Audience Identification and Appeal

Q. Who would be the audience for your media products?

My target audience for this project would be both males and females within the 16 – 25 age
range. Within this demographic my movie will target those who are more curious, edgy and
adventurous about life. I feel like my movie would make a better impression on them as opposed
to people in their 40s as they would prefer more realistic storylines while a younger youth group
would be using their imaginations and getting immersed in the plot. I don’t want my audience
too young as I don’t think they will fully grasp the concept I will be trying to get across.

My target audience will enjoy the following types of movies:

Memento (2000) Split (2017) The Visit (2015)

Oculus (2014) Happy Death Day (2017) Gone Girl (2014)

The Sixth Sense (1999) Inception (2010) The Boy (2016)

We studied the Uses and Gratification model by Blumler and Katz. This model talks about how
different consumers use different aspects of the media to gratify certain needs and interests.
I feel that my group would mainly use this model in three ways (specifically the last four)

 In today’s day and age, most young adults and millenials feel as though they are
typically trapped and backed into a corner with “no choice but…” They feel out of
control and out of their element with their lives progressing. Adapting depression, OCD,
and anxiety disorders with no way to escape. In a metaphorical sense my audience will
be able to relate to my movie as the main character physically goes through the
aforementioned elements. My audience will have known what it’s like to go through
tedious amounts of stress, mental breaks and at a personal loss.
 Considering my movie would not be used for educational purposes, my audience would
most likely watch this movie to be entertained. It’s got an underlying fear factor and
clever plot. Seeing as my audience is at the age where they think they know better and
“have all the answers,” I believe they would enjoy being a little confused for once and
get emmersed in the action. My protagonist is also a very pretty girl and therefore
pleasing to the eye, putting my audience in a place of privilege, allowing for them to
watch her without her knowledge. I’d like to think my audience is rather intelligent and
come up with different means for my protagonist’s escape. The most power and
appealing aspect to my movie would be the amount of mystery and unusal aspects such
as the confusion created through cuts and editing and no evident backstory would
impress or engage them seeing as all they have to go off of is the hear and now.
 My movie would allow for my audience to deabte and interact with one another,
checking if others had seen the same movie and discuss the events, their interprations,
likes, dislikes, etc. It would allow them to gather in order to go see the film as well as
socially interact. Most would want to go see it as it was produced by Universal studios
whichis a massively well known production company and therefore have a wider
demographic reach.
  My audience will live vicariously through my main protagonist, each relating to what
she’s going through in their own way. In a way they will be embracing their troubles and
daily woes while escaping into someone elses life for a change. It allows them to feel a
sense of relief and comfort that they are not alone. My group is slightly edgy, likes to
live life on the edge without being told what to do. In a figurative sense they are going
through self discovery, experimenting and escaping possible dark pasts, whether that be
stress, physical/vurbal abuse, history, etc.

The focus group I used to review my film were apart of my intended target audience, between
the ages of 17 and 20. As well as the original target audience I’d presented my original pitch to.
I did get feedback from a few adults over the age of 50 and found that all responses were
rather similar. I had participants sign concent forms before hand allowing for me to use their
responses and in one case allowed me to film them however a few preferred to stay
anonymous but gave me permission to include their answers but not their names.

In total I asked 15 participants for their feedback. The questions I had asked were as follows:

1) What do you think the movie is about?

2) What did you like?
3) What did you dislike?
4) What would you have changed? Or improved?
5) Would you have watched it if it was an actual movie?

I hadn’t told my focus group what my movie was about prior to the preview so when asked
what they took away from that, most respondents were close to my intended idea. Some
suggested it was perhaps “ a doll or something who’s mentally crazy.”

Others suggested “A girl losing her mind.”

As well as a “Horror movie and being alone, lonliness and being frightened. Emotions.”

Other rsponses were as follows:

  “a girl with mental problems”
 “a girl waking up in a place she doesn’t know, she’s trapped there.”
 “”she’s being manipulated by someone that doesn’t let her go. Like she’s
psychologically unstable.”
 “she’s unstable, got a multiple personality disorder or something like that.”
 “A psychological thriller about a girl trapped in a certain place attempting to escape
butshe wakes up in the same place again and again like Groundhog Day”
 “A girl who dies and wakes up after death every time.”

I then asked my respondents what they liked about the opening sequence and found a lot
of people liked different things. Some refered to specific scenes while other refered to
specific elements, such as “the special effects and photography.”

Other responses include:

 “loved it all, especially when she was alone getting up looking at options. Her trying
to solve the problem.”
 “The mystery and it felt professional.”
 “The editing and the way you filmed it from multiple angles.”
 “The music.”
 “The music was good.”
 “The acting was really good.”
 “The camera movement, it was really shaky so it made it feel more unstable.”
 “The lighting at the end was really dark and it looked really good.”
 “I like that even from the start of the start of the scene there is an air of suspense
that was held over me.”
 “Filming”

For the third and fourth questions, “What did you dislike?” and “What would you have
changed? Or improved?” Respondents typically synergised these together and mentioned
elements such as “the lighting” as it was “too bright for a psychological thriller” which I
found interesting as I’d intended for my lighting to be bright. I felt the harsh light would add
to the evryday modern feel, it was my waqy of challenging typical genre conventions as I
almost entirely used natural lighting. It was my intention to have the days continueing as
normal while the only continious change being the protagonist herself.

Other answers included:

 “I think it would’ve looked better if you put a filter on the videos to make them
darker.”
  “Wasn’t a fan of the transitions.”
 “I would maybe add more locations?”
 “Nothing was disliked, I liked it all.”
 “The length, should have been longer. I wanted to see more because it was
definately gripping.”
 “Didn’t like the jump cuts while the girl was trying to escape.”
 “The text maybe, the font used.”
 “I think the location could’ve been better, like some place darker and you could have
the main character having like flashbacks about each escape attempted and some
mysterious figure stopping her.”
 “Didn’t like how after a while it felt like I was anticipating something that never
showed.”
 “The music was slightly monotoned.”
 ”Music”
 “The camera focus points and stability”

With question five, all respondents said yes they would go watch it if it were a full movie
and that they “thoroughly enjoyed” my opening sequence. One person was confused by the
concept saying she “doesn’t know what it’s about” but in the end said yes she would go see
it but she would like to know what the general concept was beforhand rather than trying to
figure it out herself. In this case she would not be included in my target demographic.
Others said they’d prefer not knowing because “if it gave too much away then people
wouldn’t be able to guess” and that she finds that boring. She would like to kow the general
genre beforhand but not give everything away. I found that most respondents agreed and
said the same thing themselves, saying it “peeked my interest and held my curiosity.”