CCR TASK 2

 

"How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text"

Primary target audience

In accordance with the BBFC age certification, I would rate our horror film at a 15, as there is violence and a lot of scenes with blood and hints at murder and showing religious cults and gore. Men generally prefer horror films and engage better with the product, as stereotypically men are more okay with watching violence and sometimes seek more thrill. Depending on what the rest of our film would include, it could potentially be rated an 18, but just for the opening sequence it would be put as a 15. 

Scenes that would engage the target audience

This shot is taken from early on in the sequence, there have been a few establishing shots and the soundtrack has started at this point. The shot alone doesn't engage the audience but along with camera shots & sound this engages the audience by creating expectations for future danger, this immediately targets the specific audience by establishing the genre and setting up a foundation for the rest of the opening sequence.

The next shot is shortly after Ziggy (the dog) has gone missing, this is essentially the beginning of the plot and creates an unanswered question/ mystery - making the audience want to carry on watching to answer the question, we took reference from Bathe's enigma code to ensure full attention from the audience. 

Due to the beginning scenes having some close ups and being centred almost around the dog, the audience would get more concerned about the dog being missing, as it has already been introduced.

The next 2 shots following Ziggy's disappearance is where the religious cult elements start to appear, we see a symbol and some blood on the tree, implying to the audience that the danger has started. We did a pan shot and included depth of field to show that the character was unaware of these dangers, but the audience knew, including dramatic irony in our sequence helps create a sense of naivity within the character and also makes the audience feel on edge because they know some form of danger is coming, this helps to engage the audience as they then feel a sense of urgency and helplessness.

Shortly after the first signs of danger have been shown, the character comes across and notices the signs himself, we see (fake) blood and we then put in a loud sound effect representing the dog being either killed or injured, this not only has an effect on the audience but also starts the action as the character then runs to the final stage of the sequence (the massacre), this is just before the climax of the sequence, where we would hope the tension is at an all time high, 

Finally, the character running through the woods and seeing the display of the pig head, the blood and the dead body, is where the audience would be the most engaged and tense - as this is the moment where the enigma code (unanswered question) from very early on in the sequence has been answered. We also ended on an over the shoulder shot and a loud scream, which then creates another un answered question as to what he's just seen. Overall the ending scene of the sequence has the highest amount of tension and consequentially should be the point where the audience are most afraid and therefore are most engaged. 

Overall, I think we had many moments in our sequence that were very close to horror conventions, and we did them well so they engaged the audience. The first minuet or so was the least engaging but helped to build up tension, and as the sequence carried on it became more fast paced and 'scary'. Blumer and Katz theory of uses and gratifications applies to engaging our audience, around the escapism and social interaction part of this theory.

FILM POSTER

The film poster I created for our sequence heavily hints towards the general theme of the sequence, all in the background I merged together a shot from the establishing shot from the very opening scene, this represented an eerie atmosphere and put the character in an unsafe situation, along with this I put 2 action shots from the end of the sequence - one of the scene from the massacre and the bloody pig head and one of the main character running through the woods. These both help to hint at what the film is going to be like and attract the target audience. 

Large studios such as Netflix, Disney + ect. are large companies who usually invest into films when they know they are going to make money, they do this through seeing if they have any A list actors in the film or who directed it, because of this we don't think that using larger studios would be the best way to distribute our film. Instead we would use a smaller studio specialising in horror, such as Shudderhouse - they have distributed many horror films before and I think they would be interested in our film. 

Social media - As new media is a lot more inexpensive and can reach the target audience more effectively, I would choose to focus on this. As seen in Tucked they got a hashtag going around and released merchandise, this was effective in making a solid audience and allowing the viewers to contribute to consumerism (in essence free marketing) towards promoting and distributing the film.