Evaluation: Question 5: How did you attarct your target audience?

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

The importance of doing the secondary research into existing films:

The secondary research in existing films was important for me as it gave us an indication on how to address the thriller audience through conventions and how to attract them.

The target audience of thriller films:

From my research into thrillers I found out and I believe that the thriller target audience ranges between the age group of 15-40. Thrillers have a big range as there are my different thriller genres and it is the most appealing to this age range which I had to appeal to from my research.

Also thrillers are not aimed at any specific gender as thrillers are based on unisex narratives for any gender to watch and understand. This gender appeal made it easy for me to attract and appeal the audience as both male and females would watch the thriller. Also to make it appealing to the audience I ensured that there was an attractive and young female victim who would appeal to the audience and attack many others.

There are specific ethnicities in thrillers which the audience expect to see, for example to attract thee audience in my thriller I used a female victim who was of white ethnic background a the audience expect to see the white ethnic background female to be the victim as they are the most likely victims of crime. In addition the ethnic background of the antagonist is of a black ethnic background as the audience expect to see a black ethnic antagonist as they are most associated with crime, however there can be different ethnic background antagonists in thriller but to appeal to my target audience best I chose to use a black ethnic antagonist.

The occupational groups that thrillers are aimed at are E,D, C2 and C1. Thrillers are mostly aimed at student’s and the you eople who like to go out and have fun and they like to have a thrill when watching thrillers once a week to watch something and the unemployed.

The hobbies and the interest of the target audience is that they like to go out and have a good time and watch a good thriller. Also the target audience is fairly young and they like to party and fun with groups of friends.

I believe that from thriller films that target audience enjoy setting, iconography and the conventional characters. The audience enjoy the setting of the thrillers as they are set at home they enjoy the thrill of the location as the audience feel the safest at home and that security is taken away from them during the film. Also the audience enjoy the use of iconography as it gives a thrill and a chill when the knife is a murder weapon used to kill the victim or any other character. Lastly the audience enjoy the conventional character which are the female victim and the antagonist also the audience expect to see them in every thriller. The audience enjoy seeing a young and attractive female victim and they are chilled by the appearance of a dark, mysterious antagonist.

Further to this, the emotions that I believe that the audience are likely to experience are that they sympathise for the female victim and they fear for what is going to happen to her, also the audience feel helpless when they know what will happen to the victim but they cannot help her. The audience also fear the antagonist and are chilled by the attacks. Lastly the audience feel lost and isolated by the dark settings and the isolated locations.

This was good research as it meant that for my thriller I had to consider delivering all the emotions that the audience like to feel hen watching a thriller and appeal to the target audience. Also I meant that I could make a thriller that the audience wanted from the research gained.

My target audience:

From my research the target audience I wanted to attract for my thriller was the ages of 15-40 for a conventional thriller. 15 was the minimum age that our thriller would attract as a 15 year old will be bale to watch our thriller and it they can handle the thrill from our thriller. Also the gender that I wanted to attract is both genders as both genders watch thrillers and they both find it appealing. We also keep an open ethnicity groups in our thrillers as are thriller narrative can be universally understood.

Addressing my target audience:

I carried out a questionnaire as I wanted to know what my target audience thought and I wanted to get their response on what they thought about thrillers which would help me in my production of my thriller and it would be the most appealing to the target audience as I would have made my thriller to the target audiences feedback and liking.

The importance of a primary research such as my questionnaire is to find out what the target audience want in the thriller film that I will make. Also this primary research is important because it means that I can find out which a specific target audience want in my thriller. Also this questionnaire will give me a lot of feedback and it will give me good idea if my thriller idea can be suitable to what the audience want.
I asked people from the age of 15 and above this was because my thriller film that I will be making will be for those who are 15 and above. Also thrillers can only be viewed by people who are 15 and above. I had to ask only the target group that I was aiming my film at otherwise the questionnaire feedback would not be very helpful.

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

This is one of the question that I asked my target audience:  

What attracts you to Thrillers?
Excitement, Thrill, Tension, Suspension

This was an important question to ask the target audience as I needed to know why the audience watches thrillers and what attracts them to thrillers. This was important to me as I could attract my target audience y giving them the desired experience from their feedback from the question in what attracts them to thriller.


