Question 5 How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience in many ways. We had a female and a male main character to attract to balance out the audience, the male with a very harsh street life narrative attracting mainly males, and a very cute and lovey dovey narrative between the two characters attracting mainly to the female audience.

We created a "hermeneutic" code in the opening, this makes the  audience want more, by leaving unanswered questions to do with the third character Ali associates with, as well as the background between the two main characters it creates questions such as, will he get in the way? Creating this foreshadowing both leaves the audience wanting more, this engages the audience in the movie by making them think for themselves to piece together the puzzle, making the audience movie relationship stronger and consequently making the audience enjoy our short film more. A fourth character is shown for a very small amount of time "dealing" with Ali which only gives the audience a short amount of time to put things together in their head.

We also used a semic code in the cultural stereotype of the two characters (Ali's/Ceaser's generic clothing and slang; Kirsty's/Flo's generic clothing and setting) the typical stereotype would allow the audience to create assumptions about the characters and build up their own representations, which would then be challenged as the movie progressed, the first challenge being when Ali is seen going through Kirsty's pictures on his phone. Using these conventions to create a seme means that we could effectively 'show, not tell' the audience about the characters.

 

 

 

Our use of backing track further helped establish to our audience what kind of characters Ali and Kirsty were, the typical hip hop music establishes Ali's rough lifestyle and Kirsty stepping into it. Music is quite popular among teenagers so this choice of backing track seemed highly appropriate as well.

Our use of props relating to our characters and their background stories enhances the stories of the characters and also enhances the conventions and codes of the stereotypes that are our film is based around. we had props such as:

Drugs (Fake)

Chain (accessories)

Headphones

 Cereal

Nike bag

etc.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


The male characters props enhance his character stereotype as an unruly youth. The drugs show a bad side to him and immediately associate him with the 'street/gangs' culture. This gives audience their chance to put a "label" on him/generalise him.
The female characters props represents her as a very put together youth, the phone and headphones being expensive commodities and the breakfast cereal showing that she has time and is relaxed. This gives the audience a representation of her being relaxed with a slightly well off family. The headphones also enhance the music side of the movie.

The location of our film is a school which is easily connectable to our target audience (15 and over) as most of our audience will be currently going through school or have left relatively recently.