Marcia Rumsey

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS

YOUR AUDIENCE?

attract/address your audience?

Looking at statistics I found that the majority of people that watch films are an

older audience with 60% being female. However we decided that our target audience although

mainstream is late teens to middle-aged. By it being targeted at a mainstream audience we are also more likely to make a large profit. Also

as it is aimed at a younger audience than usual we could use social media to advertise which is cheap therefore further increasing

our profit.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Uses and gratification theory originally arose in the 1940s but has been changed since then in the 1970s

and 80s. The theory is about why and how people actively seek out specific media and is positivistic in it’s approach. It assumes that audience members are not passive consumers of media but actually have an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. For example for our opening people

who regularly watch psychological thrillers make seek out our film as it is a genre that they are familiar with.

USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY

Our main protagonist is a teenage female. We choose to cast a younger person as the protagonist so we appealed to a younger audience. We also cast a female as we wouldn’t to go against the common convention of a male lead. Another reason we cast

a women is because the majority of viewers of psychological thrillers are female and therefore

we would attract them. After looking at how Mulvey said about how media is controlled by men and

therefore women are presented as men see them we wanted to go against this. Therefore we tried to

present her as a pluralistic view of a teenager.

CASTING

Our other character is an older male. Originally we were going to have a teenage male as it would attract a younger audience. However we decided to change this as we still wanted to attract a more

mature audience, them being the majority of viewers.

CASTING CONTINUED…

The main prop in our film is a gun. Looking at statistics this would appeal more to men as research shows they react

more than women to action and violence. Therefore the use of a gun featuring heavily would help keep males engaged.

The younger female is wearing a hoodie which we hope would help appeal to a younger audience as they could

relate to her costume. However the older male is wearing a suit which would hopefully attract a more mature audience

and therefore a wider viewership.

MISE EN SCÈNE

In our piece we used a lot of common codes and conventions. By doing this our audience and common viewers of psychological thrillers would recognise this and therefore be more inclined to watch it.

For example we used the Barthes theory of hermeneutic codes (meaning the audience asks

questions). We also used white typography on a black background, another common convention of

this genre. However we do challenge some to make our piece more original. For example we choose no to use the common convention of a weapon not being

used (the idea being the killer’s mind is the weapon). Instead a gun features

heavily in our piece.

CODES AND CONVENTIONS