extended question

To what extent was the intended audience a major factor in the creation of your A2 Advanced Production Portfolio?

To determine my programme as a product, i had to decide a target audience in which i could focus on. For tigerlily, i wanted to focus on children around the age of 5, as i know children who live near me that i could question about what they liked to watch. For my very first part of audience research, i interviewed my two neighbours, who were around the age of 5, and asked them what their favourite shows are, and why they liked them. Because of their young ages, i found the answers basic and not overly helpful, yet i could take some of what they said and apply it.

To get a more mature and thorough research, i wanted to go for an older age group. I went for people my age, so teens around the 17/18 year old mark. Despite the fact the people i interviewed were alot older than the target audience, it wasnt that long ago that they were watching childrens television, so their vivid memories of what they used to like to watch really helped out. I did this type of research on favourite programmes as well as on theme tunes, where i got people to sing or hum theme tunes from different kids programmes which was a fun and informative way to deliver the research.

I had to keep in mind the whole time throughout filming that the target age was for young children and that there would be some things that wouldnt be appropriate. For example, each episode of tigerlily contains a moral message, which is perfect for children around the age of 5, when they are extremely impressionable and influenced by what they see. I also in the episode kept the language simple so that they could understand what was being said.

The mise en scene in the feature also in my opinion reflected the age group. The colours used are simple and bold, and the props and things featured in the background are everyday items.

For the theme tune, i did extensive research on others from other popular programmes, and what i found, i applied to mine. Things like a constant beat, a catchy tune and easily memorable lyrics all came up, because i learnt that part of being a successful theme tune is the fact that kids can sing along if they want to, and if they hear it, they can immediately recognise it.

After finishing my project, i played the video to my class and got their feedback. This allowed me to see people who have a genuine interest in media to show their opinions as they were familiar with the techniques i used and what i was trying to achieve. The main thing that i got out of doing that was i was able to see that it was a good piece of work, because before i was genuinely negative about it, but after seeing other people's opinions and their positive and some negative feedback i was able to see that the show was appropriate for my age group.

From doing the programme i learnt that your target audience is not always the appropriate audience that you have to use for your feedback. Asking young children technical questions, which were the questions i wanted to ask was a struggle as they didnt fully understand, so going up a few age groups enabled me to have full coherent answers and let me work with the knowledge of what people wanted.