understand the film without watching the first one. The storyline is different and parts of the last film are explained in this film along wit this some of the characters have left and new ones have replaced them but you don’t get as much of an incite to the existing characters from this film as you do in the second. There is a scene in Pitch Perfect 2 where a main character from the first film comes back however she isn’t explained as to who she is, this could leave viewers confused and wonder if she is a vital character in the film.

The film is a sequel for "Pitch Perfect" which got extremely good reviews and was very popular in 2012 when it came out and made $65,001,093 in the box office which means many viewers who enjoyed or heard good feedback for the first film will probably go to see the second one to see if they think it is as good. Another thing that will make people go and watch the film are the characters, one of the main characters "Fat Amy" played by Rebel Wilson was in the 2011 film bridesmaids, a film that also did very well in the box office and had many good reviews and she has also won 5 awards for her performance in the first pitch perfect film through 2012 to 2013. Along with Rebel Wilson there are other well known actors/actresses for example Brittany Snow from the 2007 musical "Hairspray" and the 2006 film "John Tucker must die" and aside from well known actresses Ester Dean. An American singer, songwriter rapper and record producer also features as one of the main characters in these films. 

The genre for this film is a music comedy; the film pitch perfect 2 is about a girls accapella group competing in a worldwide competition along with other accapella groups from around the globe. Although they don't break into songs that explain the storyline like "Hairspray" and "Oliver" do, the film instead have the singers perform on stage or in a singing battle when they want a song sang in the film which some people prefer as it is more real. The film is filled with jokes and humour and even minor darkness in the film is laughable due to the way its portrayed, fans of comedy or films containing music could easily find this film when looking for these 2 popular genres.  

A fandom is a community that surround a TV show, film, book etc. I am a fan of this film, I recently watched it in the cinema and found it side splittingly funny with a really good storyline. Fans have made this film well known on social media and when you search "Pitch Perfect 2' into twitter there are thousands of great reviews, screenshots of the film and links to the trailer. The Pitch Perfect 2 twitter page has approximately 268000 followers and their Facebook page has 61,468 likes and both pages have got stars of the film along with universal pictures to advertise the film on their pages too. The target audience for this film are teenagers which is also the most popular age of frequent social media users which helps to reach out to their target audience easily as if they had advertised it in a news paper that was aimed to older people the younger audience wouldn't be as aware of the film. 

When I watch a film I like to pay close attention and make sure that I understand the plot. This makes me an active viewer and shows that if I was to watch a film I like to sit down and enjoy it by watching it in full. Passive viewers are people that dip in and out of watching a film or put films on to use them as background noise when they are doing other things. After watching a film once as an active viewer and understanding it, I will sometimes watch it as a passive viewer but not if I haven't seen the film yet. 

Most of the reviews for this film have been positive however their are 3 types of readings; preferred, negotiated and oppositional. A preferred reading means that you respond to the film in the way that the producers/ directors would have wanted you to and that you have nothing bad to say about the film, a negotiated reading is when you have both positive and negative views on the film for example you may not have liked the music in the film however thought that the comedy was brilliant, finally oppositional reading is when you haven't enjoyed the film and don't have much if anything good to say about the film. Views can be swayed by opinion leaders such as film critics or news paper reviews telling people that the film is or isn’t worth watching, this then makes the reader believe them and think if the opinion leader said the film is rubbish that means that its rubbish, this is the 2 step flow theory. Personally I had a preferred reading on the film, I thought that the jokes through the film were hilarious, the cast all gave a great performance and I enjoyed the popular song choices, another thing that I liked about the song choices is that they sang songs from the late 90's early 00's which are all songs the target audience probably grew up with letting the audience join in and bring back some of their old favourite songs. I have however read a few negative reviews for this film saying that some song choices are dated, the storyline was predictable and that some jokes were for an older audience rather than the teenage target audience the film reaches for. I disagree and personally prefer Pitch Perfect 2 to the first film.

