1. WHO WOULD BE THE
AUDIENCE FOR YOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT?
HOW DID YOU
ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR
AUDIENCE?

2. I responded to the initial brief by firstly choosing which certificate I was going to rate my film. I then looked up
what the regulations were for a 15 certificate film was and then built my idea around that making sure that
contents within my film were not classified as an 18. This meant that I was not going to include any scenes that
involved rape or nudity, and I also was not going to include strong swear words or major violence. I also
responded to the initial brief by asking people if they were to watch a certificate 15 film what they would expect
and would prefer to have within that thriller film to make sure that I had a film which my audience would be
pleased with and enjoy. To do this I made a questionnaire that asked my audience what aspects within a film that
they like to see in a thriller, such as would they prefer the protagonist to be a male or female. The answer to this
question was female this is because they see females as more vulnerable therefore as most of them chose the
theme of stalking a female protagonist would make more sense. After asking this questionnaire I adapted my
storyline idea to fit with what my audience wanted to see. For example most of them said they think it should be
set in an alleyway therefore I adapted my storyline so that at some point the location was an alleyway. To then
know exactly what my audience wanted I took pictures of possible actors and locations and asked them which
actor and which location they would prefer to be in my film. The answer to these questions were A for the female
protagonist and B for the location as they wanted a blonde girl with blue eyes which the first girl had as she was
seen as more innocent and vulnerable. They chose location B because they thought it looked more threatening and
also thought it would make it more tense if she was to go into a police station rather than a park. By doing a
second questionnaire about the specific things that my audience wanted to see such as specific actors and
locations, it made sure that when making my film I made my audience happy by including things that they would
like to see. I did this by using the most popular location, which my audience chose, and also the most popular
actors that they wanted to see.

3. My analysis and research had a big impact on the creative process in pre-production. From the different
thriller film I watched it helped me to get a better understanding of what a thriller film entails. This
included things such as the theme of being stalked and also shadows and colours to help portray the
threatening and negative side of a character and lighter colours to portray the good character. This meant
that it helped me with what I should include within my thriller. It also helped me a lot when coming up
with my idea as different films such as ‘Ronin’ influenced me. This was because the theme within this
film was stalking and also one of the locations was an alleyway, which seemed threatening. Therefore this
helped me as well as my audience influence I decided to locate some of my opening within an alleyway
and to use the theme of stalking as it helped it to seem more threatening. Also from this film I liked the
idea of using a female to appear as the victim, therefore in my questionnaire I included a question asking
my audience whether they would prefer the protagonist to be male or female and the most popular
answer was female.

4. I made sure that the meaning of my film would be apparent to my audience. To do this within my
planning and filming I made sure that I included a lot of close ups. For example at the beginning when
the filming the girl, I did this so that the audience could connect more with her and feel closer to her but
also so that they could focus on her emotions. However I used a close up for the antagonist so that the
audience felt they needed to keep an eye on him because he is a bad character. Towards the end of my
film I wanted to show that the girl was walking into danger. To do this I did a long shot of her crossing
the road and walking into the shadow. This decision was influenced by my audience because in the
questionnaire they said that they wanted it to be set in an alleyway and because connotations of an
alleyway include danger I wanted it to be set in an innocent place and then in the alley so that the
audience can see her walking into the danger. I did this so that the audience were warned about what they
were about to see and creating the ‘edge of their seat’ effect because the audience could see that she was
about to walk into danger so felt scared.

5. Some of them also didn’t think that the storyline made much sense and also felt that music needed to be
added. ‘I think you need to start adding in sound now to help make sense of it all as it’s not fully
clear as also at the end when Joe tells her to go it’s not very believable as audience doesn’t fully
understand what’s going on.’ I did not initially add music because I wanted to see what my audience’s
reaction was to the first edit and to see if it made sense to them which it did not. To help my audience
understand the storyline better I decided to re-film the first half and change my storyline so that it made
more sense. I did this because I wanted my audience to understand the storyline so I decided to think of
something that would be clearer to my audience therefore helping them to connect with the characters
and also to feel scared. This also made the title ‘Regret’ make more sense, because the audience had a
better idea of what the character had regret for from the close ups and the flashbacks as they were able
to concentrate more on what she was doing.
Throughout the course of making my film I had a lot of audience feedback which helped me to improve
my film and make my audience happier. In my second edit I changed minor things that my audience
noticed, such as bags of the actors still in the shot and also my shadow in one of the shots therefore I
had to crop the shots so that these mistakes could not be seen.

6. After changing my storyline my audience began to understand the storyline but still
thought that music needed to be added to build up the tension. I still did not add music
for this edit because I wanted to see if my audience felt I needed to add or take away
any shots before I added music so that I didn’t have to refit the music afterwards. ‘It
makes so much more sense than the first and second so well done :D Definitly
need some sound as it will help build up tension etc.’ Therefore in my next edit I
began to add sound for the whole film so that I could gradually build up the tension, I
was influenced by ‘Enemy of the State’ as within the opening of this film they gradually
built up the tension rather than having different sound perspectives throughout. I did
this so that I could find out what kind of music my audience preferred and which they
thought helped to build the tension.

7. On my fifth edit my audience liked the addition of sound but felt that at some point it cut awkwardly outside of
the flashback. I did not do this purposely however it showed me that I need to work on fading the music in and
out so that it was more fluent. Therefore on my next edit I again took into account what my audience said and
changed the areas which they thought needed improving. This included fading the music in and out of the
flashbacks more effectively so that it didn’t seem awkward this meant that my audience were not distracted by the
awkward cut and carried on focusing on the film. However I didn’t think that the music built the tension as much
as I liked it to and got quite boring towards the end. Therefore I decided to change the music half way through, I
did this by overlapping a different piece of music over the top of the end of the previous piece of music meaning
that they fluently faded into each other. I did this to make it less boring and also to show how the action is moving
forward and contributing more to building up the tension. I also decided to add some sound perspectives from the
bad guy, I did this by overlapping a piece of music over the top of the background music when the bad guy came
into the shot making the audience realise that he is bad. I used this sound perspective because I wanted to to warn
the audience about what the bad guy was about to do. As the sound was a negative sound it made the audience
realise that he was about to do something bad and as the amount of times it played increased towards the end of
my opening it made the audience realise something bad was about to happen. They liked my use of this and
thought it again helped with the tension. ‘ I like the way the music builds and gets more powerful, it added
to the tension really well.’

8. For my final edit I got a comment which said ‘Well done on the final edit,
MUCH better, all the sounds fits well I like the music increase the level of
tension, the flashbacks are make more sense now, also the whole thing runs
smoothly, I noticed it didn’t before. Very impressive well done’ From this
comment I realised that by following what my audience wanted it helped me to
make a successful film which fitting the criteria that my audience wanted from my
questionnaires before filming.