G325 YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

You may be surprised to learn that in this exam you analyse your AS Production (as well as your A2 Production). In the second half of Section 1, one of the topic headings is Audience. Today you are going to analyse your own thriller film opening in an objective way, drawing on theoretical frameworks.

On your blog, answer the following questions in essay format. Each question will need a good paragraph to answer.

Who was your target audience for your thriller film opening? Start with a succinct but sufficiently precise resume of your film and its genre: "My AS production was a ...." Remember that the examiner will NOT have seen it so you have to 'paint with words'.

How did you attract and address your audience? (Use your evaluation answers). For example, why is social media a successful method of reaching your target audience? Be factual, specific.

How did you hope that your audience would respond to your film? Are they likely to relate to the characters/ sympathise with their situation / see their points of view / interpret the hero or protagonist as you the film maker intended? For example, is one of the protagonists a similar age to the target audience? Have you made the protagonist an ambivalent character or a 'heroic' one? The issue here is related to reader response or 'reception theory', that is, relating to how texts are received (understood) by audiences.

In order to understand this theoretical framework and to bring it into your answer, you must read the following paragraph:
'The cultural theorist Stuart Hall is one of the main proponents of reception theory, having developed it for media and communication studies from the literary- and history-oriented approaches mentioned above. This approach, the Encoding/Decoding Model of Communication is a textual analysis that focuses on the scope for "negotiation" and "opposition" on the part of the audience. This means that a "text"—be it a book, movie, or other creative work—is not simply passively accepted by the audience, but that the reader / viewer interprets the meanings of the text based on their individual cultural background and life experiences. In essence, the meaning of a text is not inherent within the text itself, but is created within the relationship between the text and the reader.'

Now open this link and study the section on Stuart Hall and reception theory MediaKnowall on Audience

Your task now is to write about your own film using the reception theory framework. For example, do the sound codes used in ' Lights Out' such as the voiceover make us as an audience more likely to feel positive towards the detective, despite his obvious lack of initial professionalism? Does the editing in the tunnel sequence shape our suspicion that there is evil afoot? How are we made to feel as if we were being stalked and had every reason to fear? Does the casting of attractive and vulnerable young victims in the other films shape our sympathetic response? Is the anonymity and the brutality of the antagonist a means of shaping the audience's hostility to the antagonist?  Are the police together with the news reports constructed in such a way as to position the audience as worried about the missing girl? You must show knowledge of reception theory. State whether there could be an oppositional reading to your text.

Next, study the MediaKnowall section on the uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour. Write down your understanding of this framework (use Blumler and Katz by name; refer to the theory by name) then use it to say what your audience will get out of your film opening. It's all very straightforward: think of what you hoped to create (enigma, tension, suspense, jeopardy, a strong narrative, a cliff hanger... And say how you provided the audience with these.

Post on your blog as you write each paragraph. Complete for prep tonight.