How did you attract/ address your target audience?
The importance of secondary research into existing films.
Of course before we could make the thriller we had to start from the basic which meant we had to do secondary research, meaning we had to look for inspiration and information that might help us with the thriller that we where making, the importance in secondary research is that it allows to clarify the research focus, this helps because we are able to look at other films that relate to our idea, look at what the audience response to the film was and see how we can also try and get that same response.
I believe that the target audience for my thriller was.
Its almost traditional, to have a low key lighting, changes in the camera angles and fast camera movements, in all thrillers as it adds excitement to the plot, I made sure that in my thriller there was quick camera movements, changes in the positions of the camera and also most of our scenes where shot where the lighting was low-key to add a bit more, tension. I ma/de sure to do this because I wanted the audience to get the full effect and I wanted the audience to feel, sympathetic towards the protagonist, the emotion that I mostly wanted the audience to feel was anticipation for what was going to happen next, I also wanted them to keep engaged with the thriller. of course due to the questionnaires that I took I was well aware of what the audience was expecting and what their ideal thriller was so I tried to work hand in hand with the results that I got from the questionnaire and also with the secondary research that I previously did, to come up with a product of satisfaction.
The thriller audience enjoyed in terms of conventions and emotions and how did I ensure that I was following these conventions in order to address a similar target audience and their expectations.
I think that the target audience of our thriller film was, mostly older teenagers and young adults, as our thriller was created to trigger the mind and make people think, we think that if the audience was a bit younger then they would have been a bit confused and not really understood what was going on and if it was an older audience they wouldn't have been affected in the way that we wanted. So our target audience was of people between the age of 15-25, We mostly tried to make sure that the thriller was mostly targeted to the female audience as they are most likely able to relate to the protagonist as she is also a female, the ethnicity would vary as the event that happen in the thriller, are something that all females can relate to, but as the thriller is based on a true story, which recently happened in the UK I would say that the white females in the audience would most likely feel somewhat personal. As the thriller is a psychological thriller, I would think that most of the audience would be interested in psychology and as our targeted audience is at an age where they would probably be still be in education, such as secondary, college or university I wanted the people that where interested in
psychology to be attracted to this film.
What audience did I want to attract with my thriller?
Its almost traditional, to have a low key lighting, changes in the camera angles and fast camera movements, in all thrillers as it adds excitement to the plot, I made sure that in my thriller there was quick camera movements, changes in the positions of the camera and also most of our scenes where shot where the lighting was low-key to add a bit more, tension. I ma/de sure to do this because I wanted the audience to get the full effect and I wanted the audience to feel, sympathetic towards the protagonist, the emotion that I mostly wanted the audience to feel was anticipation for what was going to happen next, I also wanted them to keep engaged with the thriller. of course due to the questionnaires that I took I was well aware of what the audience was expecting and what their ideal thriller was so I tried to work hand in hand with the results that I got from the questionnaire and also with the secondary research that I previously did, to come up with a product of satisfaction.
Why I carried out a questionnaire and why this was important to do so
During the time in which I was finding some secondary research I was also doing research of my own which included me having to do a questionnaire that helped me acquire all the information that was needed from people in which I wanted my target audience to be part of, as I previously said making a questionnaire helped me because It allowed me to come feel personal with the audience, allowing me to know what they enjoyed in thrillers, what kind of thrillers they most likely watched and what their expectations where. This helped me create a product that will attract and please them.
Four key questions that I asked to help me make key decisions to ensure that I were attracting and addressing my target audience.
I made sure to ask very important specific questions, so that I may get the answers I was looking for, the 4 questions that I really put effort in wording where
- What appeals to you most about thrillers?
thrillers has suspense and mystery, This allowed me to address my audience by creating suspense and mystery in my product.
- Do you prefer supernatural or reality in thrillers?
- What gender would you want the protagonist to be?
- What gender would you want your victim to be?
Two quotes from my open ended questions that helped me make key decisions to ensure that I was attracting and addressing my target audience
What appeals to you most about thrillers?
Katie, 17 said "what appeals to me most about thrillers is the fact that they allow me to escape into some other world that is so similar to mine but at the same time so different"
These questions allowed me to ensure I addressed my audience by creating a world and environment in my thriller that was somewhere which was common for people to be seen in such as the hospital.
What scares you most about thrillers?
Sam 19 said " The thing that scares me the most about thrillers is the tension and how the characters react to event''
These questions allowed me to ensure I addressed my audience by creating tension throughout the thriller and also making my character really show her emotions on the screen.
My questionnaire:
To provide me with an understanding on whether I attracted and appealed to my intended audience with my production, I carried out a focus group to get some direct feedback. My focus group consisted of members of my class and people who I knew enjoyed thriller films so their feedback would be valuable.
My focus group
I was able to ask some of the students who attend the same sixth form as me.
Fatma, 17 said: "I really enjoyed the narrative of the thriller, as it was interesting and engaging, I actually want to know more".
Trang 16 said "I felt like the storyline should have been a bit clearer, and the protagonist should have had more dialogue".
Jimmy 18 said '' that he felt like the Reporter kind of helped him understand the story line''
Overall majority of the audience enjoyed the thriller, and felt like they could relate to it even though, they are not in the same circumstances as the main character, they felt they could relate.
The feedback overall was really helping in letting me know whether I attracted and addressed my target audience and I believe from using the feedback from my questionnaire and getting my focus group feedback, that I did.
Why was the primary research important and do I believe this helped me attract and address my target audience?
Overall I believe that the two methods of primary research I have carried out in the form of a questionnaire and the focus group has helped me find the needs of my target audience. I have used the answers that I have received from my questionnaire to make sure that the product that I created satisfies their wants and needs from a thriller to ensure I attracted them and in regards to the focus group, it gave me critical feedback to measure my success.
