TASK 5 - How did you attract/address your target audience?

The target audience for our thriller was males over the age of 18. One of the ways that we attracted our target audience was in our casting. We showed our two characters as being heroic and powerful, this aspires our target audience because this is what males of 18+ years want to be like - this may be a reason for them watching our film as they want to be able to be like these men. However, the actors we used aren't your sterotypical heroes of big, muscular heros, which shows that the target audience can relate to them. Instead of them being unrealistically manly, we wanted to show that they are just your average normal blokes who become heroes, which gives out the message that men can be just like that if they try. 

Because the two men are friendly the audience are able to identify with them and this also makes the audience like the characters which is very important in our film. The use of gadgets in our film makes it appeal to a male audience as this is something that stereotypically males are seen to be very good with - or try to be good with. Gadgets give men something to talk about as they have that part of their social life in common (e.g they can talk about playstation games), this shows that these males in our thriller are just like kids, which shows just how similar they are to our audience and it paints a realistic view of men. It also gives the target audience something to like about the film as they may just watch films because of gadgets - it could also make the film stand out because after the film they could produce a game (using synergy) about stearing a submersible. And if they were to create this game, then again, it would appeal to a male audience and this would be another way that we have made our thriller really stand out to men. Men may be interested in the subject matter of our film of the two men being in danger. It is known that men like the prospect of danger because it puts them in a position that they can make all things better - and then they will become heroes (and woman love heroes, so they always aspire to want to impress the ladies). Although we didn't have much choice in our casting I am pleased with our casting as the characters are not threatening, and the fact that they seem down to earth makes the audience like them even more. Because our thriller doesn't paint a negative representation of men, this may be another reason that males would want to watch it -- they may be fed up of being represented as sitting back at home doing nothing whilst their wives are fussing around after them -- because they are seen as being in danger and doing something about it! The thriller is very much about science which may not be appealing to women as much as men. Typically science is considered as a males job. I looked on the website for all the Noble Prizes given for Economic Sciences and 1 out of 44 prizes were given to females.

This backs up the idea of us choosing males to be scientific, and it is believable to the audience. However, we didn’t want to show science in a geeky way, so that the people watching who may not be very sciency could also understand the storyline. This was also shown in how they looked, as stereotypically male scientists are seen as being ugly, but we wanted to show that not only ugly or smart looking people can understand technology. In our thriller we didn’t use young heartthrobs as actors, this would appeal to teenage girls and not so much 18+ males. One of the reasons we didn’t choose young heartthrobs is being most men don’t want to be seen as pretty, they want to be seen as being powerful and this is what we showed more than anything in our thriller.  Our plot was also about exploration and adventure which we thought would appeal to a male audience. The use of adventure makes males feel as though they are in some action film/game, which plays to the male fantasy of being heroes. The physical work in the thriller makes the males feel powerful, and this intelligence would appeal to women and this is one of the main reasons that men do things – because they want to impress women. 

 

During our lesson we had a feedback session with our class and another media group. We looked at eachothers thrillers and wrote down what we thought the plot was, what we thought the strengths about the thriller sequence were and what we would do differently to improve it. Here is what people thought of ours: 

           What do you think the basic plot of this thriller is:

