Here is my answer to evaluation question 5.

1. EVALUATION
QUESTION 5
By Rebecca Clarke

2. How did you attract/ address your
audience?

3. What they wanted to see...
We did a series of interviews, with either people on their own or with small focus groups, of
people that all fit in with the primary and secondary target audience for our film. We asked them
what kind of things they would want to see within new horror films. About half of the people said
that they didn’t really like the gory side of horror films and the others said they did. We didn’t
want to include a lot of gore, but we still had some scenes that would include this because we
wanted to please everyone. Also they said that they liked it when horror films became slightly
psychological, we wanted to have aspects of this in our film. We did these interviews to gain some
knowledge and understanding of what members of our target audience liked the most in horror
films. This really helped us when working on our film because it helped us make some decisions
on what we should and shouldn’t include.

4. Casting
We had to really work hard on casting because we wanted it to look effective and the right age
range that we were hoping for. We didn’t want the male actor to look too young. We needed him
to look old enough to a have a 5-6 year old child. We also needed to find a very young girl to play
the part of Bonnie. We needed them to look like believable relatives, father and daughter. If
casting hadn't gone well, this would then have ruined our whole film. In the end we chose to use a
real father and daughter that were roughly the age that we are looking for. We needed the
audience to believe their connection and his consideration, care and affection for the daughter
otherwise the audience would think badly of the film. We didn't really care whether the cast was
attractive because we really just wanted to portray the connection and relationship between Joel
and Bonnie really well, we felt like appearance didn’t matter within our work.

5. Plot
We really wanted the plot of our film to be different and not predictable. This is because it would
be more enigmatic and would be more interesting for the audience to watch. Our storyline is in
reverse chronological order. This is because the film starts from the end. The whole film is a flash
back which then goes back to the same situation as the beginning. We wanted it to start this way
because it leaves the audience on the edge of their seat and asking for more. This enigma is what
makes our film opening interesting and why people would enjoy to watch it.

6. Barthe’s Narrative Code
We used aspects of Barthe’s Narrative Codes. He has five codes and these are Action, Enigma,
Semic, Symbolic, Referential. We included referential because of the location and the use of the
young girl. The location, the abandoned house is the middle of the woods can be associated with
the film ‘Cabin in the Woods’ and the use of a young girl can be referenced to films like ‘The
Woman in Black’. We also used Action because the fact that they are running through the woods
and that Joel goes to kill himself is action. Then we also included the use of enigma a lot through
out our opening. Questions like why he is alone? Why is he sorry? Who is Bonnie? Where is he?
Why is there a noose? Does he actually kill himself? Why doe we never see the young girls face?
These are all questions the audience could ask and that they want to find the answer too. We also
included both semic and symbolic because the young girl’s laugh at the end, although the use is
quite sinister, it could represent happiness that used to exist and all of Joel’s guilt finally being
lifted. Also they use of the noose represents death and negativity.

7. Uses and Gratification Theory
The Uses and Gratification Theory is an approach to understanding why and how people seek out
specific media to satisfy specific needs. There are different aspects of this theory. These are:
• Entertainment
• Escapism
• Inform/Educate
• Identify
• Social Interaction
We have taken these into consideration and attempted to do this for our audience. We made our film opening
entertaining and fun to watch then we made a feel of escapism because in a way Joel has escaped from
society and is alone. We are attempting to inform the audience about mental health and the effects it can
have and people can identify mental health and the isolated building, the use of a young girl and the woods
with other horror films, helping the audience to establish the genre. The fact that our opening is quite
shocking considering that Joel goes to hang himself at the end could mean that people are likely to talk about
it and spread the word because of what they have seen.

8. Content
The use of mise-en-scene is very important and critical within our film opening. We made sure that
costume and that the acting was the best because we felt that if this wasn’t represented properly then
our film opening wouldn't be as effective. We chose the setting we used because we felt that it could
relate to escapism and also that people could identify the location with other horror films, allowing
them to begin to establish the genre. We wanted to make sure that every element of the film opening,
such as camera, editing and sound to be just as effective. We felt that if one thing wasn’t good enough
then the rest of the work would suffer. We used a lot of straight cuts, match cuts and a fade to try and
build our work and make it interesting. We wanted to use a variety of different transitions because this
is what would make our work interesting. We included a filter over the outside shots to try and give a
better feel to the film as well as make the surroundings and lighting look a little bit better. Sound is one
aspect that let us down within our work because of the traffic noise around our location. However we
wanted slow music (non-diegetic sound) within our work because this would create a better effect, we
didn’t want fast pace music because it wouldn’t fit with the sad emotions we wanted to portray. Also
this is why the editing wasn’t exactly fast paced either, because it wouldn’t fit with the emotion we want.

9. Camera and Sound
The use of camera and sound was very important. We used quite a few hand held shots because
we felt that it added more emphasis on our work and also in some instances this shows some
sense of disorientation. We felt that the sound was very important to keep the audience
interested. We felt that we didn’t really want there to be non-diegetic sound in the form of music
all the way through the opening, because we really wanted to emphasis the sound of Joel
shuffling and walking through the leaves, this would give a bit more of an effect and also the fact
that it is really all they can hear could be quite freaky in itself so it could keep the interest of the
audience because they do not know what to expect. These were both aspects of the film that we
felt we needed to do well so that our media product would be effective.

10. Conclusion
To conclude, I believe that we tried very hard to consider our target audience and try to make our
film opening to appeal to them. We made sure that when dong our research we took their
opinions in consideration when discussing ideas as a group. We also made sure the technical
elements that we used were interesting and made our film different and more appealing to watch.