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

Casting

The casting we used young but older looking actors especially in the sense of the main character Kameron who was on the screen the most out of everyone, because we felt this would give us the best chance of not only reaching out to the audience but also attracting the audience we wanted by using a young, good looking male actor to play the main character we wanted to use thinking that it would help to attract a female audience with the action and the other technical elements we used to attract the rest of our target audience. We also played on an element of two main characters being at the vocal point of our film and those two characters to create enigma and a back story of who they’re and what they want. We also had an all-male cast on board as we felt it would give us the feeling of a gritty action film with starting enigma but as the film goes on the action is amped up and the distance between the cuts gets less. We thought many times about using a female hostage to bring in the rest of our target audience, with the plans of her being an attractive female. However we felt the action could not be fully portrayed if we didn’t use an all-male cast. We also decided on using a smaller cast from the original concept which contained 5 hostages as well as a driver and 3 henchmen but we settled on the gloomy fact of just two men brought in 2 of the wealthiest men in the city just the two of them with the power the two hostages have on the city. We also felt that this gave across a better feeling towards the audience and drew the target audience in by having these two mysterious characters creating enigma and themes throughout the film opening.

Our Target Audience and film research

The target audience work we did helped us to bring and address our audience throughout the film opening because it helped us to learn not only demographic information but also psychographic information which helped us to really delve into the minds of our audience and give them a media product they would enjoy and be enticed with instead of being bored of it. The

research we did was many interviews , questionnaires and in depth look into the UKFC or BBFC to find out what different people of different ages, genders and social class’ enjoyed when it came to film. We learnt very early on that our main gender target was predominantly male but we found a larger group of females did enjoy action films but not as a significant figure as the male gender so we knew early that’s the route we needed to go down and we could shape the film opening to target this to the best effect we could. We also learnt quite early on that our target audience would come from higher middle and lower middle class but we did this by giving them a gritty feel film with the concept of big film feel to it with important characters and a well written storyline. So from the target audience research we had the age and gender as well as social class of our intended target audience (Males under 35 middle class) from this we could progress on to find people to interview who fit our demographic, we did so and found out the main concepts and ideas our target audience looked for in action films and we used this key information to address and attract our audience when making the key technical aspects of the film opening. The research we did helped massively when figuring out what to include in the film opening.

Plot/storyline

The way in which we used the plot/storyline to attract and address our audience came very much from the research and planning coupled with the use of the actors we had for our cast. We did this by having strong actors at the helm for our film opening which contained many concepts we knew our target audience liked and enjoyed so from this we knew what we had to include and how we had to portray it through the story line we had written. Obviously from the market research we had done we had to tweak the plot to the needs and wants of our audience, we made no major adjustments to the script but little things we knew would help to address and attract our audience.

Name

The name of our film took a lot of thought but in a way I could say it was a simple choice, I like the simplicity of the name and way it has a deeper meaning and has roots to where it came from as it’s in a different language, the word Retundum means revolution and we decided to play on this fact as

we got the concept as such as a prequel for a previous film I had made called wretches and kings which follows the life of Kameron when the world had fallen to the knees of destruction and the wasteland. This is featured in our film opening with the flashback sequence used to show a flash forward in time. We knew the name would create enigma for any potential audience already had because everyone has their own opinion on the meaning of the name, it makes the audience ask questions such as who’s the revolution for about? them? Or are they a martyr for a greater cause? These are all things we used to attract and address our audience.

Setting/location

The setting we used I would say eliminated the idea of distractions from the main concept of our film, I feel if you have a film in an open space there is too much cause for distraction, however with our film opening it was in dreary old barn which set the mood and themes for the film without taking your attention away from the action and the characters we were presented with. It established where they were without raising too many questions to defer you from the route the plot had set you on. We did this with a use of more camera shots isolated on the characters rather than the use of establishing shots of the surroundings which is a way we broke conventions throwing you straight into the action not knowing where on earth they are or what they’re doing. We did this to attract and directly address our audience. Location was however a big part to play in our film opening the location we used fit the bill perfectly for what sort of film we wanted to portray to the audience, I feel the location gave enough enigma to help attract our audience.

Genre

The genre we used a major part of attracting and addressing our audience because we felt we could look and go about it in two different ways, we could look at it in the sense of from research that the Action genre has a very wide audience so we only need to cast a large net in order to attract audiences to our film even if it doesn’t attract everyone in our market. However we also looked at it as it’s a huge market and compared to a niche one where there is less span to try and reach and if you reach a significant number in that market then that can be considered a success whereas the mass market requires a

huge spread of success to be considered not a flop in the film world. So from this information we knew from picking a popular genre that we could attract a good chunk of our audience by doing certain things we knew that would bring the audience we wanted in. we also wanted to give unique points such as using different Camera Shots and different uses of sound with them this helped along with the large popularity of the gender to attract as well as address our target audience.

Conclusion

We attracted our audience using a range of unique camera shots coupled with long takes and the use of non-diegetic sound in places we thought appropriate, we also used a small cast to have the audience focus on the characters in shot and not have to worry about extras as more focus was divided up working out who these characters were and what their intentions were especially for what the main characters wanted to do with the hostages and what happened after the main titled appeared on screen as we left the opening 2 minutes 30 second on a cliff hanger nobody knew what was to happen next where they going to travel back to before he took them hostage and there be a build up ? Or was it to descend into anarchy and the audience be thrown in at the deep end from the off. These are all the questions we felt we helped to create for the audience in the opening 2 minutes of our film opening. However we felt we came across to our audience well with our ideas and attracted as well as addressed them in the best way we could, given the circumstances of it being a very small scale project with a much larger concept involved in it. We also felt all the key elements mentioned above from the use of casting to the sound that was used in the opening helped to entice our target audience into watching the rest of the film.

The use of narration I also felt was a unique element that helped to address our audience because it gave them an idea into what was going on without giving them everything and leaving them bits that they needed to work out on their own. It also made them ask questions right from the off, no image on screen and just narration they have to focus on the words being spoken nothing else and this creates deeper meaning at the same time of creating enigma around the question of who’s talking? Is this before after or during current events? As well as where is this being spoken from? Where is he now? I felt this was a very usual device to use and a good use of narration to tell a

slight insight into what the film would later be based on as he says “I’m going to tell you where this all really began”.