Evaluation Question 5

1. Evaluation Question 5 Jane Lawrance

2. How do your audience social groups interact with media? My audiences age range is 16- 25, being in this range makes them part of the technology generation and so to reach my audience I would utilise the internet and social mediums in order to promote my film in the right places.

3. Pull Advertising Social Media – these sites can allow millions of people to see one page within seconds of it being published. As well as being a variation of word of mouth using a social media would be environmentally friendly and allow me to reach an audience who may have otherwise not heard of the film. It allows younger people to become interested in the independent film industry and therefore promotes it’s popularity. Websites/ Campaigns –Campaigns devoted to promoting the movie can be helpful to although they are normally used for well-known films such as ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Twilight’ as people choose to go out and search for more information. I don’t think that approach would be as effective with our piece as it is not a well-known movie and doesn’t fit the mould for a website/ campaign film.

4. Viral Marketing – viral marketing could be a good way of attracting an audience, its known for its eye catching surprise approach and is extremely effective in a lot of cases for example: the viral ad for ‘Paranormal Activity 4’ made it look like your screen had been possessed and the viral ad for ‘Sky fall’ had the iconic ‘moving gun barrel’ and ‘007’ moving across the screen. Word of mouth – a big contributor to our project. Independent films are largely advertise through word of mouth as it allows for free advertisement and promote the audience to socially interact with one another.

5. Push Advertising Billboards – although I accept that billboards are a great way of advertising film I wouldn’t use them for our film as I feel we are trying to hit a different audience and our movie is not of the same style or budget as those that are shown on billboards; For example, ‘les miserable’ and ‘Django’. Creative Graffiti – this is a new idea that I have seen around Brighton and I think it would help to advertise the cinema as well as independent film in general, however with creative advertisement graffiti it is easier to promote a permanent venue rather than a small running film and so I don’t think it would be a great way to just advertise the film.

6. Posters – Posters can be a great way of advertising movies. Our independent movie would fit this type of advertisement well as it allows us to advertise within a closer boundary/ location and by using posters/ flyers we can make our advertisement more personal to the audience as we would be giving them a solid real item which they can look at and study in their own time as well as seeing it frequently around the town centre. TV ads – Again with TV ads I cannot see a way in which our film would connect with a medium, I think that we could make a short televised advert but show it at the independent cinemas we choose to screen at as apposed to the TV. I believe this approach to the advertisement would allow us to broaden our audience to independent film lovers in general.

7. Events TV Interviews – Interviews can help to promote a movie, especially if, like ours, it is an independent movie that needs to spread its message. Having a TV interview with directors and actors helps the audience to be attracted to the movie making it’s meaning more apparent and personal. Special stunts – Things like flash mobs, demonstrations etc. Can help to promote the movie to the younger generations. Personally, I don’t think this approach would be good as the themes explored in our movie are hardly expectable to promote in public. I.e. paedophilia.

8. Cast Attendance to events – Cast attending events could be the same effect made my TV Interviews, when talking to reporters about the film they are not only promoting the event they’re at but they are promoting the film they are making and this helps fans of these actors and people who would otherwise just be at the event to be informed of the up coming movie and help generate interest in it. Award Evenings – These events can help to boost a films popularity even being nominated for an award can help get the word out about it. This is a great way for independent films to get recognised in their specific areas of expertise.

9. Test screenings Test screenings are a great way to get audience feedback for the film. Getting a varied or unanimous feedback can help us to fully understand Our audience and therefore help us to change our marketing to suit them.

10. Content of Advertisement It’s all well and good having the methods of advertising at our disposal and knowing which ones would help to better promote our movie. But, we need to think of the content of this advertisement as well, if people see a poster with actors they’ve never heard of before we are missing out on an mass audience which go and see films because they’re favourite actor is it in. Now, I’m not saying that we should hire some really famous actor because frankly it would be completely out of budget and although it would bring in an audience it may take away from the independent feel of our film, so if we were to hire a local actor than we can create a buzz about an “up and coming local actor”, “Brighton’s finest” as well as keeping to our films independent roots.

11. USP A great way of advertising is to use a unique selling point. Our unique selling point is our female paedophile and our twist. In the posters I would want to make the child almost look like a teenage omen, having dark ora around him but still looking innocent in front of that. Also I would hide the paedophiles face or at least make the shadowing dark so you cant see it’s a girl and make the detective stand out as an important figure watching the two of them. To the posters I would add in quotes from the test screening; for example “ An ending that will shock and surprise”, “The winner of the British Independent film awards Best Newcomer”, “An eerie story, a must see”. Etc. These will help to draw in an audience as good reviews and the promise of surprise will entice them to watch.

12. Audience Feedback In order to gauge how our opening title sequence addressed our target audience, we showed our film to our target audience and received the following feedback:

13. Genre Our audience feedback for creating genre was really good, they agreed that our use of one sound track helped to create a creepy feel to the music as well as reversing the music to make the atmosphere feel like there was a lot of tension. As well as this parts like the ‘Shaky Camera’ were commented on to say it gave a more voyeuristic feel to the movement in that particular scene. They also commented on the title “Hollingbury Park” as they said this conforms to the thriller stereotype and helped to confirm location. Another comment about the genre was that the use of empty play ground equipment moving helped to create tension which is a key part of thriller opening title sequence.

14. Mise – en - scene Our audience feedback for Mise-en- scene was good, one writer said that the Newspaper cuttings where a great addition to this as they helped to bring the ideas of obsession and crime into the narrative as well as the theme of missing children. We were also given good feedback on our location many of the viewers said that it was great because it was an ordinary place but help unusual suspicious pieces like the empty swings. Another viewer said the use of costume was good as you could distinguish the characters and they thought it really helped. However, another writer said that the narrative didn’t connect with the costume and they didn’t really know what was going on. To me, that fine because we were trying to achieve in the OTS was to confuse the audience as to who was watching who and what was going on as you cannot see one of the watchers for the entire OTS, so we wanted a bit of confusion.

15. Technical Aspects Technical feedback varied a lot depending on viewer. We got told our logo was good and we’d obviously put work and imagination into it. As well as this we got a comment about some of our longer titles not being on screen for long enough and they could be kept up for longer, apart from that we were told that our choice of font in the titles was a good choice and helped to conform to the genre. In terms of filming we were told that are filming skills were good, our panning was smooth and we used a good mix of shots. The unanimous favourite shot was the 360 shot at the end where the paedophile appears on an empty bench at the end of the rotation. Other comments we were given about technical aspects where that our editing was smooth and they practically liked the editing while moving though characters heads, which gave a sense of double voyeurism. As well as this one person commented saying that our use of addictive dissolves and fading to black made our piece look more eerie and edgy.

16. Feedback From the positive feedback given, I feel we have successfully targeted our primary audience and addressed their needs in the following ways; Making the titles show up for a little bit longer, re adjusting some title to not blend in with the sky and removing some shots that we thought just didn’t work within the narrative.