Evaluation - audience/ how I attracted them

My target audience for my media product is obviously teenagers, because it’s a “TEEN” horror film, however, this does not exclude young adults either. After research, including questionnaires, I found that predominantly the male gender prefers the horror genre.

If I had to create a typical member of the audience who I am targeting, I would say they would be a 16 year old boy. I am targeting young females as well; however I know that more young males would be interested in my film.

To attract my target audience to view “The Woodland Massacre” I would have to advertise my film, and as pretty much every teenager uses social networking sites, predominantly face book, I believe facebook would be an ideal place to advertise my film as millions of youngsters using facebook would see my advert



mostly good feedback



As you can see from these print screens off YouTube and facebook of my film opening, the target audience enjoyed the opening and were drawn in wanting to watch the rest of the film. To ensure only people within the target audience commented I sent a link to my film opening to people in my year. Most of the feedback was positive; I received lots of positive comments about how the film “flowed” well and was “exciting” to watch. The only negative feedback I had was concerning the music used, saying it sounded muffled.  However, in my defence I admit the quality isn’t perfect but that’s because I had to improvise due to the copy rights law. I couldn’t use artists music because of copy right, so I found covers on YouTube and used them. I used two cover versions; one was a cover of “Duality” by Slipknot and the other was a cover of “wake me up” by evanescence. I used my initiative and did what I could to provide a sound track to my opening to make it even more realistic and exciting to watch. Maybe, if I had another opportunity to film and construct another film again I could right to the artist asking if I had their permission to use one of their tracks.

I attract/adress my audience by...

When constructing my film I was always thinking in the back of my mind “what can I do to address my audience?”

The main factor which will attract my target audience is the characters, the main characters (apart from the villain) are all teenagers, therefore the target audience can relate to them and put themselves in the characters shoes, making watching the film a more interactive excitable experience.

Talking of shoes, I decided to add in a quick shot on the ground of us walking past the camera, not only does it make the film more enjoyable and pleasant to watch because the audience gets to see a range of shots but there was a more cunning reason behind the shot to attract the audience. The audience sees a close up of the converse logo on one of the characters shoes; I made sure this was visible because converse shoes are hugely popular amongst teenagers all over the world. Pretty much every teenager I know owns a pair of converse, therefore when they see that recognisable logo most of the audience will take it in and think to themselves that characters like me in a way because I wear those shoes. This is another way of communicating to the audience and making them aware this is a film targeted at them.

Teenagers are renowned for having a slight rebellious side to them and most of the audience watching will have been in a situation closely similar to the characters in my film. By this I mean getting drunk with their mates in a woods, I know I have. And going back to that idea of relating to your audience, again, like the converse, this relates to the teenagers because most of them will have done something like this before. It will leave the audience thinking to themselves “woah this could be my mates and I in this film.” Therefore it addresses them.

That’s why I made sure the vodka and converse were noticeable in my opening because instantly the target audience is set up and addressed.

I also catered for my audience by setting up narrative codes, action and enigma. There are various action codes, for example: the teenagers go to the woods, this action has now motivated the action in a certain direction, basically by doing this they have now put themselves in danger from the threat. These action codes then create questions in the audience’s minds, these are called enigma codes. For example: when the four characters split up in to twos and walk deep in to the eerie woods, the audience will start asking themselves “where are they going, what are they going to do, are they safe, what will happen next?” These codes definitely address and attract the audience because without them the audience might switch off and lose interest but by making them ask lots of questions they will be hooked to watching the rest of the film to have their questions answered.

By including a track from slipknot in my opening this will also address the audience because slipknot are a well known band amongst teenagers, weather they hate or love the band it will still address them as their music is targeted at teenagers.