WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

PRIMARY AUDIENCE• 15-24•Mass market•Heterosexual•White• Female• C2-E income bracket

This is still an appropriate primary audience as our below the line marketing techniques are perfect for this age group. Using Web 2.0 is the best way to attract this audience as they are the digital natives. Also this is a less sophisticated audience therefore the fact that our narrative is simplistic on the surface is suitable for them.

Our narrative is simplistic in the fact that there are conventional and simplistic characters (protagonist/antagonist), as well as it having an equilibrium (at some stage in the film, the protagonists past would be shown enjoying life with her late friends) and a disequilibrium. However, it becomes more complicated if it is looked at in depth. We focus on the social issue of mental health which is a serious topic, and we reject the convention of a new equilibrium, as the audience will be left unaware of the identity of the antagonist. Our protagonist is a female therefore females are the right gender to primarily target as they would find more things relatable than men would.

SECONDARY AUDIENCE• 25-35• Urban intelligence• Heterosexual• White• Male• B-C1 income bracket

This audience is still appropriate for our production as a secondary audience. Our representations that are more sophisticated (about challenging representations regarding excepted power structures to do with race, class and privilege, and ideas about mental illness) are suitable for this audience because it provides them with more than just a simple narrative to follow. Also, the intellectual pleasures that our production will provide regarding the enigma about the antagonist is something that would attract this more sophisticated audience. We chose males as our secondary audience as there is a suggestion that the antagonist is a man. However I think that this wasn’t the best decision as men would not relate to any of our characters. There is nothing to directly attract the male audience and we do not target them particularly well in our production. I think a better secondary audience would have been females as there is a large focus on females in our production.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACKWe created a questionnaire online for people in our target audience to answer and tell us what they thought of our opening sequence. We put this questionnaire on our Facebook pages and had our friends and family answer it as they covered both audiences (males and females, different income brackets etc.)

WHAT THEY LIKEDFrom this survey, we found that the audience thought that our production was engaging. Almost 94% said that they wanted to watch the whole film because the opening sequence had grasped them so much. 84% said that they would recommend the film to other people to watch. This introduces the two step flow theory because if someone who is considered an opinion leader recommends our film to a group of people (e.g. a YouTuber praising the production in a vlog), then the opinion followers are likely to go and watch our film. 86% said that they thought that the music was effective. The increasing tension in the score was parallel to the increasing tension in the video therefore it only added to making the audience fearful and nervous.

We are very pleased that 90% of the people said that they liked the fact that the protagonist was female. Our primary audience is females because we thought that this would make it more relatable and that seems to have worked. However there is an issue with this as it is reinforcing hegemony about females because the female in the production is actually weak and vulnerable. 83% said that they liked that the characters were of a similar age to them. Our aim was to ensure that the audience felt connected in some way to the film and with the female protagonist and teenage characters we have done this. Finally, the simplicity of our production was praised with 87% liking it. We didn’t want the complexity of the narrative to be obvious as our primary audience wouldn’t recognize it, however this does suggest that the idea of multiple possible antagonists, has been missed.

WHAT THEY DISLIKED

39% of the people who answered our questionnaire said that the opening sequence wasn’t understandable. Although this is a large minority, it’s important that the narrative is understandable. Therefore if we were to re-film our production we would need to change a few things in order to make it clearer as to what is happening. For example, we could show some shots of the protagonist with her friends before they died to show her emotional connection to them. We could also have some more shots to show the distress of the girl (like the bedroom shot) so that the audience know she is being tormented by something. However, this is only the opening sequence so the rest of the narrative would become clear in the rest of the film.

OVERALLOverall, the audience were pleased with our opening sequence and said that they would want to watch the rest of the film. This proves that our production is engaging and exciting, making the audience want more.

I would argue that if the opening sequence is slightly confusing, it only makes you want to watch the film more in order to understand anything that didn’t make sense. Also, 70% said that they didn’t find the production relatable. I think this makes sense as the focus is on the death of four teenagers. However it is clear from questions 7 and 9 that they liked the choice of characters because of their similarities to the audience.

WOULD YOU CHANGE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE BASED ON THIS AUDIENCE

FEEDBACK?I think that it might be a good idea to change our secondary audience to females rather than males as there is not a lot in our production to attract the male audience. However, overall I think that our feedback was very good and Apparition is popular with our audience. Despite the fact that the majority said that they didn’t find the production relatable, the choice of characters proved to be good as the female character and age of the other characters was popular. With our primary audience being 15-24 year olds and females, it subconsciously connects the audience to the characters, which is why the audience was pleased with the casting.

OUR CERTIFICATIONI think that the certification of 15 is perfect for our film because:1. There is a psychological and external threat which is proven to kill. Also the idea of a

psychological threat is a real issue so it’s not to be taken lightly. 2. Some of the behavior in the film is imitable, for instance, the pool scene. If young children

were to view the film and witness the drowning of the teenagers, they could copy this and create danger for themselves or other people. This is an example of the hypodermic syringe theory as the young children would simply accept what they are being shown without questioning it.

3. Our target audience is 15-24 therefore there is no need to adjust the certification because our youngest audience is age 15.

4. There are no A-list actors in the film that would draw attention from the younger audiences. The film would not appeal to them because of the lack of recognizable faces.

5. We also follow the BBFC guidelines for a 15 rated film (no endorsement of discriminatory behaviour, no encouragement of drug misuse, a lack of strong language, no nudity or sexual activity, and no violence that dwells on the infliction of pain or injury).