Evaluation 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

As a group, I made a video of our peers and teachers in our school, who watched our opening sequence and asked if I could have their feedback...

How did we tailor our product based on what the audience wanted?
Most of the negative comments I received was it was difficult to understand, our first draft we had, we didn't include any of the takes of Hannah being kidnapped, it went straight from Hannah good, to a black screen, into Hannah bad. So we then added in the shots of Hannah in the bath, and the kidnappers hand going up Hannah's leg. I also got comments about the subtitles being hard to read, we originally wanted the text all white, to match the motif of our film being blue and white, however, we decided to change this so now the text is white but has a blurry dark blue shadow around the outside of the text to make it bolder and easier to read when the lighting is high key as you can see in the image below.  Some of the negative comments such as the first person saying he did not like the shots jumping straight into each other, we decided to keep as we thought it was more effective and is conventional in a horror film.

Genre Signifiers: We have made the genre clear to our audience by using several conventional features in other horror media products in our opening sequence. Such as the colours black and red are conventional colours of horror films, although they are not our main colours, Hannah's last costume, signifies the genre as she has red lipstick and wearing all black. Furthermore, the strobe lighting also creates a dramatic and distorted effect, with Hannah stumbling and also creates a sense of panic as Hannah does not seem sane, it makes her seem as if she is losing her mind. As well as the shot with Hannah on the floor, gripping her hair makes it scary as to why she is like that. The dark and eerie music with the asynchronous sound of the glitching, and ear ringing, reversed laughing creates a creepy and dark atmosphere and an evil mood which signifies the genre being horror as well.

 

How was the opening sequence engaging: Like previously before explained, I really liked Roland Bathes theory of enigma codes, therefore we wanted to make sure our opening sequence did not give a lot away but made the target audience question, and then intrigued to find out more. For example, in my opening sequence the voice over speaking about speech and emotions, does not relate as to what is happening on screen, which makes it quite confusing for the audience as they do not quite understand what the voice over is saying, but in fact the voice over is foreshadowing what is going to happen Hannah and why in the beginning she can talk and is smiling, but suddenly changes to not talking at all. Additionally, the fact we see very fast paced shots that are strange such as the blue ink on a hand, Hannah in the bath, and a hand going up a leg creates enigma and makes the audience question what is happening to Hannah, is she supposed to be there, how did she get there, and therefore makes them engaged as they want to know the answers to these questions. Finally at the end, there is a graphic match from Hannahs eyes, to blue ink in a bath, meaning there is a link between this blue dye and Hannah which intrigues the audience as they want to know why are they linked.

Audience Theory:
Using Blumer and Katz uses and gratifications theory, our opening sequence provides escapism, from their normal boring lifestyle, with something to capture their attention immediately. This film could also satisfy information needs, as it informs them about serious issues, such as kidnapping. Also how people abuse their voice and the words they say can be harmful to others which the voiceover emphasizes.

Audience Feedback: Using the focus group, as seen within the video, we were able to gain feedback, from a range of genders, who were the target audience. We had further asked people within our class to watch our opening sequence, and we made changes in order to minimise the weaknesses of our product.