Evaluation - Question 5

"How did you attract/address your audience?"

We addressed our audience by giving them an opening sequence with farmilar forms to others and addressed the horror fans by using horror conventions. We attracted them by getting in touch with their feelings and filling the film with unique attributes.

The opening sequence conventions are mentioned on Question 1 but I will outline them here:

• Consistent credits with a main title at the end.
• Clear location and setting (establishing shots of the basement and good mis-en-scene).
• Introduction of characters (a minute of dialogue and interaction between them to get a feel for their relationship and personalities).
• Good continuity by use of shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule continued throughout the conversation scene. Also, the use of matched on actions such as the killer putting the victim to sleep with the cloth before pulling his arm away in the next shot as he turns to leave the victim sleeping (1.40 mins). This prevented distraction from the film because of lack of flow in the continued story.
• Use of enigma codes to get the audience to interact and fall into the film world.

The first thing we did to appeal to our audience was chose a popular genre with our core audience of 18-25's, and we thought horror was extremely popular, especially the 'Saw' and 'Hostel' films. Therefore we had to conform to their expectations by making our horror similar to that of the 'Saw' films.

My favourite aspect of the openings to 'Saw' was the variety in pace. It began very steadily, holding back lots of information and the actual appearance of the characters. Instead it focused on miscellaneous objects such as walls, pipes and bulbs, and the characters tied up were revealed bit by bit, with CU's of feet, eyes and mouth, before the shots moved further away from the character. It was 30-40 seconds before the actual character and location was revealed. We tried to achieve this affect in our film with opening credits appearing alongside random objects, helping establish the basement atmosphere, and a confusing montage of the victims face waking up to give a dazed effect. There was not an establishing LS until 33 seconds in, which helped lure the audience. Like 'Saw' the film did not pick up unnecessary pace and continued steadily through the dialogue. [The following compare 'Saw' on the left to 'Reservation' on the right, comparing first victim CU and then lightbulb shots].

There are 2 times when our film picks up pace:

• When our killer begins to get angry and ends up shouting at his victim (1.27 mins) - he manages to compose himself to bring the film back down to slow pace again (helped by the rise and fall in the musics dynamics).
• At the end of our film when the hand appears on the door (1.59 mins & below) there is a sudden rise in the music to accompany the shock of the action, ending in total silence and again a slow pace helped by a long mysterious fade to title.
  
  

The suddenness of these dramatic moments is amplified by the slow pace of the rest of the film, as tension builds in the audience who are always anticipating something. This helps add a jumpy affect to our film.

Other aspects we focused on to meet expectations of horror fans:

• Cinematic look with half-dim lighting in a pitch black room, added to by use of blue gel to create a blue tint (right) unique to our film (similar to use of neon green in 'Saw II' - left).

• A confusing montage of the victim waking up at the beginning (0.20-0.30 mins & below) unnerves the audience by disturbing the time period (similar to scene used in 'Hostel').







• Scrawly disorganised font on the credits and title (right) add to the confusion, being a bit like messy handwriting as if the person writing them is in pain. It is unsettling how the titles appear almost randomly throughout the sequence in different sizes, and how the title at the end fades in with each letter appearing at different times in no order at all. It created a mysterious code-cracking effect, as if you had to work hard to realise what the title said and that you may have to look deeper into the film to discover the answers (much like the titles in 'Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008)' (left - best picture I could find) are crackled such as on a fuzzy TV set, representing how the film is more meaningful than it looks and you have to search deep for clues [e.g. the last shot of New York which is set in the past before the whole story happened, a faint line can be seen falling into the sea and this is meant to be how the alien reached earth before the film started] because it is artistic.








• Low-key lighting (right) added to by the flickering lights. We filmed with 3 fairly dim studio lights to highlight shadows in all areas of the characters much like the characters in this particular scene in 'Sin City (Miller & Rodriquez, 2005)' (left) This highlights the expressions of the characters in a particular deep and meaningful scene such as our opening sequence - it is an important part of the story.








