Grace Haybyrne - Evaluation: Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We decided that our film would be suitable for 15+ teenagers because some of the material may be too explicit in terms of language or subject.
By giving it this certificate we had to follow the rules of the BBFC and what they said about this certificate. This included:

• Strong violence
• Frequent strong language
• Portrayals of sexual activity
• Strong verbal references to sex
• Sexual nudity
• Brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• Discriminatory language or behaviour
• Drug taking

We thought that locating the film in a familiar environment - a school -  for the target audience would be a good idea. We felt that by setting the thriller in a school and making detention one of the main plot lines, the target audience would be able to identify with some of the characters in the film, attracting them to it or at least providing a vicarious interest.

The soundtrack - a mixture of synthesiser and piano is also aimed at young people as it tries to acknowledge contemporary musical tastes.

Pie chart to show people who prefer mainstream or independent.

We decided on an unconventional protagonist - young female - in order to attract a more independent audience to the film. I feel that this would have intrigued the audience and resulted in good word of mouth publicity and therefore attract a bigger audience to the film.
We also felt that more interesting and unconventional shots - for example, close-ups of the blood washing down the drain and the tracking shots in the empty corridor would emphasise the intensity of the atmosphere.