RESEARCH: Audience

Films can attract many different types of audiences; audiences are a group of people who can be identified by gender, age, ethnicity, social group, region of the film and sexual orientation.

  Makers of film treat you as an individual and uses cumulative single shots which when put together creates frames. This gives the illusion of a moving picture to the members of the audience. Demographic audience variables such as their gender, age and ethnicity are what are identified by the film institutions in order to target a specific audience. This means that they presume the audience which will find the film enjoyable.

Many different theorists have studied ‘audience’ in media, more specifically film. 

An extremely successful and known theory is the ‘The Hypodermic Syringe’. The theory produces the idea that the media is similar to a syringe which gets injected into the mind, releasing and forcing ideas, beliefs and attitudes into individuals of that audience. This reflects the idea that the audience is extremely easily influenced. For example if a teenager gets involved in violence; the audience member if he/she is a teenager will go and involve themselves in violence. Another example if a woman is seen to do the washing and ironing, the audience member if she is a woman will go and do the same because it is represented as the right thing to do. The audience in this theory are seen as a powerless sponge which soaks up this information and re-produces it in their everyday actions and life. 

An American sex offender and serial killer ‘Jeffrey Dahmer’ is an example of ‘The Hypodermic Syringe’ at its most extreme. Jeffrey Dahmer murdered seventeen men and boys, before every one of his murdered he would watch  media clips in order to excite and amp himself up in preparation for the murders.

The hypodermic syringe theory is extremely difficult to prove; therefore another more refined theory was made called ‘The Culmination Mode’. The Culmination mode releases the idea that one media text does not have a massive effect however; many years of media text representing the same idea’s waters down the initial idea’s making them seem the ‘norm’. For example; a woman in a media text being portrayed as a housewife and only a house wife whilst the male goes out and has a good time will cause less of an uproar to the audience members the more it is shown, the effect of this is that the audience becomes less bothered about how women are portrayed in the media which reflects society.

Critics argue that it is not the initial media text which causes influence, it is when an individual member watches the film, then conversates with other people and share the experiences from the film and this then sparks up the actions of the individuals.

This leads us to the ‘Two-Step Flow Theory’.   This theory means that the individual members of the audience watch a piece of media text these are known as the ‘opinion leaders’. They receive a message which the media shows to them and then interpreted it in the way they choose to acknowledge it. The term ‘personal influence’ plays a part between the initial media text and the journey of the message received by the opinion leader. The opinion leader have had their own personal experiences and interpret the text the either disagree with the message or respect the actors/actresses part in the media text. The next step of the two-step flow theory is that the opinion leader re-tells what they have seen in the media however in their own perception. The opinion leader works in a way in which convinces the people that he/she re-tell the story too.

The ‘uses and gratification’ approach is the idea that as an individual audience member we all have a use for different types of media text. We all intend on getting some gratification out of the media. This approach was proven by research through qualitative and quantitative questionnaires and observations amongst individual media users. Other methods such as; demographics, usage patterns and rating scales of gratifications and needs were used to conduct the research for this theory.

Information: As an audience we are curious about what is going on in the world and our society, although what we may find is not pleasurable to us we still get a sense of gratification and fulfilment.  The news and documentaries are all media texts which satisfy our needs to learn about what is happening in the world.  

Personal Identity:  We watch media text and analyse each character, we watch how they act and what they say in situations and decide for ourselves if we agree or disagree and create a personal view on the character. We do this to seek guidance on how we want to be and copy the actions of the characters, meaning the fictional characters are highly influential.

Integration and Social Interaction: By watching sitcoms and other media texts we create a bond with them and a relationship although it is a one way ‘friendship’ we use the media to understand and sympathise with the character. We use the knowledge which we have gathered and use it with our real friends and family, creating a sense of understanding with them and a ‘head start’.

Entertainment: Although the above subjects are what have been suggested by a theorist, it is hard to calculate this because we do not watch the media because we directly want to seek guidance. Even if we did directly want to seek guidance, then it is extremely rare that anyone would admit it. We all say that we watch the media text just due to entertainment purposes.

Reception analysis is a theory which suggests that no different person can watch one piece of text and receive the same thing out of it.  We all get different meanings out of texts meaning one piece of media cannot have the same meaning due to the individuals decoding of the text. A reception analyst has proven that the meaning which we get from the different media texts are influenced by our upbringing, gender, ethnicity, age, our status in society and even the time which we are living in. The combination of all the attributes means that we will have a different outcome, meaning of the media text in comparison to another person.

