From gauging our audience for our media product and knowing the genre. We had a good idea of what enthusiasts of the Action Sci-Fi genre expected in films in terms of conventions and had to implement these conventions in order to gratify the audience.
Action is one of the most popular genres of film today and this survey shows us that it's extremely popular with Males. We decided to have Sci-Fi as our sub-genre in order to widen audience appeal to a greater audience. The thriller elements further widened the audience reach inviting fans of other genres to watch this hybrid.
Conforming to expectations
As our sequence is the opening sequence to an action film, we would have to include some form of action in the 2 minute opening which we delivered. We exploit the thriller elements which tricks the audience into thinking that the opening sequence will just be the agents looking for the "project". However, there is a great plot twist as the Protagonist uncloaks behind one of the agents, which fulfills the expectations of the Sci-Fi fans that were expecting use of "futuristic" technology. The immediate take-down of the agent after this fulfills the expectations of the action fans as it is action packed and also, creates a fight scene between our Asian character and the Protagonist.
Building up Enigma
We built up enigma quite successfully in our sequence through implementing elements of the thriller genre. We used the tightly framed shots showing only the agents' hands and shoes in the beginning of the sequence raising questions in the audiences' minds such as, "who are these people" and "why do we not see their faces?". The thriller style music adds to this, helping to create a more enigmatic feel and working with the framing and composition .
We also have enigmatic code when the agents are walking along and we cut to When the two agents turn the corner, the audience are shocked when they see nothing there, as they only had the same information that the tracker had given them, this throws the audience off track leaving them disorientated as the Protagonist uncloaks and shoots the agent.
Audience Feedback
As a group, we created an online questionnaire that we distributed amongst our target audience. We were lucky enough to get some good results and feedback showing us that we were successful in attracting our target audience.
Our feedback shows us that we were successful in creating an opening sequence which conveys the Title and Genre of our sequence to our audience, as well as showing the audience that it was a more independent film made by a smaller production company.
From our online survey that was conducted, we found that we had an average rating of 7/10 for our opening sequence. This shows that we were quite successful in appealing to a variety of audiences and that fans of the Action Sci-Fi genre were attracted to this film.
