2) How did you attract your audience?

Johnny Depp as the eccentric, 'Madhatter', in the contemporary Alice in Wonderland

Thriller lovers often like to know what they are going to see before watching the thriller product. Therefore prior to the making of our film we knew we would have to adopt certain thriller conventions which would then draw in those dedicated fans to watch and then enjoy our product. Often film fans enjoy to watch specific films with similar actors which has a repetition of genre codes, as they know if their favourite actor was in the film, the genre would be what they also enjoy. An example of a repetition in genre and actors would be Johnny Depp who is often depicted as a mad-character in films.

We decided to attract the proportion of thriller lovers to our film by providing the classic conventions of a thriller films: male Antagonist (Charlie), vulnerable, female Protagonist (Laura), props (voodoo doll), lighting on only one side of Charlie’s face showed is evil nature.  We felt that all this in total would reflect our bid to create a crime-thriller, similar to ‘Se7en’. ‘Se7en’ uses quite ‘real’ footage, as there is a more realistic approach (less effects). From research, there is a quite large market of crime-thriller hybrids, thus we needed to use something for our product to stand out. Thus we wanted to enhance the sinister element of our product by using colour correction. The colour correction enhanced/altered the original colours, creating Laura’s face (when dead) seem more grey and cold as if she was really dead, whilst it further emphasised the colour red on the voodoo doll to depict and convey the image of danger.  We decided to combine both an urban atmosphere of a messy bedroom, showing signs of madness, but also natural settings to show this evil activity could happen anywhere. The messy bedroom was constructed in a fake bedroom at college whilst the footage of Laura walking was filmed at the ‘Belstead Brook’, Suffolk, which looked very isolated in footage. This was effective as it implied something pessimistic was in the offing. Our audience may like this as it offers something different to the modern crime-thrillers, but also creates the tension of ‘this could happen anywhere!’. Our use of characters was also carefully selected to mirror classic conventions of a thriller. Charlie (male) was the Antagonist, often depicted as men in film, and Laura (female), a young, slightly vulnerable and naive 17 year old as the Protagonist. Laura’s blonde hair made her seem fair and innocent; an easy target for a mad-man played by Charlie who has strong facial features, and dark hair. Charlie’s movement during the sequence is peculiar and his movement conveys thoughts of someone who looked up to no good.  Charlie throughout the product is depicted wearing black, which has connotation of death and evil. Whilst Laura’s fair hair, and light cotton jumpers show innocence and vulnerability.

'Belstead Brook' on Google Maps

Initially, there is a stage of equilibrium as Laura’s seen as walking her dog in the peaceful setting of ‘The Brook’ (Belstead Brook), the music is fairly natural and medium paced, implying everything is fine. However, close-ups of Charlie begin to emerge, alongside a change in pace, tone and type of music thus suggesting Charlie is a potential Antagonist. Next time we see Laura, she is depicte d as dead, with a cold, grey face, done by using the effective colour correction on Final Cut Pro.  Here, the equilibrium is broken, and tension is created. After, Charlie is seen stroking a voodoo doll, the equilibrium to a certain extent, is restored. Yet, there is still a very spooky soundtrack which implies something evil could happen, as screams and cries (from the soundtrack) offer a aural flashback to the murder of Laura.  Subsequently, it can be argued the equilibrium is not restored. This was purposely done as it acts as a cliff hanger, so the audience want to carry on watching our product.

Results of our question regarding equilibrium 

In the creation of our product, we used the questionnaire filled out by our fellow media studies class mates as inspiration to improve our film. We asked 10 students in our class a few questions on our initial rough cut product. From the results, it becomes apparent that equilibrium was restored, however not too convincingly as only 50% said it was restored, the main theme of the thriller was also guessed at 50%. The location of local (England) was identified very well with 80% acknowledging it would be assumed the footage was in England, and most importantly 80% believed we had followed classic thriller conventions - a key target before we set out. Therefore we knew that to make our product into one of excellence we knew we had to focus on the restoration of equilibrium and making it  very clear the genre of our thriller film.  It was also apparent that our titles were excellent as 90% believed it was effective.  Whilst it was very clear our filters and effects were not at the top level which we aspired to reach, thus that’s why as a group we employed the use of colour correction and overlay to create confusion and emphasise danger.

The results of the questionnaire and research meant we were able to attract the exact audience we wanted to get.