Evaluation 5: How did you attract/appeal to your target audience

Research I did before starting my product, and how it affected the final thing: 

• Filmed a practice video to understand different camera angles and how they can portray different things- This meant that I could manipulate each shot to give a desired effect.For instance, if I wanted my character to look powerless then I would use a high angle shot. If I wanted him to seem unbalanced I could use a canted angle. 

• Researched mise-en-scene, stock characters, music/sounds and representations in horror films- I learned that certain objects can be used as a signifier. For instance in the middle of my sequence I have a noose swinging from a branch which creates foreshadowing.

• Watched and evaluated two horror movie openings- I generally came to realise how much these set the scene for the rest of the movie, and how much effort is put into them.

• Secondary research on Pearl And Dean which allowed me to find out the most common age and gender that horror films such as mine will have.- This meant I knew exactly who I would be aiming my film at. I already had a rough idea but I thought that more adults would go and see them than they actually did. As a result, I geared my titles towards teens rather than adults. 

• Looked at current horror film's characters to figure out which mise-en-scene and props would be most appropriate to use.-This is pretty much the same as when I researched stock characters etc, it helped me understand the purpose of certain items far more. 

• Two location recces that meant I could determine which one would be safest to film in- My initial idea was to film in Municipal Cemetery, however after doing the recces and taking everything into account, I figured out that it just wasn't safe enough to do. This greatly impacted on my original ideas and meant I had to change a lot. 

I asked my audience to complete a questionnaire about my product to see how they interpreted it and why:

1) What genre do you think my film is based on my opening sequence?

When asked, 89% of my audience said that they thought that my film was horror, while the other 11%
said gothic horror. They said that they thought it was this genre because of the dark colours, the connotations of graveyards and the creepy soundtrack- both diegetic and non-diegetic.

2) Does this product appeal to you?

On this I got mostly positive feedback, 78% of my audience said that it did appeal to them, one reviewer even said "It could be the beginning of a good cult film,". 11% of the rest said that paranormal horror films weren't their thing whilst the other 11% said that it just wasn't their thing full stop. Overall this is quite a good response.

3) How is the lead character portrayed?

Everybody said that he was obviously depressed while other people came up with some more interesting answers. For instance, "He's portrayed as the personification of evil and death,".

4) What would you change about my product?

The most common thing that came up was music and the effect I put onto the video. The general suggestion was to make my music build some more towards the climax and to reduce the amount of effect on my video so it's a little clearer.

5) Out of 5, how would you rate my colour choices?

78% of people said 5 stars, while the other 22% said 4.