• Realistic atmosphere created by added on sounds (diegetic) such as lighting buzz (0.05-0.08 mins) and dripping water (0.15-0.18), giving our film a new dimension - a "spotlight" kind of effect where every little bit of action stood out and was detailed - bringing the audience into the world of the film (e.g. the amplified dripping water and ringing telephone in 'The Ring' (Verbinski, 2002)) [all added on sounds from http://www.soundsnap.com/].
• Use of moody music (non-diegetic) to create a tense atmosphere beyond the reality of the film [music called 'The Platform' from http://www.freeplaymusic.com/].

As well as giving the horror fans a farmilar form we had to offer them an original product. What stood out from our opening sequence compared to other sequences and what made it special? Our uniques selling points were:

• An intriguing plot carrying a hotel-theme and a well-mannered killer. Enthusiasts would want to know why he is acting this way and what the hotel-theme represents. Our film has a carefully written script, giving the audience subtle hints and clues (e.g. "would you like a glass of water?" said by the killer in a hotel-host kind of way.
• The title helps promote this plot and stir interest. 'Reservation' refers to a hotel reservation. However, I believe it could have been far more effective if it had been called 'The Guests', which is much more to the point and possibly sinister if not easier to remember. Reservation is too long and has too many meanings, making it not mean much at all to the audience in terms of the plot.
• Plenty of enigma codes because of heldback information (this links to the point about the pace of the film), raising questions within the audience and making them want to watch more. The ending to our sequence poses such questions as to whose limbs the hand and foot were and how these victims got there (see 1.50 & 2.00 mins). There is loads of information still to find out (character details such as names are not known at all yet).

To make our sequence really special we tried to tap into the feelings of our core audience so they would almost physically participate in the film. We did this by hitting at audience pleasures, fears, reactions and popular themes.

We focused on audience pleasures and physical reactions:

• We made our opening scene very intimate with the tight claustrophobic location of the basement (low ceilings and not much space) and the expressions of characters were highlighted by low-key lighting. A combination of good script-writing and excellent acting made the dialogue scene very intense. The audience would immediately feel sorry for our victim as he seems innocent (he is a lot smaller than the killer and is almost being bullied) and the humiliation and tease of this victim seem unnecessary. All the audience can see of the killer is evil as they do not know about his past and just think he is getting a "kick" out of torturing and killing people. Our scene plugs into the audiences emotional pleasures as they are on a characters side and may begin to care for the safety of this character. In scenes where the killer is particularly evil just provokes more of this responce to the film, with emotions such as sadness, anger, sympathy and desperation (we feel these emotions watching films such as 'Saw' as we capture the intense desperation of the characters in their situations due to the realims). The audience are helpless to do anything and may forget the character is fictional.
• Emotional pleasures can lead to visceral pleasures, which are the stimulated physical reactions of the audience to our film. Our opening sequence could provoke many, with sadness causing tears, wittyness causing laughter and anger causing people to tense up. Other than these emotions, the actual sequence itself is stop-starty and up and down a bit like a 'rollercoaster ride'. The pace quickens and slows with the music and the anticipation is high to go with the shocks that make people jump and the twists that make people admire the film in a physical way (i.e. shaking their head in disbelief or crying out). The most common physical reaction to emerge from watching our sequence is a sense of revulsion to what the killer is implying subtly and how he strokes the crow-bar. People cringe thinking about what might happen to the victim as you can faintly see the weapons lined up in the background. The audience are scared the film will become gory and they might often feel the pain (as you do watching 'Hostel' because it is horribly realistic). From our sequence, the gag being ripped off (0.45 mins) could cause someone to jump back or scream out in pain, and the thought of gore and death can cause a nauseous feeling.
• The enigma codes in our film provide the audience with something to solve so anyone can predict what might happen and try and link the important information together to find out what is going on (such as in 'Psycho', we try and guess who is commiting the murders). Solving something can give a sense of pleasure and not being able to know something can frustrate the audience until the end of the film when they find out.
• There is a counter-culture attraction stemming from our film as we release the audience from all rules and regulations. Our opening scene is private, away from authorities, and the killer has complete control. He can do whatever he wants and there are no limits (such as Michael Myers's unlimited power and freedom in 'Halloween'). Our audience get to feel a pleasure from the feeling they have broken rules by watching extreme situations such as our capturing scene.

