Evaluation question 5

How did you attract/address your audiences?

Audience testing❖ Throughout our research we

carried out several audience tests. Using our research we found our target audience and people who fit into our target audience and asked them their opinions on specific aspects of our film throughout the production process. We asked them questions on the narrative, typography and our rough draft. And took their ideas into account when changing elements or carrying on with the process. We found this to be an important process and we have a direct link with our target audience and it allowed us to edit our film to suit our target audience.

Our target audience ❖ Our target audience is males aged 18-

25 and secondarily females aged 18-25 we found the pleasures men got were the intense, suspense moments where as women like to try and unravel a plot, these are known as intellectual puzzles. We found our film catered to both these needs.

❖ For the males we included a tense following scene with tense music, faster cuts and a mysterious antagonist.

❖ The true intentions of the antagonist are not revealed until the end and the planning board implies that something is to be planned and the audience have to work out what that plan is.

Audience pleasures ❖ We found our film to have two main audience

pleasures, these being visceral and Intellectual puzzles. The audience for the horror and thriller genre conventionally enjoy visceral pleasures as well as intellectual puzzles, the jump scares and unsettling nature of these films challenge audiences, which then enjoy which is why they are fans of the genre.

❖ Visceral pleasures are the physical effects a viewers receives whilst watching a film, e.g. a jump scare or a laugh. We tried to include a jump scare to add a visceral pleasure as this appeals to the audience. This jump scare comes 2 seconds before the final title and shows a CU POV shot of the antagonist throwing a blanket over the protagonists head, during several viewing of our opening we discovered that some viewers “jumped”at this part of the opening. Proving that we succeeded in our attempt to create a visceral pleasure.

❖ An intellectual puzzle was a harder pleasure to create for are audience, as we only had a two minute opening, the intentions of the antagonist is not fully clear, and several viewers attempted to guess what was the purpose of the planning board.

Characters

❖ Both our characters were aged between 16-19 meaning they are relatable to the target audience according to our research. The protagonists costume is very generic for a girl of that age therefor she is easily relatable for the secondary target audience. Despite being all black the antagonists costume of jeans, hoodie and trainers is relatable to the primary audience. No costumes had to be specially purchased or made for this opening meaning that they are even more relatable to the target audience.

Location

❖ Most crime thrillers are located in a city, or built up area. We subverted this and filmed in a small, rural village. Which may not be as relatable for some audiences, however for more rural and local viewers is more relatable.

Narrative❖ The dual narrative of our film

appeals to our audience, the audience will be trying to figure out who the antagonist is? what is he doing? and what is his motive? This is an intellectual puzzle which horror/thriller audiences expect and enjoy. The audience expect certain elements from this genre, e.g. jumps, fear, violence. We feel that are opening set’s up a film where audiences can expect this later on.

❖ One example of this is Silence of the lambs (1951) where audiences are put on the edge as there a many tense scenes, as well as trying to figure out the motives of both killers.

Conclusion

❖ To conclude, we attracted and addressed our target audience by consulting with them throughout our production and research stage, furthermore we used relatable characters, locations and costumes; And created a realistic narrative in which they can relate with. We used our target audiences desires, using our research (Tension, suspense) and included these within our film opening.