1.    A submarine losing power and something bad is going to happen

2.    They got eaten by a monster under water

3.    Set in a submarine under water. All the electronics fail, crash?

4.    A submarine on an exhibition

5.    People being stranded in a submarine and there’s something there

6.    Submarine, underwater crisis

7.    Submarine crew finding something underwater and getting in trouble

8.    A submarine which at the end have a mechanical problem

9.    Underwater crisis

10.   Submarine- underwater crisis

11.   Two officer in a submarine discover a ship or monster

12.   Under water thriller

13.   Underwater thriller stranded by something underwater

14.   People in a submarine loosing connection with land and the story follows these lost people

15.   The story takes place in a submarine

16.   Explorers in a submarine suddenly see something

17.   That people in a submarine hits something and the power goes down

18.   Underwater, submarine, find something.

19.   Submarine getting stuck under water

20.   Submarine hitting by North Koreans or Chinese.

            What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why

1.     The way they made the blue lights look like it’s a submarine underwater

2.     You don’t see the monster so you have to imagine it which makes it more scary

3.     Shots taken of the seabed

4.     The shot outside the submarine set the location and mood really well

5.     The dark underwater setting and diegetic sounds

6.     The darkness of the shots and makes you want to know what it is

7.     The concept is really interesting

8.     Sound effects were very impressive and lighting created a very realistic feel

9.     The darkness

10.   Dark, slow moving, tense and sound is very effective

11.   The underwater shots they are unique and well done

12.   Shots underwater props were good

13.   The sound and suspense of the film

14.   Original, full of suspense, realistic

15.   Suspense and mystery created emphasized by non diegetic music

16.   The filming under water effect was really cool

17.   Opening shots, basic concept was cool, underwater shots

18.   The variety shots between the outside and inside submarine

19.   It builds up tension quite effectively

            How do you think this thriller could be made even more effective and why

1.     The part were they are ‘ What’s that’ this didn’t give you an idea on what is was

2.     It was quite hard to see the images on the screen

3.     Maybe too dark as times (couldn’t see some of it)

4.     Make it slightly slick when he sit down

5.     If they were able to see more under water

6.     Different sound, more effective building up

7.     Better presentation of a submarine

8.     Shot could have been a little clearer, although they did create an atmospheric feel

9.     More imagery on wear

10.   Not being able to see clear images

11.   Using actors which have more realistic emotion

12.   Made the atmosphere clearer shots

13.   Better dialogues, make the problem more obvious

14.   Maybe to see a glimpse of something at the end

15.   Made the shots of what it was just a little clearer 

16.   Maybe a better set, some of the water shots blurry

17.   Seen what is outside not really clear

18.   There could be a weird sound coming out of whatever is attacking the submarine, that would make it more scary 

      Looking at the feedback that we got it is clear that basically everybody understood what our thriller was about. This is probably one of the most important questions because if people don't understand it then it cannot be that thrilling. If the plot isn't clear then this means that the audience are concentrating on trying to understand what it is about. Whereas we wanted the audience to be with our characters and also scared for their safety. We wanted the audience to be captured immediately by our story-line so that they are straight away in the position with the two men. We had to make sure that it was easy to follow but also that there were pieces of information kept from the audience - this is because we wanted them to be at the same disadvantage as the characters. Its a very fine line between what information you give, you don't want to give too much information as this gets rid of the suspense, but you cannot give the audience too little information as they will not be gripped, or understand. A lot of people said in their feedback that they might have made it more clearer to the audience what the unknown creature was. However we thought that it was more thrilling that we didn't actually show what it was, because it made the audience in the position of the characters as they too were unaware as to what happened too.  16 out of 20 people mentioned that our thriller took place in a submarine. This means that 80% were convinced that it was a thriller inside a submarine, this is very important for our thriller as it is completely based around being inside a submarine. If the audience didn't get this then this would be a definite problem. The 20% that didn't write down the word submarine still said that it was based underwater so maybe they didn't feel that they needed to write that it was based in a submarine or it could be possible that they just didn't get that it was in a submarine. However because 80% did get that it was based in a submarine I am confident enough to say that this was understood, so our plot was clear.



Alot of people said that the strengths of our thriller was the darkness of the shots as this created suspense. This was an aspect we really wanted to capture well as we wanted the audience to see enough so that they were guessing, but not too much so that it was obvious. It made the audience in the position of the two men as they too were guessing what the mystery thing was. It was a technique that we used to make sure that the audience were gripped. A lot of people said that our concept was 'cool' and unique. This is one of the reasons we chose to film a submersible because it was original and there were many interesting things that we could do - but the trouble was making it realistic. I am pleased to see that one person mentioned that it was realistic, this is very important because any piece of film has to be believable for it to be affective. The shots of the seabed were mentioned as a strength, which is good because this was one part of the thriller that we really wanted to get right as it had to look like what the two men could see underwater.



The reasons that people said about how they would improve it are very reasonable. People commented on how some of the shots are too dark, however we wanted the shots to be like this because it made it more scary as there was really noway of seeing what was out there. This also enforced the idea of it being extremely claustrophobic. Unfortunately the actor that we wanted to use (who is a drama teacher, so would be able to act was unwell on the day, so we didn't have much choice because of the short notice.