Who would be the audience for your media product?& How did

you attract/address your audience?

By Jamie Beadle.

Target Audience.

We would aim to attract mid to late teenagers through to late forties both male and female, historically it has been more targeted to males rather then females however. As we know from our research that most teenagers and adults even older then late forties use social media sites we would aim to advertise out film on there, this would help promote the film at minimal cost and would also help get it noticed. We could do this by creating a fan page on Facebook and sharing links on Facebook as well as other social media sites like twitter and Instagram. We could also put a trailer up on YouTube as well as sneak previews, images etc. to keep viewers interested. This would allow us to expand our audience at minimal cost.

How we attracted our audience using codes and conventions and theories.

• We used both theories and codes and conventions when attracting our audience.

• By using codes and conventions this makes a recognisable face for our genre and sub-genre, even though some codes and conventions are challenged, most are the same so that the genre is known and recognisable.

• The theories we used were.. Todorov’s equilibrium theory because he theorised that media starts with opposing forces in harmony, we challenged this convention because our production begins with a sense of controlled chaos, this is where the atmosphere is calm and the equilibrium has already been disturbed. Barthes Theory was another one that we used because we positioned the audience of different levels to our killer, using high and low angle shots. We also used Mise-en-scene such as the knife and candleto create the audience to question about had happened.

How we attracted our audience, with the methods we used.

Sound. – we used two alternating drones throughout our production, we done this so it would help increase audience anticipation for what is coming next. We used the killer whistling in 3 parts of the production to show the characters dominance and to give the audience a sense of unease which conforms to the codes and conventions of a thriller. We found this through our research and found in films like ‘shutter island’ there is a similar technique used at times to put the audience on edge. Editing. – we applied the same technique that has been seen in the editing techniques used in the film ‘memento’. This technique is parallel editing and we used it so that two different sequences will come together in the end even though it may seem unclear to start with. Using Barthes enigmatic theory, we created shots that we thought the audience would question the character about the most, such as the shots which hide the killer’s face and the high-angle aerial shot of the killer descending the stairs as the body comes into focus below. We also used different angle shots, never letting the audience on the same ‘path’ as the killer, in which we hoped would put them on edge.

ImagesThrough using similar techniques like in memento and following codes and conventions that are in most Thrillers we were able to attract our potential audience. This shows that our cinematography played an important part in attracting our audience. I think this is shown when our focus group decided that it would be best if we don’t show the killers face as it creates a sense of mystery about him which conforms to our genre thriller. Using Propp’s theory of narrative function, we thought only showing shadows of the killers face or not shown at all would show that he in fact fits into the role of the villain and easily recognised for our chosen genre.

Mise-En-Scene

Low level lighting used meaning that we could follow the codes and conventions of our chosen genre. This created a tense atmosphere as the lighting helps hide the killers face, therefore helps to mask his identity, creating questions and mystery with the character. We used props such as the knife and duct tape this helped us identify with the crime thrillers that we had researched. We used these props at different points in the film because when researching we found that ‘shutter island’ gives a montage of key locations/objects throughout the film, which is a sense that we was aiming for. This created tension for the audience as it was not clear what had happened and left the audience wondering. Our killers costume which is a dark suit links in with our research as we found that dark themes connote representation with the killer. This helped us give a sense of mystery to our production and give certain questions like why is he dressed so smartly for a murderer.

Body language.

When researching we found that most villains of a thriller and to our sub-genre have a calmness about then and a sense of dominance and power because of this. For example in Pulp fiction the villain appears to be calm throughout and this shows his authority over the other characters (Victims) because of the dominance it creates. Our focus group decided it would be a good idea to not have any speaking throughout our production, so we created all of our characters ‘thoughts and feelings’ through the use of body language. Throughout our production our killer remains calm and collected, he organises his tools, he remains calm when wiping the bloody knife and even when going down the stairs. Our group believed that adding in the whistle would put our audience on edge as he shouldn’t be as calm as he is when doing all of these things.