Evaluation Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

The hacker protagonist would be relatable for our primary target audience, for he too is a young man between the ages of 15 and 25, just like the highest demographic for action movie watchers. As a hacker, the character seems big, tall and imposing, staying independent and intelligent as a hacker character, so can in a sense be seen as an aspirational character for the target audience to follow.

The fast paced nature of the shots in the film with quick dips to black, and the use of guns and technology throughout would also appeal to fans of the genre. The intimidating presence of the young men working for the conspiracy organisation would bring a level of darkness, intrigue and tactical sophistication for the audience to be interested in.

Intimidating organisation with guns

Fast action running shots

When showing the test shoot to a variety of people aged between 15-25, who claimed to be fans of the action genre, we gained useful feedback for us to work on for our film:

• "The music doesn't work well and its too repetitive"
• "It's not dramatic enough and is a bit boring"
• "The surveillance shots work really well"
• "The plot isn't very clear"

We took on this feedback and found a much more fitting track to play for the opening that added much tension to the film. Then we added new shots to the storyboard to be filmed in order for the plot line to be clearer. We shortened the length of certain shots to keep it at fast pace and added  a bit of dialogue, so that the plot of the protagonist meeting the other character before he was ambushed by the government conspiracy organisation was more clear.  After the changes we made due to feedback from the public we also made some small, subtle changes to the sequence, e.g. adding slicker titles that would connote the hacking genre well and doing colour grading for the  chase scene shots in order to connote a more gritty action film than it seemed in the original test shoot. 

After making these changes we showed the film opening sequence to the same individuals, who gave much more positive feedback:

• "It's very tense"
• "It's really dramatic"
• "Good continuity in the running shots"
• "It doesn't drag out as much, more more happens"
• "The police report at the end works well"

In conclusion, the opening definitely seemed to appeal to our desired target audience with great positive feedback and it had improve a lot with the new changes that were made.