How did you attract/ address your audience?

We like to think we attract our audience by confusion and the idea of wanting to find out whom or what bought Rose to the woods. At first, we decided to shoot an over the shoulder shot of Rose, so you could see the man’s figure. We then figured it would be more exciting for the audience if they didn’t know what was watching her, so we decided to cut this shot out; not revealing the person’s identity. Hopefully this will make the audience want to carry on watching the film.
We also use a number of point of view shots, including one when Rose is lying on the floor when she wakes up, and she looks up at the trees, and around the woods to show she is trying to figure out where she is. This works well because it lets the audience in on how the character is feeling and their emotional state. For example, we jolt the camera when she is looking to see where she is, the audience can tell she is feeling scared and vulnerable.
As our target audience is the younger generation of the population, we use a dance song from the Prodigy, in our rave scene. The audience will be able to relate to this song because it is a well known and successful. We chose ‘Closer’, by the Kings of Leon because it is quite a chilling song, and is also from a popular band, which the younger generation know a lot about. Another factor of our target audience being on the younger end of the scale is the age of Rose and her appearance. The clothes she is wearing are of modern and vibrant colours, which is how young adults dress when they go out clubbing. Also, Rose being the age she is, a lot of older teenagers can relate to her situation of being bought up in a strict family who don’t really allow time for socialising and things that normal 19 year olds aspire to do (party). It could also be a hit with a younger audience also, because they aspire to the lifestyle of older teenagers. We would then have to think about maybe the negative effects of younger audiences watching it though, because it might influence them to drink ect…
When we showed our first draft of the film to the rest of our class, we asked them to give us feedback on what they thought was good and what they thought needed improving. We decided this would be helpful because our fellow students were of the ages of 16, 17 and 18. This was perfect because they were in the group of our target audience. Some positive feedback we had included: “point of view shots are very effective”, “good use of flashbacks and music ties in well”
(flashback printscreen)

and “good continuity”. We were pleased with these points because this shows it became clear to the audience why we used flashbacks. Some negative comments we received were as follows.. “More distressed central character”, “needs a steadier camera” and “Not sure if music with lyrics helps tell the story or is a distraction, makes me think of a music video”. We did find these helpful, but came to the conclusion that most of the criticisms were from our teacher, who is a little older and mature than maybe the people in our target audience. For example, “needs a steadier camera” wasn’t necessary for our film in particular because the whole idea was that the shots that were taken of Rose were from the predator’s point of view, and needed to look sketchy, so there was no need for a steady camera. ‘ the unsteady camera looked good because it showed how somebody was following her and making her feel scared and confused’ – quoted by my sister, aged 15.