Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted an audience of people who liked fantasy films through using the conventions of established films, this included the use of as many genre signifiers as we could. These included details such as makeup and costume, music, fantasy characters, location, and storyline.
Firstly are use of costume address the audience and ensured the fantasy genre this can be seen through the character Abor’s beast costume, seen here:
this make the viewer interested as it’s a new character they haven't seen before. Music was one of the biggest genre signifiers as fantasy film audiences recognise soundtracks and their importance in setting the tone and genre of the film. We wanted to create that outcome with our soundtrack so it was made to reflect the characters by having each one associated with a motif which was added at the same time when the character is introduced. The soundtrack also builds to an end when all the characters are together, this build up also helps to draw the audience in as they want to wait to see what it leads to and why.
We hoped the location we used would also help to engage the audience as we hoped it looked similar to that of the Hobbit because of this the audience would want to watch and appreciate the scenery. A section of our location can be seen here:
Although we have a narrator giving the audience some context to what’s happening in the opening, they’re still left with some narrative enigma as they are unaware of how the characters are going to fulfil the task which they have given themselves- which is described by the narrator.
In terms of attracting an audience we have created a Facebook account which goes under my team's joint production name of Outhaul Productions. Here we have posted updates on cast members, filming days, and links to our blog posts, a few examples can be seen here:
Throughout our pre-production and production journey we have been able to spread the word of our film opening because we were in contact with a lot of people. For example when I embarked on making the costumes I was conversing with a lady who used to be in charge of costumes for films and TV shows through this I was able to get tips and suggestions on where to buy fabric from, I was also able to promote our film opening at the same time.
I also showed people of our target audience the rough cuts of our film so that we could publicise it as well as improving the opening. We aso promoted it through word of mouth.