Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Envy and jealousy is a common issue for young females and is an emotion that audiences can engage with. The relationship between the two lead female characters is fractured by envy; our film takes the end result of envy to its extremes.This concept is similar to one used in the popular TV drama series, Skins, which also aims to attract an audience of a correspondent age, in which a female character, Katie, becomes violent towards a fellow female protagonist, Effy, in a jealous rage over the affections of a male. The fabricated enigma and cliff hanger end to our opening aims to entice and encourage the audience to continue watching to discover the motive and reasoning behind the killing of the victim.

Question 5 Aid

Questionnaire: 

To ensure our film was suitable and effective in gripping the interest of the target audience, we composed a questionnaire to obtain feedback on aspects such as soundtrack, mise-en-scene, atmosphere and narrative. We asked people of a similar age to those within our target audience to rate various aspects of the narrative, camera work and editing and also inquired as to whether the storyline was easy to comprehend and follow. This questionnaire proved very helpful in understanding the preferences and opinions of our target group and widened our knowledge of these.

Feedback Analysis:

One aspect of our film that was commented on was the colour grade; 3 of the 4 people asked suggested that the colour tone could have been adjusted to create a colder, more bleak and unforgiving atmosphere and to reflect the events and issues raised within our production. This could have been done using the editing software by enhancing the blue and green tones to make the appearance grittier and therefore enforcing the urban feel. An excellent example of this colour grading can be seen in the 2000 film Essex Boys.

00:51 identified as a favourite shot.

The camera work was highlighted to be one of the most impressive aspects of our film; the shot of the feet starting at 00:50 was specifically complimented as it successfully uses the ambient lighting and the generic use of shadows, acting upon the audiences own fear of the dark and unknown. 

00:42 bird's eye view, tilt shot of generic location

As well as this, the bird's eye view shot of the staircase at 00:42 was also identified as one of the most successful shots; declared to be a 'perfect example of generic locations within the thriller genre' that has been emphasised by the acute tilt shot to enforce the feeling of distortion of reality and alarm.

Another aspect that was recognised for its suitability was the soundtrack; it was said that ‘it helps to build tension and suspense’ which is the effect we were trying to enforce therefore our aim was achieved by this. It was suggested by one, however, that this soundtrack was dangerously teetering on the borderline between the thriller genre and the horror genre. Although, in saying this, the seperation between these different genres is diminutive and we are therefore not severely worried about this as it may come down to a difference of opinion.

An interesting point made in our feedback was the use of diagetic sound; in the shot of Katt at 00:39 the diagetic sound of a police siren can be heard. This effective sound was purely down to luck and timing of the shoot but heavily influenced our choice of using this clip. Police sirens are often connoted with crime and dangerous activity and will therefore lead the audience to associate this character with corruption and misconduct.

Shot starting at 00:39

We asked each person who responded to our questionnaire to rate the overall quality of our production on a scale of 1 to 10. The average score rating totalled to 8, a score I consider to be sufficient in proving that our thriller is appealing and interesting to an audience of our specified demographic.