Evaluation question five for my media project - How did you attract/address your audience?

1. Evaluation question five –
How did you attract/address your
audience?
Emma Irwin

2. Research into audiences for other
thriller films
• We did research into the different
audiences for different films. Because our
film is a thriller, we did research into
other thriller films that were very much
like ours. For instance, our film is like
‘Secret window,’ and ‘Black swan.’ We
thought this as they are both about the
protagonist going crazy and think that
they are seeing things. Our film is very
similar as the protagonist in ours thinks
she keeps on seeing a dead nurse and her
dead boyfriend everywhere. We included
the iconography of thriller films such as
blood to help the audience understand
what genre our film is.

3. Secret window
• The certificate for ‘Secret window’
is a 12. We looked on the BBFC
website about what makes a film
a 12 certificate. We thought that
having a 12 certificate film would
allow the audience to be a wider
range of people. Because ‘Secret
window’ is a popular film, we
thought that taking ideas from it –
such as the typography on the
title sequence would help the
audience be able to link our film
to it and begin to understand the
genre of our film.

4. Black swan
• ‘Black swan’ is a 15 certificate. We thought that making
our film a 15 would minimise the target audience. We
researched into the tension used in ‘Black swan,’ and
the music in it to build the scene to a climax. Impact
cuts were used to scare the audience. This is a
convention of a thriller genre and would still be able to
be put in a 12, so we used the idea. As well as this, the
lighting in the film was dark in places to foreshadow
that something bad will happen. We liked the idea of
this for the memory scene as it also juxtaposed what
was happening and added to the mise-en-scene. And
also in her bedroom because it created a grim mood to
the film.

5. Have you reached your target
audience?
• We did research into the BBFC website to understand what conventions of a 12 certificate we
would need to use to attract the target audience. We also linked our film to other well known
thriller films to gage the audience’s attention. When we released the plot to our film, we
released a questionnaire to ask the audience some questions about what they thought our
film would be like and what we should include. We asked our target audience and also other
people who might want to see our film what they would like to see. We took the advice from
the questionnaires and thought about the sounds and editing we should use in our product.
As you can see, there is a wide variety of ages from 15 – 30. This was very helpful to us as it
was beneficial in helping us understand what they were all expecting to see from different
perspectives. From the advice we were given back, we had a wider understanding of what
would appeal more to our audience.

6. What did we take from the audience
feedback?
We used the idea of fast paced editing including
impact cuts at the end of our product. We agreed
with what the audience said as it helped build the
tension of the film and finally build to the climax.
We thought using the editing techniques that the
audience thought were appealing for our
particular genre would be a benefit as they
would understand what genre our film would be.
We also asked the audience about what sound and music should be featured in
our film. The main theme was dramatic or something to build tension. We
agreed with what the audience said. As well as this, we researched into films
such as ‘Psycho’ which has very iconic thriller music to build up the tension. We
needed eerie music to build the tension and dramatic sounds and music for
impact cuts. We included a heartbeat sound effect that was part of the
iconography for a thriller genre to make the audience feel closer and more
connected to the protagonist.

7. Second audience questionnaire
After we had completely finished our film and uploaded it to YouTube, we shared it on social media sites such as
Facebook to allow more people to watch it and also to get feedback from a variety of different audiences. We asked them
about what had been successful and what improvements we could include to make our thriller better and more
enjoyable. Again there was a range of different people’s feedback all from different ages from 12 – 18.

8. Audience feedback for finished
product
• In the first lot of feedback we got, one of the
improvements was to make the story line easier to
understand. We took the advice and from our second lot
of results we got all YES for the question ‘do you think
our story line is easy to follow?’ This shows our
improvement. Overall, I think that our film was successful
and reached the audience’s expectations.
From the questionnaire, the audience clearly understood what
genre our film was. We used the iconography for a thriller film and
also used fast paced editing to add to the mise-en-scene. According
to the audience about what went well, they said it was easy to
follow, made sense, there weren’t too many characters to
concentrate on and the sound in it helped give the product a good
thriller effect. Overall, we took the feedback from our first
questionnaire and used it to make our film look scarier and more of
a thriller.

9. What was less successful about our
film?
• There were also some improvements that the
viewers suggested. Some of these suggestions
were to explain the nurse’s part more in the
film, include some more sound effects to build
tension and to possibly shoot some scenes at
night to create a better scary atmosphere. I
think that these are all reasonable
improvements, and if our film was continued
further, we would definitely aim to incorporate
the ideas and improvements into our product.
Other than that, I believe that our film was
successful and met the target audience’s
expectations – considering it was only an
independent film.