 













The graph shows that most of the target audience are attracted to thrillers due to the tension and excitement. To ensure that I attracted the target audience and I addressed my target audience I made my thriller excitement and I built up tension by using soundtracks which will create tension and fast editing to create excitement.




Another key question I asked in my questionnaire was:

 Which of these are common conventions?   

Iconography (blood), Victim, mise en scene, low key, lighting

This question i asked the audience to see what conventions they knew and this gave me a good indications of the types of conventions that the audience knew there were.

The result showed that the audience knew that that one of the convention was a victim or the female victim and iconography(blood). This enabled to attract my audience as i used these conventions that the audience were use to and i used the conventions that the audience would understand. Lastly it meant i could address the target audience as they could see the their desired and expected conventions in my thriller.



  How do thrillers make you feel?

  Scared, Chilled, Shocked, Frightened

This was another key question that I asked my target audience as i wanted to know how thrillers my chosen target audience feel to ensure that i can deliver that feeling towards the audience to make my thriller a success.

The results show that most of the target audience felt chilled and scared. To attract my audience and to address the target audience i ensured  that my thriller would chill and scare the audience. For example on way i archived this was by using chilling soundtracks and very scary shots to address this felling that the audience like to feel.




What do you dislike about Thrillers?

Graphic scenes, Violence, Death,  Murder, The antagonist


This was another key question asked as I wanted to find out what the audience don't like in a thriller as I did not want to include anything in my thriller that the audience did not like and i did not want to use something that will put the audience off my thriller.

The results show that most of the audience disliked the antagonist and death in thrillers however these this was expected as the antagonist and death chills the audience the most and it would not be a thriller without a antagonist or death. Therefore is used an antagonist in my thriller and the theme death as well as this will chill the audience as they dislike the antagonist and the thee death.


I asked open questions in the questionaire to the target audience and they were the following questions:

What makes a Thriller entertaining?

The response that i got from this question gave me the answer to what the audience think makes a thriller entertaining. From this information i used it to make my thriller more entertaining and this would address the audience and attract the audience as my thriller is entertaining to the audiences standard.

What was the best Thriller you watched?  

Name of film

Why?

This open question allowed me to gather information on the type of thrillers that the audience watch the sub genre of thriller they watch as well. This question indicated to me what sub genre my thriller should be and what film should inspire me to make my thriller which would then attract the audience and appeal to them.

Overall the primary research was important because it helped me gain a better understanding of what the target audience wanted to see in my thriller and it helped me in my production of my thriller as with the information from my primary research i knew what the audience was expecting and i could make a thriller that was idea for my target audience. This helped me attract and address my target audience as because from the primary research I could make my thriller idea for the target audience from their feedback of my questionnaire.

Audience Feedback:

After creating my production, I held a focus group because i wanted to show people my thriller and I can receive their view on how my thriller appealed to them. The people that were asked to come and view the production were friends and young people who were in the target audience that our thriller was aimed at. Below is some of the criticism that I received.

These are the pictures of our focus group.

One bit of feedback that I received from the focus group was that our thriller was "very conventional as it had conventional themes such as death, friendship and obsession, also the thriller is a very modern thriller that made us feel very isolated and chilled"


Another feedback that we received from the focus group was" The thriller narrative is very easy to understand and the thriller was very chilling as the obsessive antagonist is shown and especially when the antagonist smells the victim jumper and enters the victims bed"

Bill aged 18 said that " The thriller was not appealing as i believe that the thriller was similar to other thrillers where there is an obsessive boyfriend or an obsessive antagonist"


Furthermore, Meah aged 20 said" The identity of the antagonist could have been hidden to create more tension  or there could have been more emphasis on the antagonist when he was in the victims house without her knowing"








How did this make you feel in terms of attracting your audience?

After the feedback that I received from the focus group the positives and the negatives i felt that I had made a conventional and appealing thriller that attracted my chosen target audience to the best of my ability and the audience liked my thriller and the effort that I put into making the thriller.