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

The importance of doing the secondary research into existing films:

Researching into existing thriller films was important because it helped us gain ideas and a deeper understanding of themes, characters, and micro elements. This helped us gain an initial understanding of thrillers. It was specifically important for me and my group to do the research before our initial plan so we were able to gain information about conventional thriller characters, and how to make a successful thriller opening scene.

The target audience of thriller films? (Age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, hobbies and interests)

From my research into thrillers, I believe that the target audience they appeal to consists of age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, hobbies and interests. Thriller films target younger audiences as they seek more excitement and thrill, and our research showed us that an age rating between 15-25 is the most conventional. Ethnicity wise, our thriller doesn’t generalize as it doesn’t consist of any sensitive content towards any ethnicity. There isn’t a certain occupation aimed at but students are mainly targeted due to their young age. Our opening scene isn’t intended towards anyone with particular hobbies or interests, however, we think fashion lover will enjoy it more because of the amount of fashion involved in the movie.

I believe that from thriller films target audiences enjoy the element of thrill, suspense, mystery and surprise. They also enjoy the common conventions including the character personas and the overall emotion created for the audience. Further to this, the emotions I believe they are likely to experience are either psychological being, fear, uneasiness, and anticipation, or physiological being; heart beating or goose bumps. This was good and useful research as it meant that for my thriller I had to consider factors including psychological and physiological reactions. Also helped me acknowledge common themes that attract audiences.

My target audience who I was collecting feedback from:

Age: Age rating 15- over

Gender: Both genders

Ethnicity: All ethnicity's as no sensitive content around ethnicity's included

Social Groups/class:

Hobbies and Interests: Particularly fashion lovers, however no specific hobbies or interests.

Addressing my target audience:

I carried out a questionnaire because I wanted to collect data on what kind of thriller my target audience prefers, which later on helped me plan and create my thriller. The information was very useful and valid as it gave me ideas on what to base my storyboard on to make I a successful thriller. Moreover all the information collected was relevant and direct which made it easier to plan and decide which thriller conventions are preferred. Most questions were closed questions which made analysing the questions simpler and faster.

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

1.      The first key question I asked was the occupation. My target audiences were mainly students so defining their occupation helped me select the valid questionnaires 

           2.       I asked if they preferred supernatural, or psychological thrillers, This helped me decide the sub-genre of my thriller, as the sub-genre with more preferences is more likely to be successful.

4. The question about which characters our viewers like watching in thrillers, helped me determine which character to use in my opening sequence. My final product consists of only an antagonist due to the feedback collected from my target audience.

A quote from an open question:

What do you expect to see in a thriller movie?

My first open question helped me identify my target audience’s expectations in thriller films. The common response I received was ‘a villain causing mischief to harm others.’ I used this information for my final production as only my antagonist is visible to the audience and they are unaware of coming u events, however; they are able to see the antagonist misconducting.

 Overall:

Overall, the primary research was important because it helped me collect data about what my target audience think makes a good thriller. This helped me attract and address my target audience because my thriller opening scene was created using their ideas and their opinions, which will encourage them to watch it.

Focus group Audience Feedback:
After creating my first draft of my final product I was able to gather A level film and media student to watch it for me to collect audience feedback. They were all in the same age rating as my target audiences as they were all students.

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Conclusion:

In terms of attracting my audience, from my feedback, i can infer that my final product did appeal to a wide range of audiences and my target audience due to the use of sound and narrative. I was influenced by the opinions of my target audience which i collected with my primary research (questionnaire). Overall i think we created a successful opening scene which attracted our target audience positively.