5. How did you attract/address your audience?

This chart briefly explains how we aimed to attract and address our target audience, with the uses and gratifications theory (information, entertainment, identity, integration and social interaction) in mind:

Addressing our audience

The audience's ability to relate to the characters is important in how we addressed them. This chart shows what is most likely to relate to our primary and secondary audiences:

Addressing more niche audiences:

1. People with mental illness

By focusing on an issue relating to them, this audience can identify themselves with Christopher:

- this could be a comfort for them

- as Christopher learns to cope with his issues, this could possibly help them do the same thing

- they would appreciate being positively represented in the media 

2. University students

The film is more likely to appeal to them since it addresses their age group and occupation 

Attracting our audience:

We could attract our audience with our soundtrack:

http://freeplaymusic.com/search.aspx?q=building%20blocks

This attracts our audience of 16-24 year olds because:

- it is quite simple and therefore accessible to younger audiences - this also explains why it could appeal to more universal audiences

- the instruments (e.g. guitar, whistling) make it sound quirky and indie, appealing to significant group of this demographic interested in that kind of music as well as indie film fans, which is what we want since our production is an independent film

We also tried to give our film a fresh and original look using interesting shot types and transitions, e.g.:

Camera inside the wardrobe

 The pan behind the obstruction from the shot of Christopher getting dressed to eating cereal:

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This way we could appeal to our target audience of young people because it makes our film look more fun and original.

One way we would attract our audience is by creating aspirational characters:

Overall, though, since we explore in our film real issues in a realistic setting, the main way we attract our audience is through addressing them - by addressing the issues important to them, and using recognisable characters, we are creating a film that would appeal to them.

I asked some friends within our primary target audience using email and Twitter to watch our opening and give us feedback. I asked if our film appealed to them, and if yes, why.

Here is one response:

This shows that what appeals to our audience is not glamorous or exciting characters whose lives are so different from their own, but characters they understand and see themselves in. This is one of the main reasons why we chose this realistic genre and themes of mental illness - in doing so we can give a young adult audience characters to look up to who are not so different from themselves. 

Audience feedback was important for us to understand if we were appealing to our target audience. Not all the feedback was so positive. One friend said:

This suggests our genre may not have been clear

She is 16 years old - definitely in our primary target audience

We used Survey Monkey to receive feedback from a wider audience.

We could also get some more specific feedback:

This feedback seems to suggest that audiences did mostly like the opening, although there were things that they didn't like - most of this seems to be technical, though (e.g. the first comment) and one viewer mentions that the film is "relatable", so overall I think it could appeal to our target audience.