Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

The attraction of a film to an audience obviously depends on who makes up this audience. Our three focus audiences were a core audience of 15-24 year old females, secondary audience of 15-24 year old males, and a tertiary audience of 45 years+ adults and parents. It was vital that by attracting one target audience, we did not alienate another. This could result in a smaller audience and therefore lower box office takings. However whilst doing this, it was key that we focused most of our efforts onto attracting the core audience, because this is who the film is predominantly made for and appeals to. 

We were very keen to get feedback from typical audience members through out the editing process, as well as informal feedback on the proposal. The feedback on the rough edits of the core audience can be found here and the secondary audience here. At the bottom of the page there is a question and answer recording on the final version.

Choice of Distributor
When marketed as a EOne Momentum film, fans of films that they have already distributed may be attracted to watch Vendetta, because this connotes a similar quality to their previous films. 

Choice of Genre

Whereas the first graph is in relation to box office, the second graph refers to sale of physical video. 

These two graphs, taken from the BFIs Statistical Yearbook for 2012 demonstrate the popularity of the comedy and the drama genres (both of which are relevant to our film). Comedy and Drama made up approximately 28% of total box office takings in 2011, and 40.4% of the sale of physical video. Given that physical video sales generate approximately 10 times more revenue (BFI statistics), this indicates the the high demand for comedies and dramas are in the UK and Ireland. Therefore the genre hybrid we have chosen for our film is the first way in which we attract our audience. 

We related Katz and Blumler's Uses and Gratifications Theory to our film/film opening to identify how to give audiences high satisfaction through watching our film. 

Information and education - The high proportion of parents within our tertiary audience are likely use our film to  become aware of what their children might get up to outside of family like, and the social situations that they may be involved in. This targets fears of children lying to them, and being placed in dangerous situations. There is also appeal for all adults over 45. They are more likely (than 25-45s) to have left their partying and more social life behind them, and watching our feature film may bring about pleasures of nostalgia, and reminiscence and old memories given the realism many of the situations. On the other hand, any audiences that have different lives to those portrayed may just be interested in how other people live.

Entertainment - The black comedy sub-genre is likely to appeal to all of our audiences. As the graph demonstrates, comedy is the genre that attracts the largest audiences to both cinemas and to buy physical videos. The black comedy is most likely to appeal to our audiences for several reasons. Firstly black comedy is more mature than other types such as slapstick. This appeals to our 45+ because they are likely to appreciate this mature type of humour. The 15-24 year olds may also prefer humour that they find mature because it separates them from being young kids. The effects during the overdose scene are also entertaining. They are unusual and psychedelic and the viewer can immerse themselves with the scene. This links into escapism. 

Social Interaction - Our film is appealing to a mass audience due to the highly relatable themes running throughout. This means that audiences who would otherwise not watch it, may chose to in order to have common interests with friends, and are able to join in discussions. They will have fulfilment through inclusion.

Escapism - By watching our feature film, the audience are able to immerse themselves in someone else, different and unusual life. This allows them to escape daily stresses and relax, forgetting temporarily about their lives. For example, the first POV shot in our opening literally allows them to see things as someone else does, and makes them more likely to be able to forget about their own life and empathise with characters, and feel like someone else.

Identification - Especially during the initial equilibrium, the teenagers lives are very realistic, and therefore our core and secondary audiences may know or be similar to some of the characters that they are introduced to. The event of a party scene is iconic and immediately recognisable, as are the themes of collective drinking, and drug taking. The older tertiary audience may relate the characters they see to themselves when they were younger. The core audience are also to identify with and aspire to aspirational traits of our main character, despite the fact that she is not an actual aspirational character. This is similar to Effy in Skins. Whilst she is cold and cut off, she is stylish, attractive and very cool. One comment on her character profile on the channel 4 website says: "Effy's the coolest person I've ever seen. Dude, she's awesome! :)"

Whilst above I have mainly referred to general appeal throughout the film, I will now point out specific appeal to audiences within our opening. 