We also tried to tap into our core audiences biggest fears (see Ortenberg quote, question 4) and most of these were represented by themes of revenge, needless violence and agression as well as life and death. They all stem from real-life experience (see question 2) making the audience fear them more. These fears could be applied to any audience and most horror films try to hit alot of them:

• A sense of claustrophobia, being trapped or captured.
• Voyerism and the idea of being constantly watched or monitored.
• A sense of being alone in a situation in which you have to try and save yourself with your own thinking - nobody else knows where you are.
• Sense of darkness and night time and being stuck in a creepy-looking location.
• Being surrounded by strangers and bodies.
• Fear of the unknown, what is happening to the victim?
• Fear of the anger of someone you don't know and cannot reason with.
• Fear of unbelievable pain that you cannot defend.
• The fear of death and never being able to see loved ones again.

We see these fears in other people because of the bad things that happen around us and on the news, but we never actually think it will happen to us. This makes us fear them more. Our audience will be unsettled and worried throughout our sequence as they have all these fears to think about and mull over in their minds.

We applied all these audience factors to our sequence and every decision made that I discussed in this question was made for a reason. It is hard to sum it all up in one question so I tried explaining some thing in detail and others in less detail, but they were all meaningful to appealling to our audience. Whether they were successful or not was down to our audience feedback.

After having an audience screening in front of thirty 17-18's we were able to summarise their opinions and criticisms. It was successful feedback with 11 sample questionnaires (many who had a particular interest in horror) all stating that they enjoyed our sequence and thought it was attractive, so our attention to detail in image and style were helpful. Good points for the film were its clear narrative, depth in the killer's character, scariness of the killer's acting and the shock of the hand at the end. This was very pleasing with both dramatic parts being effective on the audience and making them react (everybody in the room jumped at the shock-ending). The holding back of the pace must have worked to amplify the jumpy moments. There was some constructive criticism; not everybody liked the lights flickering because regular intervals of darkness remained distracting (right). This is something we had thought about before but could not eradicate after shooting. People also had their reservations on the title, which I discussed earlier in this question. The last critical comments were mainly on our victims's acting when the gag was pulled off (0.45 mins) and that this could have seemed more painful and shocking (left). This was a hard shot to film as the gag kept coming off for certain reasons, so we understand how this moment seemed particularly flat at the time. I believe our groups attempts to appeal to this type of audience was very successful (most people stating their desire to continue watching). This was also evident in feedback I recieved elsewhere with my brother and cousin (both between 18-25 years old) getting a feel for the film and being more involved in possible improvements, whereas as 40 year olds like my mum were confused by the plot and dazzled by the lights - so did not get the modern horror genre so much.

Evaluation - Question 4

"Who would be the audience for your media product?"

In Question 3 I discussed how our film opening would be distributed in cinemas so on answering this question this has to be takin into account.

The Core audience for visiting cinemas regularly in the UK is 15-24's according to this survey taken in 2007 (a good survey to base our intentions on as it focuses on the UK, with our film not likely to travel beyond the UK on first release, being a low-budget movie):

http://www.cinemauk.org.uk/ukcinemasector/ukcinema-audienceanalysis/frequencyofcinemavisitbyage2007/.

