The document discusses how the filmmakers aimed to entertain their target audience of 11-17 year old girls with their opening sequence for a teen musical. They sought to communicate no moral message and instead focus on entertainment, drawing from popular conventions of the genre seen in films like Hairspray and Pitch Perfect. Specific elements like an upbeat song from the start, humor, bright lighting, stereotypical characters and settings, and a relatable school setting and romance storyline were used to appeal to and keep the target audience engaged from the beginning.

1. QUESTION 5: HOW DID WE
ATTRACT/ADDRESS OUR AUDIENCE?

2. WHAT VALUES AND MESSAGES WERE
WE TRYING TO COMMUNICATE TO OUR
TARGET AUDIENCE?
• There was no moral to communicate to our target audience. Instead, we simply
made an attempt to entertain our target audience, as established films in our
category, relative to this, have been so popular in past years. This would infer that
our opening sequence conforms to Blumler’s uses and gratifications theory.
Examples of these established, popular films include ‘Hairspray’ & ‘Pitch Perfect’.
• We didn’t have a particular moral to our plot, as conventionally, teen musicals do
not incorporate morals, meanings or messages into their storylines.

3. HOW DID WE ENTERTAIN THEM?
• We entertained our audience by making our opening sequence humorous and giving
it a comedic effect. We also made it conventional, ensuring us of the fact that it would
please our target audience due to how popular established films from our genre have
been. These conventions being bright lighting, upbeat music, stereotypical characters
and settings, and relatable characters. The action begins straight away, at the
beginning of our opening sequence. We did this by making the music upbeat and
catchy from the very start. This was to keep our target audience hooked from the very
start.
• From our research, we learnt that in ‘High School Musical 2’, the opening song is
catchy, upbeat and humorous in some scenes which inspired us to incorporate these
elements into our opening sequence, in order to entertain our target audience.

4. SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM OUR FILM OF
HOW WE ENTERTAINED OUR AUDIENCE
• Teen romance – It is highly conventional for a teen
musical to contain a romance of some kind. This is featured in
all the teen musicals that we have researched. E.g. ‘Hairspray’,
‘Grease’, ‘High School Musical 2’ etc. In these teen musicals,
we see an average, fairly unnoticed individual, falling for the
popular love interest and succeeding. However, this
convention was challenged in our film, as we put the main
focus on the rich, already popular girl who admires herself and
it has taken a lot for her to love someone else. Also, in teen
musicals the girl never believes that she can succeed in
gaining the males love and attention, however, in our film,
Elizabeth is sure that Hugo loves her and if he does not, she
will never know why not because she knows everything about
her is flawless.

5. SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM OUR FILM OF
HOW WE ENTERTAINED OUR AUDIENCE
• School – Any teen that watches this will be able
to relate to the setting of a school. For example,
friendships, relationships, crushes, homework,
lessons and rules. Also, the stress of exams and the
fear of failure and struggle are both relatable
aspects of school to any adolescent that watches
our film. In ‘Hairspray’ and ‘Grease’, the students
struggle with the elements of school, this is known
to be sung about in these films. This, again,
entertains our target audience as they are able to
relate. We incorporated the struggle of school life
into our film.

6. SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM OUR FILM OF
HOW WE ENTERTAINED OUR AUDIENCE
• Elizabeth – We made Elizabeth a stereotypical teen girl who
is an idol to many, everyone looks up to her even though she
is rich. The lyrics of the song and how Elizabeth is saying them,
is a perfect example of how we entertained our audience and
they are highly relatable to our target audience. Also, they are
humorous and catchy. In ‘High School Musical (1,2 & 3),
Sharpay Evans is the rich, spoilt and intimidating character
who everybody looks up to. She also sings upbeat songs with
highly catchy and humorous lyrics. She also admires herself
immensely, much like Elizabeth in our film. We wished to
incorporate all of these aspects of a character such as Sharpay
into our film, which we think we did successfully.

7. HOW DOES YOUR OPENING SEQUENCE
APPEAL TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?
• Our target audience was mainly girls between the ages of eleven and
seventeen. Our film was made relevant to them by the fact that they are
close the age of Elizabeth, meaning they can relate to first loves,
attending school, being interested in fashion and beauty etc. Girls of this
age stereotypically love films like this, as it makes them think about their
time at school and how they perceive themselves. However, this could
make them feel self-conscious of the fact that they are not meeting the
stereotypes of what girls of their age in films are like, therefore they
become frightened and nervous about how they’re representing
themselves in school life.
• What to wear
• What to say
• How to act
• Who to be
friends with
• Keeping up
with latest
styles and
trends
• Seeking
approval of
others
• Fitting in