2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

We wanted to create a character that would appeal to our target audience. To do this we had to search films that fall under the sub genre of Horror and Supernatural Thriller. Using YouGov profiles we looked up movies like Insidious and The Grudge and found that the demographics for the age of target audiences were between 18-29. While the gender was mainly female. By using this information we've decided to target the film towards teenage girls.

Since we will be filming in Bangkok we wanted to create a character that would appear believable through the audience's eyes.  Therefore it would be suitable to create  a character that dresses and follows thai culture. In Thailand, it is tradition to dress appropriately,  to have good manners, and behave responsibly. Therefore since our target audience falls under the ages of 18-29 we decided to create a character that is still studying at university. So we researched and found that Thai universities like Mahidol and Kraset requires female students to wear skirts that fall below knee length. This idea of wearing longs skirts gives the audience the impression that the character is concealing something and that she may not appear to be what she presents. This ambiguity of not knowing the character’s real personality helps keep the audience interested as they are constantly questioning the identity of the character.  Another thing we decided was the character’s makeup. Since Thai schools and universities do not allow students to wear heavy makeup we decided to find a makeup tutorial online that uses light makeup and looks natural. By doing this we are able to create a realistic character that follows the conventions of a Thai student.

However, a character we found that carries the most similarities to the character we plan to create is “Oil” from a Thai series called “Hormones”. In hormones Oil plays the quiet and unpopular friend who tries to destroy her best friends image by releasing horrible rumours after realising that the guy she likes, likes her best friend. Oil’s intentions of harming her friend is driven by anger and jealousy. Throughout the series her mental illness is revealed through the lies she tells, creating fake accounts on facebook and self harming. Another thing that makes her a suitable reference is that she is also a student and “Hormones” is a series that’s targeted at females between the same age group as our identified target audience.

To explore the theme of mental illness by showing a contrast in the character’s thoughts keeps the audience interested as the plot becomes unpredictable. For this concept we analysed a series called “Pretty little liars”. In this series we see friends exploiting, harming and turning against each other. the audience is always unaware of the full story, this raises questions that are only answered towards the end.  After watching pretty little liars I felt that this was quite effective as it made the viewers want to continue to watch is as they are curious to whom the antagonist is. So we included the idea of revealing which character is at fault towards the end of the film.

We were able to keep the audience engaged by showing a contrast between love and hate. In the first shot we see the main character holding a photograph of her friend while a sad background music is being played. This straight away communicates to the audience that the character is sad and is missing her best friend. However the last few shots we see an opaque layer of the character tearing the picture. In this shot emotions of anger and hatred is portrayed to the audience. The contrast in mood and emotions create by these two shots help represents the character’s mental state and her messed up thoughts.

After completing the film opening we let our target audience watch it and comment their thoughts and whether they like it or not. We also let a boy watch it as well because we wanted to see if boys would like it and see whether there is a potential to target our film to boys as well or not.

DISTRIBUTION METHODS

To begin with, Our first plan is to distribute our film locally in Thailand. A very well known Production company that produces horror films in Thailand is GTH. This production company has produced films like “Pee Mak”, “Shutter” and “The Swimmers”. These three films have been successful in engaging with teenage audiences.

For international distribution, we started by researching different production companies and after analysing each one’s suitability we came to the decision that we'll be using Lionsgate. We thought that lionsgate would most suit our film because it is well known for producing Horror Thrillers in the past like "saw, cabin in the woods and sinister". Also the introduction does not give off a "friendly" vibe like "universal pictures" or "dreamworks". Instead the introductions of Lionsgate helps set an eerie atmosphere and build a tense mood. Another reason why we picked “Lionsgate” to produce and distribute our film is because that It is a very well known production company that has several links to distribution companies. Also, Lionsgate  is known to have produced an award winning Thriller called “Crash” in the past.

We believe that the films potential of being a success with be higher if we release the film during October. This is because it will be close to Halloween which is the time where people are most interested in watching horror films. Also, since our film is about killing, revenge and psychopaths it would be a perfect fit for Halloween. We plan on distributing the film locally first, perhaps early October as an experimentation to see what people think about the film. So that we can evaluate its potential of success if we were to distribute it globally. If the film becomes a success we will distribute the film globally during the week of halloween.

However, before distributing we will have to raise awareness of the film to our target audience. Since our target audience are teenagers we decided to market our product through different pages on various social networking platforms such as "Twitter", "Facebook", and "Instagram". We will show exclusive behinds the scenes footage to our audience and release teaser trailers. For example, GTH has a facebook and instagram page with over 3 million followers on facebook and 150k on instagram. After releasing teaser trailers and informing our target audience about our film we will be releasing a trailer in September, a month before we release it to the cinemas.

Furthermore, If we plan on distributing globally we will upload our marketing footage to popular online broadcasting services such as "Youtube" and "Dailymotion", this allows us to save expenses as these services are free and easily make our audience aware of our project. To raise awareness globally even further, we will screen our film at horror film festivals in order to gain recognition and get chances of winning an award. If by any means, we end up winning an award this will help increase awareness of the film and potential broaden our customer base. Since the majority want to see an award winning film. Film festivals that we plan to submit to include “Screamfest, Sitges Int. Fantastic film festival of Catalonia and Shriek fest”