Evaluation - Q5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

 

One of the key factors in the film making process is whether you are able to attract your target audience. To do this, the film producers have to at every stage review on where they think they are doing this and what they can do to improve. In the film ‘Paranoia’ we wanted to catch the audience’s attention right from the start so that the audience will feel the urge to carry on watching through the whole film. To do this we wanted to create the name of the film so that the audience is intrigued when they first hear about it and know that it is going to be a horror film. We had several ideas for the names of the film but we wanted the name to be short and catchy and so decided to use ‘Paranoia’ as this is also relevant to the film in a more direct way.

We then tried to use different effects which will scare the audience and let them experience a horror movie which is what the audience looks forward to. The effects that we used such as the x-ray which is supposed to be a flashback in the scene is supposed to be the scary and the tense shots in the scene. Originally we wanted the flashback scenes to be in black and white which personally I didn’t think looked good because it was too light and could see the sun in the background. This is when we chose another effect to use which I think suited the scene and looked good and had the scary effect. According to some of the feedback we got, they preferred this effect better than the black and white and says that it looks scary and mysterious which is what the audience wants.

As this is a horror film, to attract the audience we want we have to make sure that there is some sort of action, death or/and blood type of shot to show the genre but to also produce a production which will give the audience a chilling but satisfied feeling towards it. We have tried to create this by building up the tension such as when the girl is running; this makes the audience wonder to why she is running, from whom is she running from and whether or not she will reach her destination. Its subconsciously places these questions in their minds and so they want to carry on watching it. The mystery bit starts to show when the boy’s hand is on the girls shoulder which is where we decided to play the heartbeat sound clip as this really captures the audience’s eye as its shocking to why the boy’s hand is there and where did he come from and so builds up the suspense to something happening. We have to show some sort of horror clip which will show to the audience that its scary but also to show the genre of the film and so we decided that we will get the boy to hit the girl in the end which is shocking but also sort of a cliff-hanger as the audience don’t know whether or not she has survived. We wanted to do this because this would attract the audience more towards the films storyline and they will feel eager to watch ahead which is our purpose and so by leaving the audience puzzled and shocked at the start, it leads them to actually wanting to find out what happens next.

We wanted to capture the audience’s attention from the start of the scene and so decided to play the tense music in the background from the start. We also use camera shots to start the tension by doing a low angle on the floor where you see a leaf turning over which gives the real life effect; though we didn’t initially know that it would happen. Nevertheless its showing to the audience that its chilling and with the x-ray effect at the start it looks really creepy which is what the audience would want to see. During the opening scene, we use different angle shots to keep the audience occupied and interested in the film where as if we used the same shot the whole time it will bore them as they are seeing everything from one angle and so after a while, they will feel bored and won’t want to watch more.

To appeal to our audience, we decided to use young actors/actresses. This is because the purpose of our film reflects back on many young people’s live who have been affected by serious issues such as murder and rape in their childhood and how some try to overcome their sadness in dangerous ways such as using drugs. In our film, though its also involving some fiction characters such as the ghost of the mother, it also involved and goes through how the real life issues such as drugs. This is because in the film, the main character will use different techniques to overcome her sadness which are also use by teenagers today because of serious problems. In this film, we want to show to not on young people but also those who are older and mature the problems which come by taking drugs and by also how they get over their addictions. We wanted to do this as our audience in this time and age are more frequently in contact with drugs and alcohol and so will feel attracted to watch the film and so we try to help them by exploring the issues and giving them a way out through this film.