I watched this film in the cinema as I find it to be a better atmosphere and the quality is always better. I have however since watched it on a stream which I connected to my TV and watched it with my family at home. I didn't enjoy it as much due to the picture not being perfect and the sound being slightly out of sync however I still enjoyed the film and my family found the jokes, music and storyline just as good as they would have in the cinema the only difference was quality. Most good reviews come from people who watched the film in good quality as poor quality streams and downloads can change a persons opinion of a film all together although its not the films fault. 

Task 1 - bums on seats

The film I have chosen to talk about is Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a chick flick about a girl that has moved to America to join public school, she mixes with the wrong crowd and finds herself getting into a lot of trouble. The director of this film is Mark Waters, before directing Mean Girls (2004). Mark Waters also directed the film Freaky Friday in 2003, which was another big selling chick flick both aimed at pre teens, teenagers and young adults particularly female. The film freaky Friday did extremely well which could easily draw in fans of the directors work.

I used YouGov to try and find out a little bit more about the demographics and the psychographics. The social grade of people that watch mean girls is around C2, D and E, this means that most of the people that enjoy mean girls are skilled manual workers, semi skilled and unskilled manual workers and unemployed people. This is probably linked to the fact that the target audience are most likely still in school or college and therefore don’t have a job or if they do it is just an easy weekend job. Majority of C1’s to A social class do not enjoy this film. This could be because of the mild bad language, poorly behaved characters and the excessive drinking at high school parties.  

I researched into what the average fan of this film is like, one of the general interests of a Mean Girls fan is are celebrities, there are some big names in the film such as Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Seyfried this could have drawn in viewers as these are big names in the celebrity world drawing in fans of these actresses who are both very well known for being in films that match the genre of Mean Girls. Other general interests include sex and relationships, fashion and cosmetics and beauty. All of these things are very stereotypical to a female audience and the fans of the chick flick film genre, which would explain how they all come into the film for example throughout the film the main character falls for her friends boyfriend, they also show a mild sex scene and make some mild sex references. Beauty and fashion is an icon throughout the film and it tells the audience that in the school all of the students are categorised by how they look and mean comments are made about different peoples fashion choices throughout the film.

There is a website for Mean Girls however on entry to the website you must provide your age because they are holding a competition to win merchandise and to win $1000 therefore you must be 18 for legal reasons. If you can access the website you will see this; 

As you can see the main colour on this website is pink which the main colour associated with the film, the website shows the main characters and a lot of glittery pink buttons.

All of these things would appeal to the general target audience however with the age check on entrance to the site most of the films audience cannot access the website. As you can see below there is a pink banner that has four links so that you can go and purchase the film, they also have a separate banner to access all of there social media such as their Facebook page which has over 4.7 million page likes.

Facebook was not made a big thing until 2006 therefore it wasn’t used to market the film; instead they used things such as posters and movie trailers and the more basic ways of advertising. If Facebook was well known when this film came out it would have been very beneficial for the film as most of the people who access Facebook frequently are the same age as the target audience for the film. Although the page is still popular it would have been good to use to promote the film to the younger audience.

Along the top of the poster you can see some of the main stars names such as Lindsay Lohan who has worked on previous chick flicks meaning that fans of her work will be drawn in to watch it. She is also part of the main person in the poster and clearest person in it as she is stood separately to the other characters and is split from them by the vertical title and billing block.

The font is bolder on the word mean to show tat the film will contain people being nasty to others and creating drama drawing in the audience and the bold writing is attention grabbing.

The release date is clear on the poster and the actual date is written in bold writing making the audience draw their eyes to the release date.

The 3 girls on the right all have very similar fashion sense, all of the girls are wearing pink tight clothes with very short skirts and kitten heels with perfectly done hair and although their makeup is natural they all look like they have put the effort in showing that they focus a lot on their presentation and look unlike the girl on the left who is wearing jeans, a vest top and simple flats showing that she is different from the others.