1. How did you attract/address your audience?
Our target audience is those who watch film
noirs, which we worked out from our research
was those aged 18 upward, generally middle
aged. Also swaying more towards males than
females, these males being the more likely to
watch film noirs because of the feature of a
femme fatale.
There are two specific scenes in our film sequence that would
appeal to specific target audience. One of these is when we use
the conventional technique of a flashback to revert back to
something that has already happened, showing the argument,
which unfortunately puts on the innocent characters as the
suspect for the murder. Also when the murder is just about to take
place the music used is very similar to that of the sound used in
other noirs, this jazz type music was very popular at the time of
film noirs, we found this out by watching other clips and also from
our research we conducted at the start.
The audience is put in the position of an onlooker in the whole
murder. As if they themselves are a witness, those in the film do
not know who has committed the crime, but as the audience has
been placed as an onlooker they know the truth. The audience
knows who has committed the crime, therefore as things unfold
and people suspect others the audience are kept not knowing
what is going to happen and if the real murderer will be revealed.
One scene is crucial in putting the audience in the position of
an onlooker. A point of view shot is used multiple times to
show someone looking in on an argument. Other shots in this
scene such as a long two shot also give the audience an
onlooker’s perspective.
The impact this has is that the audience will be drawn into the
sequence, as they want to know how it all comes out in the end.
They see the story unravel before their eyes, forming relationships
with certain characters, making them feel sorry for one of the
characters that are put under pressure from the detectives after
the argument in the alleyway.
The creation of suspense is done so using the flashback; the audience
is built up to see that the actual suspect of the murder isn’t the one
who committed the crime. The zoom in at the start of the sequence
after the tracking shot adds suspense also as we see a figure waiting
in the bushes as the other character passes, the match on action then
shows the character emerging from the bushes to murder her
husband. As film noirs usually take place around a murder involving a
detective our film fits that aspect of the convention, with also the use
of black and white effect on final cut to add to the mood of the film,
making it more sinister.
From our questionnaire we gathered that people
enjoyed male main characters, we also found out that
people favoured crime detective/mystery genre of film
noirs more than any others such as kidnapping or
murder. These questions were all received from
people at the lower end of our target audience, which
helped to give our specific audience of our film
sequence what they wanted.