2. Comic Effect The attraction to the audience was the humour. The voice over offers the audience an introduction into the unique humour of the film and is key in connecting the audience with the main character, for them to make a judgement as to how favourable they find him. How an audience will relate to the protagonist depends on whether the comedy is to their taste. Films such as Juno rely on this shared oddball humour to attract and address their audience.
3. Gaining a cult or popular following Attracting an audience is done by embedding your media product into popular culture, an example of this is the Channel 4’s hit comedy The Inbetweeners, which shows basic looking teenage boys with the ability to gain a large fan base due to their funny jokes, memorable gestures and well known catch phrases that strikes a chord with teens across the country with their comical quotes becoming renowned and copied in every sixth form in Britain. By using contemporary topics such as online dating in our film and selecting music from the modern band ‘The Golden Silvers’ as part of our soundtrack we hoped to create something that was right up to date with modern popular culture that would appeal to a mass audience, targeting viewers of successful films and TV shows that shared similar views and humour which included the Inbetweeners. As our film was slightly off the mainstream, targeting audiences of sleeper hits such as Napoleon Dynamite might also work in reaching an audience. With the aim for our own film gaining a cult following. The Character Will played by Simon Bird is someone that has influenced Dan’s character Angus, in the way that he brings the attraction from the audience with his self deprecating ‘witty’ charm.
4. Addressing our audience Our film opening addressed the audience through setting up a false convention that did not relate to the overall style and tone of the rest of film. This causes the viewer to make a judgment on the film as a whole which would later be falsified when the protagonist is properly introduced. By showing the audience a typical ‘Skins’ style opening, it later emphasized the ordinariness of the main character when he is revealed. The audience were directly addressed in the opening voice, immediately establishing a relationship between the viewer and protagonist. We did not want to isolate our audience we wanted them to care for our main character and have invested interest in his story. We tried to put our audience in the characters shoes, willing them to relate to him in some way, asking them to live through the characters life.
