Audience theories for our trailer

As a group, we will be concentrating on trying to achieve the Uses and Gratifications Theory in our trailer and our overall film idea. This is the theory that audiences have particular wants and needs and that they use the media to gain gratification and to satisfy these. Our film trailer will fulfill my audience’s needs by creating a thrill. It will also persuade our actual audience to watch the film as it will be entertaining due to the suspense and tension created. It will involve a sex appeal for the male audience and female protagonist for the female audience. This will help people gain a basis of conversation as well as fear and social interaction as female antagonists aren't usually used and so it will make people ask questions about what will happen in the actual film as it will create enigma and the audience.

I researched into the Hypodermic Needle Model, and thought it would fit well with our trailer as it is the theory that people see a media text and believe every part of the message they are told. After thinking about the effects of this theory, my group and I wanted to create a trailer that will convince our audience that the story line is real, therefore we have based it on a true story and have also decided to use a home as a location as this would be seen in everyday life to create a sense of realism. We have also used characters similar ages to our target audience to inject the idea that the events in the trailer/ film could happen to them in real life which also makes the trailer more frightening for the audience, therefore the idea of realism will be injected. If this model is believed it shows our audience are passive.

My group and I won’t be considering the Desensitisation theory as this theory states that the more you are exposed to something, the less affected you will be and the more you think it is ‘normal behavior’. We want to create the suspense and adrenaline rushing effect throughout our trailer and if this isn't achieved then our trailer won’t target our audience or create social interaction and so therefore won’t make the audience want to watch the full film.

By using iconography of a psychological horror, we can draw the audience to their expectations, we can position the audience and create a certain amount of agreement of what the texts codes actually mean. However, as our trailer uses a female antagonist to slightly challenge horror conventions, the trailer may not live up to the audiences expectations so therefore may be quite hard to understand at first as the audience may interpret this in a different way and not take the preferred reading. This is known as the Reception theory. The text will be encoded by my group (the producers) and the audience will decode the information. For our audience to take the preferred reading, and enjoy the trailer, we must ensure the iconography is accurate whilst challenging this convention, for example we have decided to portray her a sex appeal at the beginning as well to live up to the audiences expectations of an antagonist further on into the trailer by making her look evil and psychotic. However the audience don't necessarily have to understand the text completely as a purpose of a trailer is to persuade the audience to watch the full film and by creating enigma and slightly confusing the audience makes them ask questions so they watch the film to find out.