Question 4 & 5Alex Newbold

Who is the Film’s Core Audience?

• Our film is targeted towards a young male audience between the core ages of 12-24 aiming for the less gory psychological market as the opening features no graphic content which is in contrast to the films we analysed where there are prominent elements of violence.

• It is a convention of the horror genre to aim towards a younger classically male audience. Our film caters to this audience through casting young male characters which would appeal to a male audience. However there is a strong market for female horror fans who may be attracted to the film however this may be a harder audience to attract due to the lack of women in the cast.

• Although the opening is fairly limited in terms of cast and content, later in the film there could be a more diverse cast which could reach a wider audience.

• As the film goes on there could also be more graphic content which could increase the certificate from the current most likely 12 to something higher such as a 15.

This shot introduces the antagonist as a threat within the house and induces the audience into feeling suspense. This shot also creates an enigma of who is this mysterious being? This should capture the audience’s attention pulling them into the film.

The fast paced action shot is conventional of many films but not horror generally adding a new element and increased visceral suspense. This would appeal to our target audience of 12-24.

The Impact of the

Initial Pitch

• We got a large amount of feedback from the pitch, most of which we took on board, and considered very carefully.

• An important piece of the pitch feedback was the use of flashing to the protagonists face between cuts of the premonition, because without these the clip would have caused a great deal of confusion.

• During the pitch it was also mentioned that the use of a psychiatrist was vital. As there would of been no link to the fragile state of the protagonist, however it was also mentioned that our plan to cast Hamish Maslen as the psychiatrist could throw up the issue that he was too young, and would not create a strong enough presence during the clip. However when it came to it, we found that if Hamish’s young face was not too present then he would still work.

• During our pitch the treatment threw up some issues as it was discovered the plot was hard to follow, meaning that the audience would get lost, this prompted us to reduce the amount of scenes and cool down the rapid cutting between as many scenes as we could manage, and approach the situation with a ‘less is more’ approach.

The Impact of Initial Audience Research

• When we were first testing our concept we made a questionnaire which we gave to a sample of our target audience.

• It helped decide as to whether or not we would show a murder or gore in the opening of the film as the questionnaire suggested that it was a fairly neutral area so we decided to not include one as it left the door open as to what happens to the protagonist of the film.

• One of the key questions we asked was on our location, one of the most well received locations was a normal house which we had easy access to in the form of Hamish’s house which we used in the final piece.

• We also questioned the audience on how they wanted the antagonist to be presented which allowed us to decide we wanted a sharp, calculated, but fast antagonist. This helped us create a traditionally psychopathic killer with a supernatural twist.

• The questionnaire helped us finalise how to use the sound design and made us choose to keep it mainly restricted to background music with a couple of more noticeable rises in volume during the interview and the chase.

The Impact of the

Rough-cut

• We also gained feedback from the rough cut with regards to plot changes and mistakes during the editing process.

• During the process it was noticed that, where we originally had TopHat jumping down from the rafters behind our protagonist, this was out of character, as in all his other appearances he had appeared as if by magic, meaning that it made more sense for him to be edited to appear as though he has just appeared behind ‘Allen Daniels’

• A continuity error was also picked up on, where it appeared that Allen picks up the phone twice, which quickly prompted us to get that fixed.

• It was also mentioned that where originally we had a scene where TopHat appears afront the TV screen for about 0.02 seconds, the scene was not necessary, as it was too fast for TopHat to be properly seen, and also it caused ‘Allen’ to have a full break down, too early, when he had been more angry than upset in other scenes, in the end it was decided that this whole scene should be scrapped.