Writing Homework Help

Instructions:

Throughout the quarter much reference has been made to “the audience,” from writers and directors to producers and executives to media scholars to instructors and students in this course. This week’s readings all deal in some way with the many ways marketers, distributors and exhibitors conceive of “the audience”—via market research and marketing campaigns that measure audiences and attempt to push or pull them toward content, and distribution and exhibition strategies (which films to distribute, where, to whom). Yet even for market researchers, “the audience” is still an imaginary, and the imagined audience for a film may be quite different from the real audience that show up on opening weekend. Please consider this imaginary of “the audience” in answering one of the following prompts:

1.) Blockbusters and Broad Audiences – Based on the top 20 films from in the linked list of top grossing films of 2019 (Links to an external site.), what conclusions can you draw about the imaginary “broad audience” that blockbusters like the ones on this list aim to reach? Consider the following questions (it may not be possible to answer all in detail in a single comment, but your discussion should speak to some of them):

• Are studios truly seeking to appeal to everyone in the world equally, or are certain ages, genders, places, and interests more important than others? Does this list of films seem like it really is for everyone, or are some audiences being ignored in favor of others?
• Do you feel like these sorts of films are made and marketed with you in mind (or with your parents, your culture, your location)?
• Finally, how might all of this theorizing about the imagined audience and its likes or dislikes shape the films themselves in terms of which films are made/not made, which subjects, POVs, and issues they depict?

2.) Indies and Niche Audiences. Independent films typically don’t have massive production or marketing budgets and are therefore freer to focus on more specific, personal stories for a narrower slice of “the audience” than, for example, a Thor Ragnarok or a Toy Story. However, even with these sorts of deep, textured, niche-oriented films, it is necessary to imagine the audience in order to use limited marketing funds strategically. For this prompt, consider yourself as a “real” audience member via the following questions (it may not be possible to answer all in detail in a single comment, but your discussion should speak to some of them):

• Does your movie taste reflect your basic marketing demographic (always: age, gender; sometimes also include race, income, education level)?
• What other aspects of your personality, background, interests and experiences come into play when you are deciding which films to see?
• Based solely on your own experience, is targeting audiences based on basic demographic data (again, gender, age, etc.) the best way to reach them? If not, can you suggest an alternative strategy (ie what interests, experiences, etc. might marketers play to instead)?