5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

We used different methods of attracting our audience through our use of shots and character types, thinking carefully about what our audience will want. In terms of addressing them, we mainly used the internet as our audience are very interested in technology and often use social networking sites. Our decisions were made easier by the fact that we are within the age of our target audience so knew the right approach of attracting and addressing them.

• We addressed our audience with the use of a young main actress so they know that this film is being aimed at them.
  

• We included the pleasure of not knowing what is going to happen next and have tried to shock the audience with the masked man at the window. This is to attract them in providing fear of the unexpected and also as they know this character will have a key part in the later narrative.
  

• There are also gratifications for the audience as they have more knowledge than the babysitter as they see this man at the window although Zoe does not.

• We have taken into account Levi-Strauss’ theory with binary opposites. We have shown good vs. evil, Quiet vs. loud, action vs. tension, slow vs. past and inside vs. the outside.
  

• The themes that we have used follow the conventions of the genre and are all dramatic with themes of kidnap, mystery and trauma.

• We have created enigma throughout with a build up of tension throughout until the final climax.

• We have attracted the audience with the use of twists as there is a loud noise creating suspicion and there is the mystery of what has happened to the child.

• There is strong iconography in the sense that it is an everyday environment of the house, an environment which the audience would be familiar with.

• It is emotional as the child is young adding vulnerability and delivering a personal connection for the audience.
  

• The film opening is shot at night time attracting an audience by creating fear as anything can happen at night.

• When looking at our feedback from the questionnaire, many of our audience liked the variety of shots and felt that this worked very well, as many of the shots create atmosphere.

• The issue being raised of kidnapping is very sensitive and has been mentioned a lot in the media with cases such as the Madeleine McCann case so it is a very talked about issue.

We used different methods to address our audience and to inform them of certain things, for example with our screening of our opening sequence, we used facebook to advertise it and sent invitations to our friends to get them to attend.

We also gave out notices to form groups in years 11, 12 and 13 as these were our target audience. The notice that we gave out is shown below:

The other way of addressing our audience was by youtube as we posted each of our edits for our audience to watch and to see the development of our project. This was via the school's youtube channel where our audience could rate our videos and write comments.

Our approach of addressing our audience seemed to be very effective as we have had many positive comments, which in my opinion shows that we have attracted them and have drawn them to our piece through our use of narrative and shots.

Here is some Audience Feedback from our screening:


Questionnaire 1:

Questionnaire 2:

Overall, the feedback was very positive and we received a lot of constructive criticism in regards to shots such as the reaction one, and also with sound. We were very happy with this feedback and it showed that we managed to attract our audience and got an average score of about 8.5 out of 10.