It states that 42% of 15-24's attend the cinema at least once a month (this is more important than the once a year category) compared to other age brackets - the highest being 7-14's at 28%. I think this is a fairly good representation of age diversity in cinema audiences with the teenagers and young adults being the core market for most films - I think ours would be the same.

Our film is likely to merit an 18 rating due to its frightening and violent nature. Therefore our core or primary audience is more likely to represent 18-24's at the cinema (children under 18 would be a big part of our DVD campaign but not for the cinema). I would round this up to a core audience of 18-25's.

Obviously our main audience will be the horror enthusiasts and especially fans of the 'Saw' and 'Hostel' films, who were likely to share a similar core audience. I tried to find statistical evidence of this but I found this difficult. Instead I managed to find this quote by Tom Ortenberg (see pictures below) - Lions Gate, President of Releasing (upon releasing Saw II):

"We were confident going into this weekend as the only new horror release that we would hit our target audience of genre fans, but this has exceeded all our expectations. With 'Saw,' James Wan and Leigh Whannell have tapped into filmgoers' most base fears and have created something that people immediately feel they need to talk about with others, and see again to catch clues they may have missed the first time."

Tom mentions the target audience of genre fans, meaning the fans particularly of the "gore" subgenre and many classic horror fans interested in the spread of niche modern horror. He also mentions how the film tapped into the audiences worst fears, which I believe ours does (trapped situation, claustrophobia, torture weapons, death and blood) - so our film would maintain a similar appeal, especially to the adrenalin "junkies" and thrill-seekers out there, but also to those with any interest in the genre. Our film (sequence) could basically attract any age if they share these interests, but is important to focus specifically on the 18-25 group who endulge most in cinema entertainment, and for a film it is cinema audience ratings that matter most in its success. Our wider or secondary audience would definately stretch out beyond this small cluster of ages as there are many horror fans over 25 (considering the horror genre originates from the Sir Alfred Hitchcock Period in the 50's and 'Psycho' was produced in 1960 - youngsters from this era will now be in their 60's so some are certainly going to share an interest in how horror has developed).

Gender-wise, our core audience would involve both because of the following points:

• Teenagers and young adults often hang around in mixed gender groups (cinema visits can be a frequent occurance for these groups).
• Horror maintains a strong appeal for couples, especially young couples, on a date (the frights give them a good reason to cuddle and get closer to one another early in the date).
• The film sequence could be seen as male-orientated, in that the actors involved are men and the film involves alot of "masculine traits" - however this is just a generalisation.
• 'The female gaze', derived from Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze), states that although females provoke the gazes of men because of their bodies, males can provoke the gazes of women if they are involved in a private environment as it creates a sexual kind of atmosphere. This can cause females to be attracted to male actors in films (our opening sequence could create this atmosphere as it is private and intimate), and this is a natural reaction (known as scopohilia in medical terms) so is likely to work well. [Scopophiliais the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature - http://www.dictionary.com/]

Overall, there is appeal for both genders and all ages, as long as they hold an interest in the horror genre (or even if they are with people who enjoy horror). Our film would target a core audience of 18-25's (the cinema-goers) and fans of the gore and torture sugenres (or modern horror in general). The mass of this audience would be national (although local to London, our home city, to begin with - see question 3) because of main distribution in the UK.

Family & Friend Screenings

We were given a DVD with our finished sequence on, and as my group had only screened in front of 17-18 year olds I thought I would get some personal feedback from people outside school. Instead of using a questionnaire I just talked to them about it, and this is what I found out.

Mum (aged 46): Does not like the horror genre at all and as a result was very jumpy. She admitted she does not like the violence of the genre but was impressed by the acting and cinematic experience it provided. She missed certain aspects such as the production company and the foot that moves near the end. However, the plot did not confuse her and she got an almighty shock at the end with the hand slamming against the door. She found the flickering lights a bit dazzling and said she would only have watched the rest of the film if I had actually directed it for real!

