Question 5

Question 5 I think we have reached our target audience (16-25) as we created characters that are easily relatable and used modern horror techniques in order to keep the audience interested. For example, our opening scene took place in a suburban house that is normally seen as a safe and domestic setting. However, after researching into the Paranormal Activity franchise we realised that the home-style setting was an extremely successful technique. A quote from a Paranormal Activity review says “the cinematography is so natural that when the unnatural aspects pop up, they’re intrinsically terrifying”. Playing on this element of surprise used fast paced editing and low key lighting when Eddin Rowark pops up in the woods and when a mysterious figure startles Jennifer out of sleep. During the planning our production we decided to create relatable characters so the audience already had an understanding of them. We created Jennifer as a seventeen year old girl with mental health problems. However, she feels like she can't tell anyone about it and wants to remain a private person. We hoped by making a sensitive character like this it would appeal to young people in the same situation.

We also made the decision on what type of horror our film would be and decided on a Psychological genre. We decided to do this as we are aiming at a small target audience who enjoy having to work things out during the film. The main question our product poses is ‘is Jennifer imagining this?’. We leave it up to the audience to decide A quote from one of our respondents said that our plot was an “original” idea. Others said it was “intriguing” and they would like to know “what happens” next. These were the type of responses we were expecting as we were going for a unique approach to horror. We didn’t want to use stereotypical horror techniques such as exaggerated make up, fake blood, over dramatic actors, etc. We wanted to keep it simple with a lingering sense of impending danger with a dark, moody atmosphere (one of the main reasons we filmed on overcast, gloomy days). According to audience feedback, one of the biggest successes of our product was making the audience curious to what would happen next. Several of the respondents noted that it was so intriguing they would enjoy watching the whole thing to find out more. Another respondent commented that it “grabs their attention to this genre”.

This highlighted we had given off the intended effect as wanted our film to offer a different approach to the horror genre. To improve our product we could have added in more fast paced editing and scary shots in order to really make genre obvious.