• Firstly we conform various to genre connotations and use cultural codes such as beer cans, music and party costume. The audience know what to expect and so can relax and enjoy the narrative. However we do break some conventions to avoid a boring film and to make it more realistic and relatable for the audience, especially the core and secondary can project themselves into the scene. It also may create nostalgia for the tertiary audience. 
• There is a shock in the narrative when Hannah "overdoses", the pace of editing quickens and the atmosphere changes, offsetting the audience and keeping them intrigued. 
• The point of view shot directly enables the audience to see as an insider what things are like in their world. This particularly creates appeal for the tertiary audience who may be intrigued as to how things have changed since they were involved in this kind of scene, or for parents who want to get an idea as to what their children are up to. 
• The montage techniques during the overdose scene appeal to the audiences' fears. They are provided with a range of reactions and so they can decide who they empathise with (most).
• The continuity techniques such as the 180 degree rule and match on actions and the 30 degree rule (such as when Eve is making her exit) make it easy for the audience to follow from shot to shot and enables them to focus on the narrative, and get absorbed in the film.
• Use of enigma code. There is a build up of enigma when Eve smiles. Why did she smile? Why did she walk out? Is she involved what just happened? If so how and why? Is Hannah going to be okay? 

Here is a primary and secondary audience sample, watching our film opening. 

Below is some audience feedback demonstrating this core and secondary sample found successful and unsuccessful. 

We know that our titles have been reasonably successful because Alice and Patrick easily identified the film name without any confusion. This is very important, because the word "Vendetta" can triggers thoughts about why it may be called this, and brings many possible connotations to mind. 
For genres, the audience said that it could be "crime", "mystery" or "dramatic". They also said it was not comedic. This is good feedback because they understood the core drama genre, however a lot of our feedback has reported suggested that the crime genre is prominent. They thought this due to the dark mise-en-scene and the style, as well as the serious overdose event. This is not too serious because the genre of crime does not detract from the drama, and their are definitely themes of crime within our opening, as well as for the rest of the film! However, the seriousness of the film was not as intended as it come across. This links into the comedic aspect being less prominent than we would have hoped it to be. This may be because many people are unaware of the black comedy genre, and because the comedy is quite subtle. If we were to do this again we would have to concentrate on consolidating this genre further. On the other hand, people laughed when the couple continue kissing even after seeing what has happened to Hannah, which is positive feedback. 
They said that our film is likely to be shown in independent cinemas, which may well be the case unless of film attracted wide appeal through word of mouth. The budget is very small so it would be unlikely to be shown in being multiplexes such as Odeon unless the making of the rest of film was well financially backed. 
The correctly identified the target audience, which hopefully means it appealed enough to them as teenagers!
They linked Eve's character to Vendetta, and identified her as the protagonist which is very positive feedback because it immediately gives her connoted character traits through only 20 seconds of seeing her. They identified the character of Hannah as being quite key, which means that we have introduced her well. They also noticed the mix of personalities, and range of characters and behaviors at the party. 
They were able to put the events in order, and followed the storyline well. They caught on to the enigma and started to make predictions as to why Eve smiled, but said they would like to watch on to see if their predictions were correct, and to get their questions answered. They also identified the appropriate theme of revenge.
As a whole they said that the opening sequence was successful and interesting to watch, which we are very happy about! They reported that they enjoyed the enigma of both the opening and Eve's exit, which is great because enigma was key for our audience appeal. 
Improvement suggestions were to denote character reactions for longer so that the audience could relate to them more. This is something we would definitely take into account if we were to repeat this project, because relatability and empathy are key methods by which we have targeted our audience. 
7.5/10 and 8.5/10 are ratings we are very happy with! 

Overall we have appealed to our audience in various ways, and without alienating one audience, we have attracted a range of ages and genders successfully. Whilst their are things that we would change if re-doing the project to increase audience appeal, I would say that our appeal has been successful on the whole.