How did you attract and address your audience?

'The majority of horror film openings are predictable. They begin with a happy character or character's who have perfect lives and don't think anything can harm them.'


The statement above remained in my mind when I was considering making a horror film opening. I wanted my target audience to be excited about an original and unique horror film opening. Therefore I researched into classic horror film openings to note down the key conventions. I not only watched the openings but the trailers helped aswell when deciding on a story. The trailers always give away a couple of opening/early scenes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux3HnYZDSNI&feature=fvsr

In the opening sequence to this trailer the audience can see the happy 'opening scenes' where the characters are having fun and are not expecting whats going to happen. Even though I haven't made a trailer I found researching openings to films and looking at trailers helpful when wanting to make a unique opening to attract a different audience.

That was my aim: Attract an audience who would want to watch an independant horror film opening. Therefore I immediatly looked into independant horror films. Two of the most credible independant horrors are 'Paranormal Activity' and the 'Blair Witch Project'. So therefore I could instantly attract a new audience into a unique independent horror film.

I addressed this proposition by creating a disequilibrium beginning and using the enigma code.

Equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium are the three main parts to a movie. In most films there is an equilibrium state in the opening, there is a pleasant atmosphere. However, I chose to instantly address my audience with a problem/ unfortunate event called a disequilibrium. This normaly doesn't get seen till later on in the film. I used the enigma code on the audience. This means that they wonder why the disequilibrium is being used now?, what is going to happen?, and how will this be resolved? There are only a few films that do this. Another example is the opening of 'The Orphan.'
I wanted to immediatly captivate and address my audience by exciting them, scaring them and giving them a situation to work out so that they would keep watching the rest of the film.
I feel I captured this through the use of the music, camera shots and the use of the mask. What relevance does the mask have in the rest of the film? Now even I am asking questions...
All of this would play on the audiences mind and this is what would attract a wider audience to the horror genre.