AS Media Studies: Evaluation - How did you attract/address your audience?

We addressed our audience by using main characters that were similar to them, so they could feel a connection to the film and feel like they were being represented on screen. To achieve this similarity, we chose to dress our characters in casual modern clothes. This helps to set the date of the thriller, whilst making the characters more like the audience. Originally we had planned to follow conventions of other thrillers (and films in general) by representing character roles through the clothes. For example, we initially planned on dressing our antagonist all in black, to symbolise that he was an evil, dark character who could not be trusted, whilst we had planned to dress one protagonist in a white dress (to make her appear innocent, fragile and vulnerable) and the other in a red dress (symbolising and fore-shadowing violence and danger). However we decided against this in the end, and chose the casual clothes as we felt this would appeal more to our young target audience, and we felt that it would also add to the creepiness of our film if everything was happening to “normal” people in an “everyday” setting. We also attracted our audience by using conventions we had seen in other thrillers. For example, we used close ups and extreme close ups which can be seen in the opening sequence of Se7en, and we used low key lighting which is seen in many thrillers like The Dark Knight Rises and Paranormal Activity, to make shots dark and mysterious. This means that if audience members are big thriller fans, or have seen these films, then they may notice the similarities to our product and the use of conventions, and think it would be something they would enjoy, allowing us to borrow their audience. Adhering to conventions will also appeal to Mainstreamers (a large portion of our target audience) as they like things that can be expected and they know they will enjoy. CUs and ECUs also help us to maintain the audience’s interest by creating enigmas, allowing the audience to see objects or characters of relevance but not revealing why they were important. Our shots introduced key characters, and suggested their roles (through the use of low or high key lighting, low, high or POV angles, casual clothing and other aspects of mise en scene such as props) but they did not give too much away, which means that the audience would want to continue watching the rest of the film to understand and figure out the enigma codes. This is what we felt was the main function of an opening sequence.