Dad (aged 49): Does not usually watch horror but would if it was meant to be good. He was very impressed with the music and atmosphere and found the location very sinister. He said he felt nervous the whole way through as if something was going to happen but he was also dazzled because of the flickering lights and as a result missed some dialogue and the foot at the end. He wanted to find out why the victim was there and what had possessed the killer, so would watch on.

Uncle (aged 51): Enjoys quite alot of horror films althought not necessarily gore. He really enjoyed the sequence and understand everything as well as the enigmas that he wanted to find out. He admitted he was a little bit confused by the foot but worked out by the end that it was another victim - adding he thought there was too much clutter around the foot. All in all though, he would watch the rest of the film and actually preferred it to the 'Hostel' film he saw, which he did not like because it was too farfetched.

Cousin (aged 25): Likes horror movies but prefers action thrillers. He was extremely impressed by how filmic it was and the mysteries he encountered - he wanted to find out more! He was a little sad to find no real violence in the scene but I assured him more would have come in the actual film. He had no criticisms at all and told me to give the actors a pat on the back for an Oscar-winning performance.

Brother (aged 19): Loves any films including horror. He really enjoyed the sequence and thought the pace and structure, and how heldback the narrative was was excellent. Being a film student at university, he claimed he could take the film from there and actually make it into something special with a twisted plot. He thought the flickering lights were actually effective in unsettling you and added to the anticipation something would happen. He also was impressed by the depth in the killer's character and said his acting was amazing for a sixth form student. His one criticism was the blurry camera occasionally, saying we could have changed the manual settings to eradicate this. However, he said he would definately want to see more.

Nan (aged 74): Has never watched a horror film because she would be too scared. Like mum, she did not enjoy the violence and could not take the intense atmosphere. She thought it really looked like a film though and added that the acting was convincing and clear. She got confused with the 'putting to sleep' scene and did not see the foot move, but we turned the volume down so she did not get too shocked by the scream sound with the hand, which she thought was the scariest thing she had ever seen. She would not want to see more despite the fact she was impressed with it.

Family Friends (mum & dad aged 40's, one son aged 16, one son aged 13): The mum and dad had pretty much the same views as my mum and dad, with their dad enjoying it slightly more. The 16 year old son really liked it and said he had seen 'Saw', referencing it to the start of that (spooky!). He said he would definately watch on because he likes watching horror films to see how scary they really are and he likes to pick holes in them (though he could not pick any in ours). The 13 year old is not really allowed to watch films rated over 15, but he liked the film, understood it and asked alot of questions about why things were happening (meaning he wanted to find out more). He got a bit scared at the end with the hand, which I think shows the 18 rating would be more suitable and any hardcore 13 year olds can get their hands on the DVD!

Overall, this feedback was very useful and concluded alot of things. The people that mattered most were my brother and cousin (part of the core audience) and they were the ones who had most knowledge of horror and enjoyed the film most because they watched that sort of thing. They were impressed by it, which is very hopeful for the films success. The wider audience had more mixed views about the film, which is expected. The adults in their 40's would not usually watch that genre, but the men did still find it interesting, proving some adults of this age might go to see it. My nan was probably too old and had never seen a film like it, so the potential for old people is not very high, which does not matter a great deal as it is way outside our core audience. The people below our core audience age were the 16 and 13 year old, and they both enjoyed it too. The 16 year old said he would watch on despite being under the age rating, showing lots of kids this age and maybe below would watch such a DVD. Even the 13 year old did enjoy it although slightly creeped out by it all. I think there is a little bit of potential either side of the core audience and plenty within it. At the end of the day, it is probably more about whether you actually like the horror genre or not as to whether you would truly enjoy our sequence!

