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

Question 5) 

Questionnaires were essential in gaining effective feedback for our thriller opening, ‘Transit’. After ‘Transit’ was viewed, I electronically sent both males and females within the age range of 16-21 the questionnaire. I thought that this age range would be most suitable because of our demographic being between these ages. Also due to our demographic being 16-21 year old males, the majority of people I sent the questionnaires were to be males, however females also took part so that I could benefit from having a fair rating from the audience (this also meant I could see which gender found it most appealing). Because of ‘Transit’ having a male target audience, my evidence of questionnaires has been chosen from 2 males and 1 female. 

As evident from the feedback on the questionnaires, both negative and positive feedback was received. The positive feedback which was given includes: easy understanding of the narrative, and good use of camera work and editing. It could be said that a reason why 2 of the participants in my samples gave the understanding of the narrative 4 out of 5 (the other scored it 5 out of 5) is because of it being a linear narrative. This means that it's a sequential narrative which has a beginning, a middle and an end in that order. Story techniques such as flashbacks were not included within the narrative. This could be attractive to our audience because it means that a great level of detail is not needed when watching 'Transit'. 

Accompanying this, another aspect of 'Transit' which showed popular by the questionnaire was the good use of camera work and editing. In all 3 samples it was given 5 out of 5, which is most likely because of our groups choice of using DSLR cameras in manual focus which enables contrasting depths of field; giving a more professional feel and cinematic look. Also with the editing we made the decision to decrease the saturation and included a green tint to the edit. The use of DSLR cameras would have attracted part of our audience because it gives a cinematic look to the thriller opening, giving that cinematic feel which some people may look for. 

Furthermore, the soundtrack showed to be an attractive factor for people who took part in the questionnaire, they all said it reflected well with the film. One participant stated that 'it reflects the grittiness well', the soundtrack may have been very appealing to to the audience because the soundtrack includes a fast playing beat and instruments as it plays on. The soundtrack also has a very intense modern  feel to it creating a sense of a tight, gritty atmosphere. The advantage of using a modern sounding soundtrack means that it fits our thriller because of it being set in the present day, using a soundtrack with an old feel to it would not fit era its set in, and could possibly confuse the audience. This is another reason why the soundtrack showed popular among the audience. The soundtrack had a huge impact on clearly notifying the audience that 'Transit' is the opening to a film in the thriller genre, a reason why on the questionnaire every participant gave the question 'is the production clearly the opening of a thriller film' a 4 or 5 out of 5. 

The shot of John which is difficult to view

As well as positive notes, there were also negative issues with 'Transit'. For example one of the issues involved was lighting. One participant of the questionnaire noted that 'there was a scene where the lighting was very dark'. This attendant of the questionnaire gave the question 'how do you rate the standard of mise-en-scene to include colour, figure, lighting, objects?' an average mark of 3 out of 5. I believe that his reason for this is mainly because of the issue of lighting in one of the scenes, where it is a little difficult to view. This is an example of how the mise-en-scene was dark making it unclear in certain scenes; like when the character John went down to pick up the watch. This can give the effect of loosing the audiences attention with the action. What we should have done was consider the use of using lighting during this shot, which would have massively improved the scene. 

Another issue which was raised by a participant of the questionnaire was that 'the link with the watch took me a time to work out' when asked the question 'was there any parts you found confusing or hard to understand'. This link with the watch was proposed to be a vital part within the opening becasue it was there to build tension and suspense in the thriller and let the audience know that something very negative was going to happen. And if the audience didn't fully understand this, then it wouldn't hook them to watch the rest of the film. I feel that the reason this participant found it difficult to understand the link with the watch was due to lighting. If lit well, then the scene would have been much clearer, making it a lot easier to see what was going on.  Another way our group could have made this link clearer would be by including a flashback. This flashback would have to include John handing over the watch to Hana and also what this would have done is show a stronger link between the 2 characters. 

Regardless of this the use of intertextual references is another technique which would help hook an audience into watching the full film. References to other films are included within 'Transit' for instance when John approaches the white van and finds both van doors wide open creating a menacing shot which makes the audience ask questions. This is an intertextual reference to Australian crime thriller 'Animal Kingdom', when 2 policemen approach an abandoned car with both of its doors wide open. Intertextual references help hook the audience by making them feel intelligent that they've found a link between a scene or shot. In such a way interetextual references would help hook an audience because the members of the audience to work/notice the reference may have enjoyed the film that it is linked to, allowing them to think that this is worth watching because it has influences from that film; In the case of 'Transit' the film 'Animal Kingdom' has been referenced. 

'Animal Kingdom' shot of the car with the doors open

'Transit' shot of the van with the doors open

A generic convention of thrillers we used, were the use of enigmas. For example an enigma in 'Transit' was the black bag, and the content inside this. This is unknown and this enigma allows room for other enigmatic questions to be asked by the audience, such as why does Bill have such an interest in John and Hanna? An enigmas intention is to create mystery so that the audience can keep interest and try answering the unanswered questions. In the questionnaire samples the participants said that the sequence held their attention and 2 participants scored it 4 out 5, the other 5 out 5. The use of enigma's would have helped influence this to hold and hook their attention. 

Next, one of the females who participated in the questionnaire said that she wouldn't watch the full film if made, when asked the question 'would the opening inspire you to watch the rest of the film'. It was not stated why she wouldn't. But it can be presumed that this may be because of the only female character in the opening being Hanna is killed off very early on. This may give the assumption that the rest of the film may only have a male cast. What we can learn from this is that we may not have produced an opening that is attractive to the female audience, however this was not the target audience we were looking for.

Having 'Transit' set in the present day means that costume is going to be up to date; costume could be seen as an attractive factor to the audience because it means that the audience can relate to what the characters are wearing. Another important factor to take note of is that when addressing the audience, we made the decision to do it in an emotionally detached away. The reason for this is because the audience would have found it difficult to relate to the character John as a result of his numb response to the finding of Hanna's dead body in the lift.

Altogether, the use of questionnaires worked well in finding the audiences responses. It was a quick and easy to understand way of seeing how well we attracted/addressed our audience. It can also be gathered that our group addresses and attracted our audience effectively because the lowest mark out of 10 for the rate of the overall product was 9. However the killing of the female in the opening didn't show to be popular among females. This suggests that it put off certain females in watching the full film if it was made.  

Overall though, the most important factor to take into consideration of attracting an audience to keep their attention, would be the cliffhanger. It is one of the most important elements with the opening because it provides that hook which is needed. Our cliffhanger involves Bill's boot aggressively being placed in the elevator door, preventing it to shut and makes it open. We decided that this would be an attention grabbing cliffhanger to make sure that the audience wouldn't loose attention in the action. This also makes the audience ask questions as to what happens next?