This is Evaluation Question 5 for my AS Media Studies Course.

1. How did you attract/address
your audience?
Evaluation Question #5

2. Introduction
When making our thriller, we had to think about how we would attract and reach out to our
audience. When thinking about this, we thought that as we are making a thriller film, it
would be good to include in as many thriller elements as possible to be able to attract our
audience. We used a number of thriller elements within our thriller to be able to attract our
audience. These include:
• Suspense
• Setting
• Cliffhanger
• Red Herring
• Antagonist
• Hero/Main Character
• McGuffin
• Plot
We were able to include all of these thriller elements within our film to be able to attract our
audience.

3. Suspense
• One way that we use suspense in our film is during the
murder scene. Suspense is used well within this scene
because the strangling lasts a good 10-15 seconds or so.
Also, for this scene, we used fast paced action music which
added to the suspense. We used the music and duration of
the strangling scene together as it creates suspense
because the audience will be wanting to know if Freddie is
going to die, or if he’s going to survive or not. Another way
that suspense is used well in our film is the dog chasing
scenes. Suspense is used well here as the duration of the
chasing scenes last around 20 seconds. During this
time, the audience are going to be wondering if the dog will
be able to catch Freddie which leaves them watching with
suspense.

4. Setting
• The setting for a thriller is also a key element. This is
because the setting needs to be somewhere where the
story will be believable. When we thought of the storyline
for our film, we had to choose a suitable setting that would
work in our film and which would also be believable. As our
film includes a dog being walked, lots of running and a
parked car, we decided to use a park as our setting as it
would be the most believable as you are likely to see
someone walking a dog at a park, and parks are big open
spaces so they are easy to run in, and a parked car which
are also found at parks. This is important because it makes
the film more believable and more realistic which is a way
of attracting an audience.

5. Cliffhanger
• We also use a cliffhanger in our thriller at the very end. A
cliffhanger is when the film ends on a big moment on the film and
then the audience are left to think about what is going to happen
next and what the finale to that scene is. This almost forces the
audience to watch the next one to be able to find out what the
answer to that cliffhanger is so they are not in suspense anymore.
It is a key element for a thriller because it almost forces the
audience to be carry on, and find out what happens. The
cliffhanger we use in our film is at the end where Alex says
“Yeah, yeah it’s done”. This is a cliffhanger as the audience is left
to wonder about that moment and to think about what is done.
They would then ask themselves questions such as: Were Alex
and myself working together? If so, why? Will they continue to
work together?.

6. Red Herring
• We also use a red herring in our thriller. A red herring is
when the audience is tricked into thinking something
will happen and it doesn’t happen. It is designed to
trick and surprise the audience as they are made to
believe one thing, while the reality shows that, it was
wrong and that it was actually another thing. The red
herring that we utilise in our thriller is at the start, we
show Alex to be a helpless woman, who is a good
person. However, that is the red herring as at the end
of it, we see that Alex is an antagonist as she planned
to have Freddie killed. This is a red herring as the
audience wouldn’t expect Alex to be an antagonist
after the opening to the film.

7. Hero/Antagonist
• Our thriller is unusual in the fact that it has 3 characters in it, and
they are all antagonists. An antagonist is the villain of the film.
There are no heroes at all within our film. The film starts with
Freddie being the antagonist and Alex being the helpless victim as
he steals her handbag making him seem to be the villain.
Then, when Freddie is in the car, I am the second antagonist as I
kill Freddie. Then, Alex is revealed to be the third antagonist as it
is revealed that she planned the murder of Freddie. This is how
the film ends which shows that there were no heroes in our film
and everyone was an antagonist. This is a unique feature of our
thriller film as there won’t be many films that have no heroes in it
at all. This unique feature of our thriller film would attract our
audience because it is something that is different to other thriller
films which would get them to be interested.

8. McGuffin
• Our thriller also contains a McGuffin. A McGuffin is a device
in the plot line which first seems very important but in the
end, nothing really happens and the situation doesn't really
advance. We use this in our thriller film when Freddie steals
Alex’s bag. The McGuffin is when Freddie finds the USB
stick in Alex’s bag and then he puts it in the laptop, but
then he finds folders and ignores the laptop. The audience
would first think that it is important as that is the reason
that Freddie stole the handbag but then the audience
never get to find out what was on the USB stick. The
audience is then left to think about what was on the USB
stick and what was the purpose of Freddie stealing the bag
to find it.

9. Plot
• For any thriller to be successful, it needs to have a good plot to it. A
plot is the storyline of the film and is what happens during the
whole film. The plot to our thriller is that we start with a seemingly
innocent woman who is taking her dog for a walk through the park.
We see her walking and then the dog runs away from her, so Alex
has to run off and chase after the dog. In the heat of the
moment, she forgets her handbag and leaves it on the floor. Freddie
(the mugger) runs along and steals it. Alex sees Freddie run
away, and makes her dog try and chase after him. There is a chase
scene between the dog and Freddie. Then, Freddie finds a ball in
the handbag and throws it. Then, the dog chases after it which
means that it’s not chasing Freddie anymore. He finds car keys and
gets in the car. He empties the handbag to find the USB stick and
puts it into the laptop. While looking through some files, he is
gruesomely murdered by myself as he is strangled. Alex then gets
her phone and calls someone to say that “it’s done”.

10. Audience Research
• We also did two audience researches on our film. One was on the
rough cut for our film and the other one was on the final cut of the
film. We did an audience research on a rough cut for our film so
that people could recommend things that we could do to improve
our film. Then, we could go away and fix these problems so that the
audience could watch our film. We feel that this was important in
attracting and addressing our audience because it means that we
could fix the things that was wrong in our film, and then be able to
put in things that the audience would want. For example, the
audience who watched our rough cut was slightly unsure of the
storyline so we made sure that we fixed it. We then did an audience
research for the final cut so that they could check if we had fixed
the errors or not. We had fixed the errors so we was able to address
that audience. This would attract an audience because it means
that the problems with it would be fixed meaning they are more
likely to watch it.

11. Why would the audience carry on
watching the film?
• The audience would carry on watching the film because there are
plenty of storyline options that we could explore. Also, the way
we use the thriller elements contributes to this, and the
audience would carry on watching the film because they would
have plenty of questions of which they would want to find out in
the remainder of the film. For example, we use a cliffhanger at
the end of the opening to our film. The cliffhanger is when Alex
says “Yeah, yeah it’s done”. The audience would want to carry on
watching because they would have lots of questions of which
they hope would be answered in the remainder of the film. In
the rest of the film, they would want to know: Why was Alex and
myself working together? Why did they kill Freddie? Who is their
next target? What do they want? These are just some of the
questions that the audience would ask, and we would have lots
of options in terms of which storyline to choose.