Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to make sure that we were effectively targeting our core audience of 16-24 year old females, we used Katz and Blumler's Uses and Gratifications theory, as well as the inclusion of desirable characters, popular themes with this demographic and deeply considered stylistic choices. The effectiveness of these choices can be judged through our audience feedback screening session, which was held after the post-production stage, with two members of our core audience and one member of our secondary audience.

Entertainment          - -The audience would be hooked to see whether the trio successfully complete everything on the list, and how they go about doing it.              - There will be comic moments as well as dramatic parts as they complete the bucket list.	Information            --Turning Pages provides a new perspective on the death of a close family member- audience members learn about a new, and perhaps better way of dealing with bereavement.
Personal Identity            --The themes of maturing and growing up apply to the majority of our core audience members, and as Lila completes the things on the bucket list, she develops as a character	Relationships         -    -The audience start to identify with the characters, particularly Lila, whom they want to see complete the list.               -  The death of Lila’s brother may inspire audience members to appreciate family more.

Katz and Blumler's Uses and Gratifications theory illustrates the reasons why members of our core audience of 16-24 year old females would 'consume' this media text, Turning Pages.

Looking back, we focused largely on the entertainment factor and the idea of maturing with Lila as the narrative progresses, thus building on personal identity. We should have thought more about the informative part of our narrative, which could have come later on in the storyline while she completes her list; for example, she could learn a language or about a foreign culture on her quest.

Characters

Themes
- Themes of love/relationships- the two female audience members at our audience feedback session mentioned that their favourite film genres were romance, comedy, teen films and rom-coms. They were able to spot that there may be a potential love story between Lila and Noah that would be developed later on in the film.
- Identity/ maturity- through our audience research, we found that members of the 15-24 audience group use film as a means of identity and personal development, and they therefore move away from mainstream cinema to find something that they can relate to. Themes of maturity and growing up run throughout Turning Pages, a small-scale production which is likely to appeal to the 15-24 age bracket.

Style
-'Indie' style attracts core audience's love of independent cinema

Build of enigma
- The props used, such as the notebook and photograph, are enigma codes because they raise questions about their significance in the narrative:

• Who is the boy in the photo?
• What is his relationship with Lila?
• Why does she have a bucket list?

- Although the props raise appropriate questions, we also found that they caused some confusion- we had not established properly that the photo was linked to the bucket list, and that the bucket list belonged to the boy in the photo with Lila. Therefore, we had various interpretations of the opening during our audience screening sessions.
-Noah's entrance is also quite unexpected and therefore keeps the audience hooked to find out who these two new characters are and what their role in the narrative is.

Audience Feedback
We held a screening through which members of our core and secondary audiences were able to give us feedback on what they liked best about the film and why they would watch it:
1) The first, a girl aged 17, who liked films such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower, particularly enjoyed the vlogging sequence- this could be because of the intimacy of the situation and the direct address to the camera, which automatically introduces Lila's character to the audience. This also links to the Uses and Gratifications theory through which the audience member establishes a relationship with the fictional character.
2) The second girl, aged 16, liked the small joke used in the dialogue- comedies are also popular amongst our core and secondary target markets, as they are light-hearted and therefore can be enjoyed by young audiences, which is why we incorporated this into the coming-of-age genre and into our film opening.
3) A member of the secondary audience, a boy aged 17, liked the acoustic backing track- this stylistic element was also added to reinforce the light-hearted nature of the film.
Whilst all three audience members really liked the style of the sunrise shots, they all thought that the establishment of character could be worked on. In hindsight, this is definitely something that we would reconsider as we would like our audience members to engage with the characters from the very beginning, and hence be immersed into the filmic world.