Through audience research, the filmmakers found that mystery and suspense are most important for thriller openings. They addressed this by including an enigmatic antagonist in a hood and leaving the protagonist's fate ambiguous. A coastal setting and realistic teenage characters and costumes helped attract audiences by appealing to genre conventions and feelings of familiarity. A variety of shots were used to convey emotion and power dynamics. The film will be promoted on social media and released digitally to appeal to technology-savvy younger audiences.

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

2. Audience Research
• Through my audience research it has helped me look at how to address my audience needs i.e. what the they
like and want. By having this feedback it gave us the ability to change/ develop our initial ideas in order to
make our thriller more appealing. This information was collected before I created the opening sequence and
therefore I was able to use it to my advantages in making the product as effective as possible.
• Sound: Additionally from this research we found that the two most important things in creating a successful
thriller film opening is mystery and suspense. This gets the audience thinking about the sequence and keeps
them interested by giving a brief taster of what is going to happen throughout the course of the film. These key
points were addressed through enigma i.e. the mystery of who the antagonist could be. As well as this we
created suspense through sound, both diegetic (sound of the ocean wind and rigging) and non-diegetic such
as atmospherical music creating suspense build-up and change of atmosphere in certain key areas of the
feature. Such as where the antagonists goes to close the boot of the car on the victim, this is a particularly key
part of the film and this is shown through the music tone (suspense building up as well as the enhanced thump
of the cars door). For the main backing track we created it was by music from the beginning of Batman the
Dark Knight composed by Hans Zimmer.

3. Location
• A coastal location was used in our thriller as it is the
most common setting for this genre of movie making it
familiar to the audience. It would appeal to teenagers
as it is a scene relating to excitement and action as
well as suspense linking to genre conventions. This
links to how it is mysterious but it could be argued that
the ocean is a force out of our control and it cannot be
tamed.

4. Characters (1)
• The characters that were chosen fro the clip are selected to appeal to the audience. The idea behind this is
that by having a teenage protagonist it will appeal more to the audience as they will be able to empathise with
them more (as oppose to elderly people who stereotypically see teenagers as ‘troublemakers’). By having the
protagonist as female this is also intriguing for the audience because it is unusual for a main character in a
thriller to be female therefore people who are more familiar with the genre are likely to watch and appreciate
the film due to its uniqueness. It was focal in casting to make the characters seem realistic, this was achieved
by choosing realistic characters i.e. real teenagers to play the relevant parts, this was easy enough as we
were able to chose friend and participate ourselves as oppose to having someone playing a student/ teenager
which for the audience would not be believable nor as effective.

5. Characters (2)
• Protagonist: Costume of the characters was also important in attracting the
audience again adding to the realism factor it has to be believable (continuity) it
is no good wearing something which is not typical for those kinds of characters.
Likewise the costumes need to be the same throughout since the opening
takes place over a night it would be unusual for the characters to have changed
in this time therefore if they were to look different it would not appeal to the
audience since it would not be accurate.
• Antagonist: These costumes were also used for effect, such as the hood on
antagonist character, this creates mystery as they the audience are thinking
who the character could be, the question is not answered immediately they are
left in suspense. This appeals to the audience from both primary and
secondary research younger (teenage) audiences enjoy thrillers which make
them think. This is typical for a villain in a thriller movie to be hidden or wearing
a mask of some description e.g. such as The Joker in The Dark Knight.

6. Camera Shots
• A wide variety of camera shots were used in the filming of
the clip e.g. long shot to establish the beach setting and
close-ups to convey the emotions of the victim protagonist
character as well as high and low angle shots for
characters to symbolise who is in control of power and
who the audience should empathise with. Audience
interests kept in this section as we kept to thriller
conventions regards camerawork and editing. The use of a
cliff hanger ending as it is left at a climatic ending that is
unknown to all, you never find out whether the protagonist
is alive or dead from the suggestive visuals in the sea.

7. Production Process
• The way the we produce and distribute the film would
address the target audience. Since teenagers are very
technologically active it would make sense to promote the
film on social media i.e. advertising on Facebook, Twitter
etc. maybe releasing teasers on YouTube or Vimeo. This
is keeping in line with the virtual world which is ever
increasing and is important to teenagers. It also
addresses how they responded in the audience research
since most said online through streaming services on
Netflix/ Amazon Prime, by releasing on a digital platform
in addition to physical format it would be more out in the
market to the younger generations.