Audience AttractionRyan. A. Henson

Film OpeningWith in our film opening we have we have placed elements to attract the audience's attention in certain scenes. The main method we used to do this was by creating a character that was relatable to the target audience, reminiscent of the audience described in question 4. The film will be much more effective in provoking emotions from the targeted audience as they are the audience we kept in mind when creating this product.

Audience Attraction Through Company Image

The production company’s logo tells the audience a lot about the type of film they are about to watch, ours quite clearly represents our production company as an independent film production company that specialises in slasher horror films. A professional and neat company image will raise the expectations of the audience. Therefore the film opening is key to meeting the audiences' expectations for the film, other features must be put in place to keep the audience’s attention through out the film. Such as the following.

Audience Attraction Through Relatable Characters

The character in this scene is the victim, he has been used to attract the audience by being relatable to them. He doesn’t only just look like the targeted audience, he is also relatable in regard to how he reacts to his environment. He stands out like he doesn’t belong, the feeling most of the target audience would feel too. He approaches the woodland cautiously and constantly looks around through out the film opening. He is also shown to be smaller the deeper he walks into the woods, the trees tower over him. Thus giving him and the audience the feeling of being vulnerable. The main reason the audience can relate to the victim is that he behaves very much how most if us would, he fears, he runs and he doesn't stop to look back.

Audience Attraction Through Camerawork

In these two scenes we attracted our audience with the use of some clever camerawork. Aligning the camera and the two characters up so that they smoothly become one delivered a sense of mystery, leaving the audience to ask whether they are human or something more sinister. In the other scene the camera is placed in a tree with part of the branch visible on screen, giving an effect as if the camera is hiding out of sight of the victim. The camera pans from right to left, following the victim’s path . These two examples of camerawork are designed to create a sense of mystery that will draw in the attention of the audience we have targeted.

Audience Attraction ThroughStoryline

A large part of our storyline was aimed to tap into our targeted audience, social teenagers of all class and status that share a key interest in independent horror films. This is why our storyline is heavily developed around social communication as that is what our target audience is most interested in, interacting with others via texting and social media. This will allow us to further relate to our target audience, in turn keeping their interest through out the film. The use of the phone also symbolizes that this is a modern day horror film and presents the dangers of social media and texting. Which is a very relevant topic to our target audience so they will pay attention to the storyline and feel immersed in the scenes as they relate with characters. The phone that will be used as the phone of the victim is the HTC-One, the same phone that the text message from the killer will be received on. This model of smartphone was released relatively recently and is still one of the best quality devices on the market, making it popular among the victim's demographic.

Audience Attraction Through The Choice of Weapon

The choice of weapon of the killers, further attracted the audience’s attention. Watching a slasher horror film, the audience would be disappointed to see the killers use anything other than a bladed weapon. The particular weapon we have chosen, a knife, has been used in popular horror blockbuster franchises such as Scream, Friday The 13th and Halloween. It is an extremely common weapon of choice for a killer in a slasher horror film, we felt it was necessary to stick with this tradition in order to attract our target audience as they are not new to this genre of independent film and may feel cheated if the killers were to use for example a gun. Furthermore a knife provides deep gashes that spray out blood all other the scene, this keeps audience’s eyes stuck to the screen as they watch in horror to see the killer plunge the knife into their victim.