Evaluation Question 5

How did you address/attract your audience?

We addressed our audience through pleasures, fears,the themes/characters/plot/settings and audience needs and gratifications.
Pleasures: The build-up of enigma in the film, due to the CU’s at the beginning. The audience have many questions: Who is this man? What is he doing? As soon as these questions are answered a new enigma is introduced. Who is the shadow in the glass? What is going to happen? The final look back and reveal of Lotus’s face brings yet more enigma for the rest of the film, as we see her for a few fleeting seconds before she is gone again. We want to know more about her. Who is she and why has she done this? This immersion in the film helps the audience suspend their disbelief and become fully involved and invested in the film.
I also think the music is a pleasure for the target audience especially the second track as it has a beat to it and updates a classical piece for a younger generation.
Fears:
The fear of crime/murder/shootings. It is an abnormal event and so when a character is shot in the comfortable setting of his home in the first couple of minutes of the film, the audience are shocked and transported into the world of the film. The blood effect and make-up makes this more realistic for the audience and therefore more shocking.
We built on the abnormality of guns, the fear of death and therefore the excitement it induces and the sense of enigma with only the silohuette of the main character in our poster:

Audience appeal:
Our audience are young 16-24 years olds and so are more likely to want to see action/tension then slow-burning drama. The genre of action thriller is therefore appealing to them. The building tension will grip the audience and the iconography of drugs, knives and cigars will also interest them and pull them in as it makes the film seem edgy and atmospheric.

Themes, Plots, Settings, Characters:
Assassination-Exciting, Thrilling, Gripping, Fulfils the need for escapism.
Female Hero-Gives the film a twist, an edge to it, a selling point. Builds on current trend of female assassins.
Lotus as a character-Edgy, Mysterious, Attractive, Strong, Aspirational. Her character would hopefully gain a strong fan base and this would fulfil the need for social interaction especially as our target audience are the main users of social networks. This film would be a discussion point. To build on this we publicised the premiere of our opening sequence on Facebook.

Setting-The binary opposite of the relaxed and homely setting to the shocking and violent events that take place there, shocks and excites the audience. It is unexpected, and keeps them on the edge of their seat.
These techniques would mean that positive word of the film would be spread by word-of-mouth meaning that more members of the target audience would come and see their film to fulfil the need for surveillance.

I also came across an interesting quote about Kill Bill on Wikipedia:
Cultural historian Maud Lavin argues that The Bride's embodiment of murderous revenge taps into viewers' personal fantasies of committing violence. For audiences, particularly women viewers, this overly aggressive female character provides a complex site for identification with one's own aggression.
Our film would work similarly and so fulfill the need for identification.
In all these ways the film appeals to the audience and so attracts them to come and see the film.