Vicky Squires conducted focus groups with her target audience of 12-25 year olds to get feedback on the narrative and synopsis of her film. The feedback confirmed that her drama film diverged from the "happy ever after" convention in a way that would attract viewers. She designed her protagonist, who is the same age as the target audience, so that viewers could relate to her experiences and identity as signaled by characteristics like wearing glasses. Vicky also incorporated typical drama film conventions like dramatic music, a flashback, disruption of equilibrium, and soft white credits text to attract her intended audience.

1. Evaluation – Question 5
Vicky Squires

2. Before creating my media piece, I asked my focus group about what they thought of the narrative and
synopsis of my film opening and things they would like to see featured based on what they have
experienced when watching drama films in the past and I had a lot of the same feedback given back to
me stating the main conventions of a drama film and also saying that they felt my synopsis was
effective because it doesn’t follow the convention of a ‘happy ever after’, which makes my film
different to most.
The audience that I was aiming for was from 12-25, which is quite a large, but young audience range. As I
chose this age range, I decided to make my protagonist a similar age to my target audience, which
would attract them more to my film as they would be able to understand and relate more with the
thoughts and feelings of the character.
To ensure this was the case, I asked my focus group to comment on the protagonist character, to which
90% agreed that they could relate more to her because she was of a similar age and identity; by identity
I mean the clothing and look of her that I created. I did this by ensuring the character had glasses, which
sounds minor, but a lot of people around the target audience age wear glasses, whether real or fake
because they are a fashion statement. I also dressed her in simple ‘casual’ clothes for the age range,
which included a vest top with a shirt over the top and jeans.
How did you attract/address your
audience?

3. Another way that I attracted the audience, it again by using the typical conventions of a drama
genre film, which include:
 Dramatic Music
 A flashback
 A break in the equilibrium
 Soft white text
I demonstrate these conventions well in my film well, as you can see when watching it (final cut
featured on the next slide). I use white text on a light background for all of my credits and this
gives the feel that the film is slow paced and possibly emotional as the text is not bold at all.
I also feature a flashback at the beginning of my piece which shows the pictures of my
protagonist when she was younger, with a voice over explaining what she is going through and
the journey she is about to embark on. This also shows an obvious break in the equilibrium as
you can see clearly that my opening does not show the life of an average teenager and with
slow piano music to accompany this, it gives a real feel of sadness and distress.
How did you attract/address your
audience?

4. My Final Cut

5. I also feel that I was able to attract and address my audience by my use of camera shots and the
movements within those.
I think I showed this mostly in the camera shots shown above. I used an extreme/long shot to
show the positioning and activities of the protagonist. In the shots you can see the girl laying on
her bed on her laptop and then in another you witness her laying with her feet against the wall
reading a book. These activities are iconic of youth and can therefore help the audience to relate
more to the storyline, as they will most likely remember doing things like this in their own room
and in their own time.
I feel that the use of the long shot also helps to establish the kind of surroundings a young
person tends to be around, so for example in my film, the girl has loads of pictures of her and
her friends on her wall, which is again another thing typical of a younger audience to do in their
own rooms, making it easier for my audience to relate to my character, film and storyline.
How did you attract/address your
audience?