Evaluation Questions- Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audience we used a young teenager girl as the victim. This attracts a teenage audience as teenagers girl will feel like they can relate to the film. We have addressed them because it will raise their awareness of what actually does occur in the real and to teach them to be safe.

It would also attract younger people in general as it involves a murderer. They would like it as younger people tend to like the adrenaline rush you get from watching a frightening, action-packed film. Also they like to feel on the edge of their seats. Also its based on typical teenage activities like drinking, smoking ect so younger adults/teenagers might be interested in watching it as they can relate to the activities as well as raise awareness to the consequences of taking part or even just being around or associated with these activities.

Our opening scene attracts people who like thriller films as we show typical thriller conventions. For example, like many other thrillers such as The Call and The Lovely Bones, we have used a teenage girl as the victim and a middle aged, quite scary looking male as the antagonist. Other thriller conventions we have used are extreme close ups. These are typical of thriller genres because it emphasises on the characters facial expressions and emotions, helping to tell the story. Furthermore we have used ambient sounds such as heavy breathing and heartbeats because it makes the audience feel on edge and tense. An audience watching our opening scene would realise its a thriller from these conventions and would hopefully want to watch the whole film.

In our opening scene we do not reveal too much information to the audience due to using a cyclic structure where the end is at the start. The scene is in the prison of the girl briefly describing what happened to her. They will figure out that the girl has been attacked and raped and that the male is the one that has done it from him being in handcuffs and from his scary look but they won't know how it happened, where it happened or any other parts of the story that lead up to the rape. I think this will attract the audience as it will keep them interested and wanting to know what happened.

All audiences consume media texts to gratify certain needs as outlined in the uses of gratification theory Blumler and Katz. People may watch our film to gratify needs such as surveillance. Surveillance is when people use the media to find out information about what is going on around us. People may watch our film to become aware of the activities teenagers engage in and the consequences of these actions. Also they may watch it to learn about horrific acts that do actually occur in real life, for example rape, and how to prevent these acts from happening and stay safe. Another need the audience may want to gratify is integration and social interaction. This includes gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy. The audience may watch our film to gain an insight of the circumstance of the victim who had terrible acts inflicted on her and empathise her. Also they may want to gain an insight of the circumstance of the victim's friends who are looking for their lost friend and feeling very guilty about causing her to leave them and have this happen to her.