RESEARCH: Concept of Short Film

Short film cannot be catogorised by genre and forms and conventions unlike most cinema films. In contrast to big cinema and hollywood films, short films are very different. They do not have set forms and conventions to make it a short film. Short films are very diverse and all very different. Early cinema short films are very different to short films in the present day. This is due to the fast developing production companies.


This short films has connotations to early cinema. This production is set in black and white with no dialogue which emphasis the miming in the acting ensuring that emotions are clear. This is very much like the early cinema experience. The music is also very old and is an instrumental to keep the flow of the short film. This was usually used in early cinema.
The next film I have displayed is a Charlie Chaplin film. He is a very successful and world known producer of short films in the early days of cinema. In comparison to the recreational early films which I analysed earlier.




This short film was highly successful and during the production of my own short film I feel that I want to emphasis the development in media so I am going to make mine modern with colour and also dialogue.

Analysis of Five Short Films

Above is the first short film which I analysed. Below you will find my analysing of the film.

Above is the short film 'The Fall' This is the second film which I analysed to greater my understanding of short films conventions. Below is my analysis on the film.

This is the third short film which I analysed. My analysis can be found at the bottom of this post.

This is the fourth short film I have chosen to analyse. Like the others, the analysis can be found at the bottom of this post. I decided to narrow my film search down to more short films made around South East London. I have also chosen them to be supporting real life issues which are faced by todays society as I feel that the media is extremely influential.

The final film I have chosen to analyse.

RESEARCH: other short films

Today I have been given my A2 task. During the course of these weeks upto January I am going to be posting the pre-production, evidence on the production and the post-production on the film I am making. I have started by widening my knowlege on short films as I have no experience in making short films. Last year in my AS I had made a title sequence for a horror film. This year my skills and knowlege will be developed which I will talk about in the up and coming weeks.


I have started off by researching short film producers such as; The Quay Brothers, Sam Raimi, Visual communications, Douglas Buck and Elizabeth Sung.

The Quay Brothers are two identical twins who were very iconic in the short film industry.

Above is an image of The Quay Brothers (Stephen and timothy)

The two brothers were born in 1947 and were named Stephen and Timothy Quay. They became famous for their unique and ‘nightmarish’ take upon films. 

They created their own sets, controlled the arrangement of the lighting and the camera work. Their mise-en-scene was very unusual and the Quay Brothers work is easily identified. Enigmatic visuals are preferred by the brothers and music plays a dominant part in creating tension and the wanted atmosphere.
The Quay Brothers were so significant because they created there very own world as if ‘frozen by time’ The mise-en-scene in his films were designed by cobwebs, conventional mirrors, bizarre machinery, old rags and clothes.

Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi is an American producer who is also known as a director, actor and writer. He can be more commonly identified for directing the series of new spiderman films which have been recently out, over the past few years. Sam Raimi is known for his ‘cult-horror’ genre of film such as ‘Drag me to hell’. In 1977 Sam Raimi directed his first short film called ‘It’s murder!’ and the year after brought out two more films called; ‘Clockwork’ and ‘Within the woods’

‘It’s Murder’ was the first very successful short film which Sam Raimi made. It is noted to be under the genres of; comedy, short, horror and crime. It stars the famous American actor who starred in many short films called Bruce Campbell. Bruce Campbell plays a comical cop on a bike. It is a very detective inspired film.

‘Clockwork’ is another successful short film which Sam Raimi directed. This film fits into the genre of horror and short. The film stars Cheryl Guttridge and Scott Spiegel. The plot is of a homeless serial killer who stalks a lonely rich woman. It is grippinf and a reviewer describes as the mise-en-scene as “grainy” and “unpolished”.

Douglas Buck

Douglas Buck, an American Director first launched his career by producing short films. His short films include; Cutting Moments (1997), Home (1998), Prologue (2003). All three of these short films were collected together to produce an anthology ‘Family Portraits’.   He is famously known for his preferred genre of ‘horror’. 

Cutting Moments

Douglas Buck produced, directed and wrote the short film ‘Cutting Moments’. This short film has a running time of 25 minutes. With a cast of three people; Nica Ray, Gary Betsworth, Jared Barsky.

Sypnosis of Cutting Moments

This film’s is about a couple who have kept their feelings packed away for a number of years. In a desperate attempt to get their relationship back on track the woman tries to do everything in her power to get him sexually interested, this turns into a very twisted and horrifying story.

Elizabeth Sung