The main purpose of focus group research is to draw upon respondent's attitudes, feelings, beliefs, experiences and reactions. The people in a focus group should be people who represent the intended target audience for the product.
They are used in the media industry in a way which would not feasible using other methods, for example observation, one-to-one interviewing, or questionnaires surveys.
UK release date: 10/02/2012 Writers: Susan Hill (novel), Jane Goldman (screenplay) Director: James Watkins Country: UK, Canada and USA Language: English Distributor: CBS Filming Location: England
Production
The finance for the film came from the production companies:
Hammer Film Productions
Alliance Films
UK Film Council
Cross Creek Pictures
Talisman Productions
Exclusive Media Group
Film i Väst
Filmgate
The UK Film Council have produced lots of succesful British films such as the King's Speech, Iron Lady and This is England. Hammer Film Productions have produced many other horror films such as 'Let Me In'. Alliance Films have produced a variety of horror and comedy films but most of them have been British, e.g. Dorian Gray and Lesbian Vampire Killers.
Budget The budget was $13 million. In the opening weekend the film took an estimated $21 million, making it one of the top 2 films in North America, along with Chronicle. It was announced on the 19th February that the film has grossed $46,404,794 so far, but it is still showing.
Cast and Crew:
The main character is Daniel Radcliffe, who is an extremely famous actor, who has starred in all 8 of the Harry Potter films. The fact that Harry Potter has such a huge fan base was used by Woman in Black advertisers, trailers for Woman in Black were shown before the screening of the last Harry Potter film.
The director, James Watkins, has directed a few other films, all of them are horror or thriller and all of them British e.g. 'Eden Lake' and 'The Descent'.
Distribution
The distribution company for this film in America is CBS. There are an American based company that were founded in 2007. They haven't distributed that many films yet but some examples of what they have distributed are 'Beastly' and 'The Back Up Plan'. Their budget for Woman in Black was part of the overall budget which was $13 million. The distribution company for this film in the UK is Momentum Pictures
Marketing
Many different marketing techniques were used when advertising Woman in Black. On 10 April 2011, during the Kapow! Comic Con in London, the first official teaser trailer was unveiled. Another trailer of the film was attached to some showings of the last Harry Potter film in July 2011, and a brand new worldwide teaser, depicting more footage from the movie, was released on 17 August 2011.The official UK teaser poster was released on 24 August 2011.The full UK trailer was released on 14 October 2011. CBS Films released a one minute teaser at Spike Tv's Scream Awards on 18 October 2011, and a day later released a teaser poster.On 11 January 2012, Momentum Pictures released the official theatrical poster,while on 12 January, MTV released a minute clip of the film. There were also a couple of 'behind the scenes' videos. Daniel Radcliffe has been heavily involved in the marketing of the film, making countless TV and radio appearances. One thing that he did which was a different but effective way of marketing was readings from the original book. There is also a Facebook and Twitter page. This is also an effective way of marketing because the target audience is young people who are the main users of these sites.
Exchange The film is being screened in the UK, Canada and America. Even though this is a British film, it was released in the USA and Canada first, a week before it was released here. This is most likely because CBS, the distributors are American. The target audience for this film is young people under the age of 25. This is why the certificate is a 12A so it is more accesible for younger viewers and is less restricted. When I went to see the film there was a very wide variety of age groups in the cinema. Statistics say that 57% of the audience were younger than 25. 59% of the audience were female.
What makes this a British Film? This is a UK film because it is based on a British book, the actors are British, it is filmed and set in England and the production companies are British.