Attracting and Addressing our AudienceEvaluating

Our target audience is Males aged between 15 and 24. We have decided to focus mainly on the mid to low end of this age bracket and have therefore tried to make our film appeal to these people. The class for our film would be middle class people, as according to our market research these are the most likely people to visit the cinema to watch our film and the certification would be roughly 15. This means that the bottom age for our target audience age group would be 15. Our film is a Niche audience which means that it appeals to a smaller segment of a larger market. This is because it is a low budget/slasher horror film and there are other genres of horror film with different target audiences.

In order to make our film appeal to our target audience, we have tried to allow them to relate to it. We have done this by keeping things realistic and normal, this plays on their mind and makes them consider it happening to them. This keeps their attention and they become more emotionally affected by the film. This is the Uses and Gratifications Theory – Needs model, personal needs. We have decided to use younger actors/actresses as they would be in the same age group as the target audience. This means that, again they are able to relate to it and form more of a connection with the character. The setting for our film, the dining room is a normal room much like those people would have in their houses.

The mise-en-scene of the second scene, the trap room is something which is very different. The target audience for our film is one which likes things which are similar and at the same time different. We have therefore tried to appeal to them by both locations adding a sense of realism and at the same time making it tense and adding fear to the audience.

The target audience for our movie like fear, they seem interested by it and therefore we have tried to make the opening 2 minutes as tense as possible building up their fear levels and drawing them in. We have made use of royalty-free music which makes use of low bass tones and chords which as the movie goes on becomes more tense.

The image we have tried to portray to our target audience is of a realistic, yet ‘gory’, type horror film. We have been able to do this by using locations people can relate to as this would play on their mind. We have added a deeper meaning to the opening two minutes – and the audience are required to look quite deeply into it, which again can keep them interested. Numerous hermeneutic codes are created which keeps the audience thinking what is happening.

We have tailored our film, and the events happening within it to appeal to our target audience and we believe that we have been successful in doing this and that it meets the common codes and conventions they would expect.