Audience Screening

We held an audience screening on Monday 19th January lunchtime, showing off our film to 30-40 people in our sixth form. We produced a questionnaire and got them to fill it out. We took a random sample of 11 out of the 30 or so questionnaires (taking every 3). From these questionnaires we were able to come up with the following summary of the feedback, which I typed up on our group blog:

Every sample was from 17-18 age group as they are in our year at school. About half were male and half were female, and traits did not seem to be based on gender as we expected. Common genre likes were action, thriller, comedy, horror and thriller. Someone even said slasher! These genres were shown in favourite films such as Saw, Scarface and Mean Girls.

Every single person recognised that it was an opening sequence and the title was 'Reservation', which was good from our point of view - our film was clear. Everyone also recognised from the sequence the genre, which was clearly horror with elements of thriller/slasher. About 9 out of the 11 people thought the film could be filmed at a normal cinema or multiplex with the other 2 opting for a student film festival. This tells us that our film could target a mainstream audience and be popular enough to show at a normal cinema. Most people opted for teenagers or 18-30's as the targeted audience with some adding horror enthusiasts or people that like to play violent games on the xbox/PS2. This was a pretty similar view we had for our target audience. Only 2 people mentioned that males would be interested so most people did not feel it dominated one particular gender.

The film seemed to make it obvious who the killer and victim was, and one pressed every single person was able to explain the victim was a captive and was being tortured by the killer. People described the killer as evil, insane, scarily polite, bad, mean, sadistic, murderer and psycho. Nobody described the victim so his personality can be identified as miscillaneous or "normal". Most themes identified were along the lines of fear, revenge, violence, evil and death, so that came across well.

All 11 people in the sample enjoyed the film and found it attractive to watch, with one person saying because they thought it had a clear narrative, and others saying it was tense and filmic. The favoured parts of the film were the hand at the end with the scream and Matt shouting, "I SAID BE QUIET!", which did not really suprise us - they were the most dramatic parts. People generally thought the lighting, music and location worked the best with some people suprisingly liking the flickering lights even though we were not sure about it. However, some people were not sure about the regular blackouts stemming from the flickering lights, and someone thought the acting was not up to scratch although we certainly do not agree with this. Alot of questions were asked about the random foot and then hand at the end - this made us pleased. These signified enigma codes and you were meant to be confused by them, as to continue watching the film to find out what they meant and who they belonged to (everyone commented on how they would continue to watch the film, even the people who said they did not like horror and would be terrified!) - so our film was successful in luring in its audience.

The following were the ratings given out of 10 by the 11 subjects: 10, 10, 9, 7, 8 and a half, 9, 8, 9, 10, 5, 9. On average this works out at about 8 and a half out of 10, which is not bad at all for an amateur film project. We realise some scores and comments maybe bias due to friends being present at the screening, but all in all we are very pleased with this feedback, and will take the criticisms on board in our evaluations.

Target Audience

Now our group has finished editing and we have until this Wednesday to edit, I have looked back at all my individual blog posts and re-done the labels to tidy the whole thing up.

One thing I have realised I have not cleared up on this blog was the intended audience for our film, which is a typical horror audience. We thought 18-30's (teenagers and young adults) would probably be the most likely audience with our film meriting an 18 rating due to the horrific violence. However, this does not mean people over 30 cannot watch our film, as I am sure they would. Also, I am sure many under 18's would get hold of the film somehow on DVD and could certainly become popular with younger "hardcore" kids. Simply, the main bulk of our audience would come from the 18-30 bracket. Gender-wise, I think both genders would watch our film even though it could be seen as more male-orientated (actors, violence and plot). Alot of girls I know are into this kind of horror anyway and have an attitude in which they enjoy scaring themselves with their friends. Boys would simply watch it for the gore element and narrative. Many couples would also probably go and see a film like this as horror gives them the opputunity to "snuggle up", so I think there would be an even spread across both genders.

All in all, thrill seekers and horror enthusiasts (especially those of the gore subgenre) are our core target audience, with fans of the Saw and Hostel films being typical target-ees. Our film however, is open to all ages, genders and anyone who wants to come along for the ride!