Technologies We Learned to Use For "Zirgi"

How did we attract/address our audience?

Addressing And Attracting An Audience

The Perfect Audience Member To Our Film

We deduced that our film would target an audience aged 17 to 65, due to the fact that it is less action-packed and more about the intellect and deductive reasoning powers of a detective.

This audience would be predominantly male, as the (male) characters are more relatable for them than for females.  However, the young assistant could attract a female audience to the film.

To specify the thriller to a tribe would be associating it with the "rahs" and "indies".  These groups are generally more culturally aware and interested, watching more niche or foreign films than other tribes.  The background of these tribes is usually upper-middle to upper-class, people who have more time to be interested in these niche films.

Musically, our thriller appeals to people with a more classic new-era taste.  Soft rock, folk and country songs appeal to the audience.

Based solely on the fact that it is a detective/mystery thriller, the TV dramas that the target audience may be interested would be Sherlock, Breaking Bad, and The Wire.

Their classical taste, with an interest in more niche projects, means that the audience would like films such as the James Bond films, The Godfather films, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Joyeux Noel, Life is Beautiful, and Gangs New York.  Mainly historical and gangster films on the mainstream spectrum, with European independent films such as The Girl Who Played With Fire or Let The Right One In.

Some examples of films the target market might want to see in cinemas now are Lincoln, Broken City, Gangster Squad and Skyfall.  Apart from these, they may visit art house theatres such as The Electric Cinema in London.

A few hobbies/subjects that would pique the interest of these people would be reading, photography, art, museums and theatre.  Their style would be classical and aware, not trendy.

Probably professions of the target market would be professors, teachers, people involved in theatre/film, retirees, journalists, writers, law enforcement, or even students.


Here's a Facebook page of the perfect audience member to our film!

Distribution of Zirgi

In order to make the most out of our thriller, it would be best to have a platform release, if we were to choose to release in cinemas.  The cinemas would be smaller, art-house and independent theatres.

It would be ideal to release it on to DVD or other home entertainment systems that the target audience would have (Netflix, BBC iPlayer instead of Xbox, which they probably would not have) right after the cinema release, to capitalise on the word-of-mouth buzz.   It would probably only be released in the UK, as the target audience is mainly a niche British audience.

A company that would be best to distribute Zirgi is Soda Pictures.  Soda Pictures is a UK film distributor of independent, art house and world cinema.  Founded in 2002 by Edward Fletcher and Eve Gabereau, the mission of the company is a commitment to British film, while also expanding the world cinema influences in Britain.  Many of the films it distributes go on to be exhibited in film festivals around the world.  The films are all low to mid budget productions, with varying genres that stay within the niche audience market.

This company does many straight-to-DVD releases, and markets the films sparingly, relying mainly on the short films by more famous directors to draw attention to the films.  Their website includes links to a blog and features trailers and synopses on it, as well as offering free downloads of segments of the film.  This would be adequate marketing for a film with a more well-known director, but in order to have our thriller better received, our film would need to be advertised in print (newspapers, film magazines) or on Twitter and Facebook.  It would be most useful to advertise in libraries, music halls, universities and in-theatre as these are places that the target audience would be found in.

Soda Pictures have distributed films by many famous directors, such as Francis Ford Coppola, Benicio del Toro and Michael Winterbottom, but also from new, relatively unknown directors (like ourselves).

Our film should be exhibited in 2D not only because that is how it was filmed and edited, but due to the fact that our target audience is older, and used to seeing films in 2D.  Additionally, the art-house and independent cinemas of today most likely do not have the funding for 3D exhibition (glasses, formatting) and most films targeted at a niche audience are 2D.

Some films that are similar to ours that they have distributed are "Forgiveness of Blood", an Albanian film, and "Small Town Murder Songs".  "Forgiveness of Blood" is a foreign film about a 17 year old boy accused of murder and forced under house arrest, similar to ours because it is set in Eastern Europe and involves murder.  "Small Town Murder Songs" is about a detective investigating a murder case while battling with his own past, similar to ours in that it is a detective thriller.

Due to the fact that we are a small, independent film targeting a niche audience, and that we have elements of a foreign film (actors, setting) in our thriller, Soda Pictures will be interested in distributing our film!

Representation of Age, Gender, Ethnicity and Sexuality

What does "Zirgi" mean?

Our preliminary title, "Trans-Europe Express" wasn't going to make the cut because it is too general, and also our thriller is not set on a train.

So we chose Zirgi (pronounced JHZER-GEH) is the Latvian word for horse.  We wanted to keep in the theme with horses ("Bring on the dancing horses", from the murder note) and make reference to the Latvian setting.

Wild Latvian horses in Kaujas, Latvia

Conventions of Real Media Products in Our Thriller

Real Media Conventions in Zirgi