Evaluation - Attract/Address Audience

How did you attract/address your audience?

For my film opening, I attracted the audience mainly in person, by telling them about the film. Although this is small scale, it still made my film opening have some attention. I did not really attract the typical audience enough, for the opening, as I was mainly focused on making the product, due to me working on my own. I would have made more use of social media to promote the opening and to get audience feedback for the film. I would have also made more polls, and would have added teaser content to the main Facebook page. Also things like film posters and trailers would have attracted the audience, due to them being excited to see the full release of the film.

To address my audience, I used lots of different media theories and techniques so the viewer could relate to the protagonist and the characters. The characters have certain representations which the viewer can relate to as they identify with the character (Uses and Gratifications Theory) Also The viewer can then use this as a social interaction with friends to talk about meaning this will attract more people within that audience. As people spread the word about the film.

When filming and editing, I tried to hint to the viewer that something about to go wrong, before the characters know about it. I have done this by showing the cabin before the characters see it, made the footage more blue, to apply to those horror colour conventions, added non-dietetic music to make the viewer get into the horror mood and to connote that something bad is going to happen. This gives the viewer a privileged point of view, meaning the see things before the characters do. The narrative and the technical aspects of the film encourage you to empathise with the protagonist and the characters because they are in such a state.

The film opening addresses the audience due to it relating to typical horror genre conventions. This then keeps the viewer interested in the film making them spread the word around about the film. The film also contains typical narrative enigma codes. These questions could be: Why is the cabin haunted? Who smashed up the cabin? What are they going to do, due to them being far away from civilisation. All these questions that the viewer can think about when watching the opening can make them want to carry on watching the rest of the film, therefore successfully attracting the audience. The film also contains specific horror ambient music and sound effects, therefore applying to these typical genre conventions, these sounds then help lead the viewer to believe that something is going to go wrong, which is what actually happens in the opening. Also I have made sure there are plenty horror genre signifiers in the film to also attract the right audience, meaning that the film would get watched. Successful films in the film industry have typical conventions, signifiers, which attracts the correct audience meaning, they would enjoy the film, and tell their friends, creating more potential revenue. This is part of the Uses and Gratifications theory, which tells us why people watch films, due to social interaction.

Overall this could be an aspect that I could improve if I had more time or did another film. To have an active audience is key, especially in the mainstream film industry, so the film can get in to cinema. This means attracting the attention of a distributor. The power of social media can help to promote a film, due to digitisation and most people having access to it.