Evaluation: Question 5) How did you attract/address your target audience? - Miss Begum

Q5) HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ ADDRESS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

The importance of doing secondary research into existing films:

Researching into existing thriller films was important because it allowed me to have a wider knowledge on how to create an opening thriller, following the codes and conventions professionally and creatively. This also helped my group and I to make important decisions before creating our final product, by asking opinions from our target audience and responses about their expectations when watching a thriller movie. We also asked how do they feel and how does the movie affect them, which was  useful as it made it easier for us to make right decisions when making our thriller opening. 

The target audience of thriller film?

The target audience of a thriller movie are typically targeted to teenagers of both genders with various ethnicity. They are usually aged about 15 above who are still in education and young adults aged 25 above, who are also in education and employment. Thriller movie are targeted to these type of audiences because the viewers enjoy the adrenaline and suspense the thriller movie conveys. Also because of the unique narrative and conventions the thriller imply in every movie. Furthermore, the hobbies that teenagers and young adults may have are: going to cinema with friends, going out with friends and watch a movie at nights to relax and have good times with them. These are the audience we wanted to target.

From my research into thrillers, I believe that the target audience that they appeal to consist of the following:

• Age: 15-45
• Gender: Unisex
• Ethnicity: General
• Occupation: Students, Casual Workers
• Hobbies and Interest: Going to Cinema, etc.

I suppose that from thriller films the target audience enjoy the element of suspense and surprise. This is because it makes them react into two ways which are psychologically and physiologically. Psychological is when a person fears to walk in a dark alleyway or sleep with the lights turn off, which can become a permanent brain damage or fear. Whereas, physiologically is when a person jumps from a scary scene or has goose bump on the arms, which is temporarily and happens involuntarily. Further to this, the audience's emotions are likely to experience thrill from a brutal scene as they may not see it before, thus making the viewers feel disgusted or perhaps excited. This was a good research as it meant that for my thriller I had to consider how to attract my target audience making them enjoying the movie as well as leaving them in fear. 

My target audience:

From my research, the target audience I wanted to attract for my thriller was:

• Age: 15-45
• Gender: Unisex
• Ethnicity: General
• Occupation: Students, Casual Workers
• Hobbies and Interest: Fashion lovers

Addressing my target audience:

I carried out a questionnaire for my target audience, because I wanted direct information on specific themes, characters, iconography I should include in my thriller opening to make it successful. The importance of my questionnaire, was that it gave me specific choices to make as it was reliable. Also it was the initial insight of my planning where I was able to start making decision on my initial product. Additionally, when I was placed in my group we evaluated our responses because we wanted to come up with an idea that will appeal to our target audience. Therefore, we had various ideas that helped us which were beneficial for our final product to attract our target audience.

Some key questions I asked to ensure I was attracting my target audience:

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Overall, the primary research was important because it gave me original and specific choice to make during my production stage, also it gave me different ideas to include and themes that I can portray in my thriller opening, which was beneficial for my knowledge about the audience expectations. This helped me attract and address my target audience because I followed their recommendations, therefore having an intended audience watching my thriller opening.  

Audience feedback:

After producing a rough cut of my thriller opening, I held a focus group of people from AS media and film studies class, asking them to view the production and give feedback about their views, as they are aware of the codes and conventions that a thriller movie should include. Thus giving me a clear insight into how  I met the target audience's expectations and how i didn't. 

Here are some criticism I received:

1) I received a negative feedback from Berfin, aged 16:

This criticism made feel conscious of my use of filters, however I think the different filters had a good effects of my opening thriller..



2) Moreover, I collected another negative criticism from Chankee, aged 18:

This feedback make me realize that me and my group have to improve our soundtrack and make it more sophisticated and conventional for our opening thriller.

3) Furthermore, I received a positive feedback from Amanda, aged 17:

This comment made me feel pleased as the audience were intrigued by our product, even though the character was revealed at the end.

4) Lastly, I collected another positive feedback from Natalia, aged 16:

   
This last feedback made me feel happy because the atmosphere we wanted to create was creepy and mysterious, which was designed for our spectators to feel threatened. 




Conclusion:

To conclude, this task was beneficial as it gave me an insight on what people wanted to see and how to improve my thriller opening even better. It also set an audience that we wanted to target, therefore addressing and attracting the spectators. By starting my research from my questionnaire I believe that me and my group made massive progress on attracting our audience around our thriller opening.