Question 5

How did you attract/ address your audience?

To attract our target audience we used a variety of different ways to relate to the audience. We did this by researching what teenagers (our target audience) did in their own time and we categorised them into social groups. The social group we particularly aimed for was the ‘stereotypical’ teenager that lives a mundane life of hanging around with friends and doing school work.

In our production we used a teenage cast, which would relate to the audience and attract them. We shot in a teenager’s house to give the audience a sense of familiarity and, using our research to find out of the audiences fear of technologies, we used props to relate to our audience. We chose to use a Blackberry phone because this was a popular and commonly used phone that people between the ages of 18 – 25 used very often. This prop, with a pink cover, was used to attract many females that, shown in my research, are very popular thus attracting them successfully.

The costume of our character was typical teenage clothing and was also used to attract a female audience who could relate to it and a male audience who could admire the female cast. The props, such as the handbag and mascara, were shown clearly to relate to an audience that goes out regularly and uses these props when getting ready to go out. This attracts them because they can feel a connection with the character and is much more effective when the character is killed.

Another way we attracted the audience was to refer to other horror movies. Two movies in particular we used were Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Scream (Wes Craven, 1996). These both used similar techniques, in which they challenged conventions by killing the most popular actor first. We related to Psycho by using a bathroom scene as the place of the murder. This attracted an older audience that remember the famous death of Marion Crane. A younger audience can also relate because Psycho is portrayed in many of today’s T.V shows.

We also attracted a teenage audience by referring to Scream. We did this by using a caped villain, which was also done in Scream as the famed villain known as ‘Ghostface’. From IMDb I learnt that this film was very popular among teenagers of the age 15 – 29 years old:

So by relating to a very popular villain we were certain to be successful in attracting our target audience.

Our media product was shown to our fellow student, who filled out a questionnaire rating our camera work, lighting, etc. They also commented on our overall product and what we could have done better and a lot of people commented on the lighting. Another highly commented problem was the sound effects and how the timing was not synced with the actor’s lips. We read these comments and tried our hardest to fix and perfect them.

I think we were successful in ‘hooking’ the audience with our horror opening because the feedback we attained was very positive and one question asking “Would you watch the rest of the film?” was answered ‘Yes’ by almost everyone. This shows that we were able to attract our audience by using aspects they could relate to such as other films of the horror genre, popular props and a close relationship to the characters.

Question 4

Who would be the audience of you media product?

Initially our aim was to create a teen horror, meaning that the audience need to be the age range of 15-20 years old.

In my research I studied how films target their audience and how successful they are in achieving this. One film I studied was Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and using IMDb, I found out what audience they appealed to and studied from looking at this graph:

From the graph it shows that Males, of any age range, enjoyed this film more than Females. I think they did this by introducing a young, popular female cast. It also shows that a lot of people, who are in my targeted age-range, enjoyed it; I think they did this by following conventions and appealing to the audience.

Another film I researched was Scream (1996) which mocked conventions, as well as following them. This graph shows the ratings given by IMDb users:



This graph also shows that a male audience preferred the film to a female audience.

Using these rating, it shows that the audience for my media product is likely to be a male audience aged between 15 and 29. I think this because from my research I learnt that teenage males watch teen horrors more often and, from the ratings of Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, I feel that my media product has aspects of both these films, such as a young female cast and conventions of horror.

Question 3

What kind of media institute might distribute your product and why?
My product appeals to both mainstream and independent audiences. The low-budget and unknown actors contribute to an independent audience such as ‘Hellbride (Pat Higgins, 2007)’, which also has unrecognisable actors and is a highly unknown film among the mainstream audience.
My media product also contributes to a mainstream audience because the plot is very in-depth and conventional such as many of the popular mainstream films that are shown in renowned cinemas. For example, ‘Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)’ has a psychological and slasher villain, which my media product can relate to because my plot revolves around an insane character that uses a knife to wound it’s victims then drowns them. This film appeals to a mainstream audience and closely relates to my media product, although my product doesn’t contain any famous actors, its plot is well developed and would be highly popular among a mainstream audience.
Using my research of mainstream and independent films, I am positive that my film would be a mainstream film and would benefit by being shown in popular cinemas such as Odeon and Vue.
I would contact Working Title and consider working with them in distributing my media product because they are a highly successful production company and have produced many popular films.

To market my product I would use a viral marketing campaign, in which I would spread little clues and bits of information among the internet and would release a trailer that creates a lot of hype among the mainstream audience. This was most effect with Cloverfield in which the used viral marketing to create a ‘buzz’ resulting in the film being cheaply and successfully publicised.

Prelim Task

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When researching teen horrors a majority of mainstream horrors focused on typical teenagers, teenagers that live mundane lives and relate to most British teens. We decided to follow this tradition because we felt that if the audience could relate to the victim, it would have a bigger impact on them, resulting in the production being more scary and entertaining.

 We related to the audience by following the character, Marie, while she was getting ready for a party and doing typical routine things. These appeal to all classes of people who often attend social events, which is why our production is able to represent any class of people, making it relatable when the victim is killed.

From my research I learnt that most women are represented as weak and vulnerable, such as Tina Gray (Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984) who is stalked and toyed with by Freddy Krueger at the beginning of the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn_DjzN8410

We decided to follow this tradition by using a female character at the start and using a tilt shot to emphasize the danger she was in, this then led to her death. These representations wasn’t used to mock women and call them weak but to show how vulnerable any person from a social group could be on their own, thus making it relative and more scary.

In conclusion I feel that our media production represents social groups in a negative way, in which it shows them as vulnerable and in constant danger anywhere. Although it may be a negative representation it emphasizes fear and danger, which is highly required in any horror production.

Actors

We chose to use ourselves as actors due to the high level of commitment we needed from our actors. It was a perfect solution to our problem as we had both males and females in our group, Holly played the lead female character and Elliot played the masked villian. They are both teenagers, which was required to help relate to the audience.

Storyboards