Question 5: How Did You Address/Attract Your Audience?

We used several devices within From The Dark to attract our audience. The first one was the soundtrack posted below.



This is a continuous soundtrack all the way through. At the beginning it is quieter and the timbre is softer. It is a pulsating sound almost like that of a heartbeat. It builds the further through you go. This is a key factor of building suspense within From The Dark. It helps to engage the audience until the very end and creates suspense.
It could be suggested that the eery electronic 'whispering' noises reflect past conversations the mother has had either with her son or perhaps the killer...pleading for her life. The muffled words being 'whispered' allude to a possible secret life or dark secrets she has never shared.
Another factor helping to build suspense is the non-diegetic gunshot heard near the beginning of the film and because the gunshot is not within the frame at the time it leaves this event shrouded in mystery. The audience want to know: Where was that gun-shot from? Why was it in the house? Was that bullet intended for 'Jonathan Cody'? The gun-shot sound effect used is posted below.




The reason why we used this non-diegetic gun-shot sound was because it contains an appropriate amount of reverb on the sound seen as smaller and smaller 'squiggly' line above after the initial attack of sound.

The final device creating suspense and tension is the cliffhanger ending. At the end of the film 'Jonathan' runs out in front of car headlights and this raises all sorts of questions within the audiences mind, such as is the person driving the car good or evil? Is this the same enigmatic figure as the one seen in the house? Is 'Jonathan' about to die himself? The ending helps to heighten suspense and curiosity.

Different audiences go to see thriller films with certain expectations. For example, when somebody goes to see a thriller they will already have a list of things in their mind which they can expect, such as the ubiquitous theme of good vs. evil, a crime (usually a murder but can be something like robbery etc), a tense soundtrack, possibly a cliff hanger. These are all thriller conventions.
Our thriller fulfils most of these. Ours contains a crime (this is the murder of the mother), a reasonably tense soundtrack (which builds towards to allow the tension to rise) and a cliffhanger.

The location was important within our film in terms of engaging and connecting with the audience. The reason why is because the location is a modern middle class family home and the audience will be able to relate to that. If the audience members are able to relate to this factor then this means they will stay interested because it reflects aspects of their own lives.

Within a film it is hugely important to connect with the audience. We hope to achieve this by having the main character as a young person caught up in a web of intrigue and danger. It is well known, that within the film industry, if the audience can connect, engage and relate to the film and its characters then they will derive much more pleasure from watching it.

In our thriller From The Dark there is a constant reminder, through the means of cross dissolved shots etc, of an enigmatic figure. Take note that the enigmatic figure is always shrouded in the dark and the boy is always seen in the light. These are thriller conventions; keeping the potential killer/criminal a mystery or secret from the audience. An example of this is in Carol Reed's 'The Third Man'. The first time we see 'Harry Lime' is just over an hour through the film. Up until this point he has been shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

The boy is always seen in the light and the enigmatic figure is always seen in the dark. It could be argued that this represents the ongoing battle in society of 'good vs. evil'. This is consistent until 'Jonathan' goes to run out of the front door after finding his mother dead. Jonathan runs out into the night and this symbolises the two characters ('Jonathan' and the enigmatic figure's) world colliding.

We had two students watch From The Dark and rate it on a questionnaire. The purpose of this excersise is to get an external view and their opinions/criticism. The results are posted below.

This is the first audience feedback form. One criticism is that we need to make the bedroom scene "feel less homey". This is one point which was raised during shooting but the reason we did not alter this scene is because we wanted to maintain the connection between the location and the audience (e.g. it looks like a typical teenage bedroom which our demographic can relate to).

Overall between our two participants I think that our opening received high praise and positive feedback.