Research

 Target audience

 

For my project my target audience are young adults who have just moved out of their parents' houses and are starting to live independently so they need to learn to cook a meal for themselves. 

This would be either genders ages 18 to 25 when young adults start to become independent. 

I have made a survey to get some statistics for myself to support my target audience before I go to look at secondary sources. I made the survey on SurveyMonkey and included 5 questions which I thought would help get my answer, the last question I could have worded better I feel. 

The first question was asking their age, so I could find out the majority age of the target audience. from the results it showed they were mostly 18 - 24. The next question was to find out if they lived independently as my target audience was supposed to be young adults who had just moved into their own independent space, but from the results you can see that none of them live by themselves so my target audience would have to change. the next question was to find out if they cook for themselves which I could change my target audience to young adults who don't cook for themselves as the results show that most of them don't so a tutorial would be good for them to learn a meal to cook for themselves if they ever wanted to. The forth and final question was to find out if they watch cooking shows and tutorials and if they needed to would they I feel I could have worded them better and even combined them to get a clearer answer. The majority of people do watch cooking shows, I could have asked if they did for fun and the last question was if they needed to would they and it shows all of them would. One question I could have asked was how often they watched cooking shows/tutorials.

From all the results I got, I will have to change my target audience the age range could stay the same it could do with going up though. So I was thinking of 18 - 35 who just enjoy watching cooking shows and tutorials for fun and for people who would watch one if they needed it to follow.

Codes and conventions of cooking shows

https://vibinbeauty.wordpress.com/research/codes-conventions-of-lifestylereality-shows/

Looking specifically for codes and conventions of cooking shows is difficult, it just comes up with codes and conventions of reality TV which I guess cooking shows are. It says that reality shows are made up of real people and not actors. For mise en scene reality shows tend to have natural colours, sounds and lighting as it’s mostly real and not fiction. The music matches up with the mood of what's happening in that scene and matches the theme and purpose of the show. The way these shows are filmed is to make the viewer feel as if they were there watching it happen in person. 

Analysis of cooking shows

I am going to watch 2 or 3 cooking shows and while I watch them I am going to write down how the show is presented and the mise en scene for each show and then I will mark down how I want my show to be presented and to find out the specific codes and conventions for cooking shows. The 2 shows and one tutorial I am going to watch are James martin: home comforts, the chefs show and one of Joshua Weissman’s cooking tutorials on his channel. 

James martin: home comforts cooking show is made up of parts. He makes his own meals in his kitchen, going out to places to cook or cooking with some of his celebrity friends. I analysed a part of his show, when he was in his own kitchen making a meal. As he went along the camera showed clearly what he was doing each step and he explained clearly in each step what he was adding and doing. Throughout him preparing the meal he empathises how easy the meal is to cook and what your friends and family would think of you as a cook if you made the meal. After each part of his meal was ready he served it on a plate and the camera had a clear shot of the presentation of food, he then ate some of the food and said how good it tasted and that it’s his favourite dish. Then again at the end of the segment he said how easy and simple it was to make. I only analysed that part of the show as this is how I would like my cooking show to be presented. The mise en scene in this part of the show was natural light coming from the windows of his kitchen and some light coming from the lights in his kitchen. There wasn’t any music, just the sounds of the food cooking and such, and the voice over from him in some shots. 

The chefs show had 2 hots and at the start they were sitting down and eating and talking about the food, they talked about how it was presented and how they would make their own version. I then skipped through the episode to when they started to prepare something, they made some sort of sauce, the shot cuts to them cutting up ingredients and as they added it to the pot they named each ingredient. They then poured it into a blender and as they blended each part they spoke about their personal lives to do with cooking.  They then cut to the next segment after they finished  blending all their ingredients together. The way this show is presented isn’t really how I would like to have mine presented. This show is like an interview and cooking show and isn’t what my cooking show that I’d like to make for this project is. The lighting in this was the aural light when they were outside eating and then when they were actually making something the light was coming from the kitchen lights, they were talking and there wasn’t any music.

Joshua Weissman’s cooking tutorials: Uncle Roger's Fried Rice the tutorial starts off with him talking about what he is going to make then there is a montage of the food being prepared. He starts by explaining as he goes each part of the recipe and each step clearly and the camera has a clear shot of him doing each step as he goes. He uses voice over for most of the video, but sometimes it’s the live audio of him talking. Throughout the tutorial a couple times he has a bit of fun and jokes around. At the end once each part is done he puts them together and presents them, then the camera has a clear shot of the meal. He then tastes the food and says what he can taste in the dish and how good it tastes. This is similar to the first show I watched and how I would like mine to be presented, his tutorial is short and easy to follow. The lighting in the video is the bright natural light coming from the window and there is some music throughout the tutorial and then his voice over as well.

I would like my cooking show to be presented like the first show and the tutorial I analysed, as it’s just the chef making the food with them clearly explaining each step as they go and the camera having clear shots as the chef prepares each part of the meal. From these I will use to help build my own, the natural lighting that is in all of them gives it a warm look and as the chef goes through each step the camera has a clear shot of the action being done which is in the first and last show I reviewed.

Logos

My cooking show will need a graphics card at the start to present the name of the show, so I will have to have a look at other cooking show’s logos and titles to see how I should make mine. I will look at a few and then compare them and take what I would like to include in my one.

I looked at 4 different logos and they all seemed pretty basic and didn’t have much to them. All of them only had one or 2 colours in them and all of them seemed to have some sort of cutlery in them, the first 2 and the last one and the 3rd one had a plate in it. I would like my logo to be a bit more nicer than these and have some colour in it to make it fun. I will use the idea of including some cutlery or plates of some sort.