Audience response - The Hunt (2015)

The DVD cover for The Hunt suggests many pleasures that are available to the audience

Broadly, there are two types of audience question that can come up in the MS4 exam. (Incidentally this analysis could also be applied as a case study to the audience question for the AS/MS1 exam).

1. How do producers target audiences, or
2. How do audiences respond to media texts.

The wording can be a little different, but this is roughly what will come up in the exam.

It's essential to have key scenes in your head before taking the exam, and to make explicit reference to visual codes, technical codes, audio codes, narrative and genre as appropriate. We're going to look at how to use a scene from The Hunt (episode one) as a key scene for an audience question.

Key scene - The Hunt (2005, episode one) - 'African hunting dogs hunt wildebeest' (about 12 minutes into episode one)

How does the producer position audiences in this scene?

• Initial bird's eye establishing shot of the African plains emphasises an exotic and even alien world the audience are likely to be completely unfamiliar with. However, straight away...

• Use of tracking shots follows dogs as they both hunt and play. Tracking shot is at eye level, allowing audience to identify with the animals, even connotating their equality. 

• Close ups of dogs 'smiling' faces, which constructs the animals as being happy, or even more human-like

• Use of mid-shot of dog pack, emphasising the fact they are a family, eliciting sympathy and identification from the audience 

• Use of language in the voice-over anchors the audience to feel sympathy for the dogs. "the mother decides" - Use of the word 'mother' allows audiences to identify with different character roles

• Use of language - Attenborough refers to the animals not as 'African hunting dogs' but simply "dogs", allowing audiences to easily identify with the dogs and even see them as being 'domestic'.

• Use of exciting narrative devices. Voiceover explains that a few dogs have been "split off" from the pack, suggesting a disruption of the equilibrium. Audience forced to care about the dogs.

• Voiceover suggests a binary opposition between the dogs and the wildebeest. "The wildebeest are big and strong, but the dogs have stamina". The binary emphasises how different these two 'characters' are, forcing use to root for the hunting dogs. 

• Dramatic non-diegetic soundtrack - anchors audience to the conclusion that this is a dramatic, life changing scene. Use of african drums in the sound mix emphasises the exoticsism of the situation. 

How can this scene appeal to the audience?

• Bird's eye establishing shot emphasises an exotic land. Audiences can use for escapism. 

• Text uses many of the conventions of the nature documentary. Use of voiceover, exotic setting, exotic animals and pretense of information. Audiences can take pleasure at identifying these similarities, and differences in genre conventions. Two key differences include the emphasis on both the 'hunter' and the 'hunted', and the extensive use of super slow motion photography. In these two ways, the clip may challenge audience expectation.

• Super slow motion photography, extremely high definition resolution accomplished through extremely high end equipment. The sheer quality of The Hunt is a major point of audience appeal!

• The synergy of the fast paced editing, cross-cutting between different packs, and the varied cinematography, creating montages of close-ups, mid-shots and long-shots, creates an exciting scene, arguably closer to the action genre than the nature documentary genre. This allows completely different audiences to take pleasure form the text. 

• Polysemic readings -  audiences can focus on the educational aspects of the scene, or instead can take pleasure from the drama created by the cinematography and narrative codes. An audience could even choose to mute the soundtrack and to have the footage on in the background. Remember: there is no limit to uses and gratifications!

• Celebrity - David Attenborough's voice is a major appeal for audiences. Older audiences will identify with his celebrity, remembering other programmes he has narrated and taking pleasure from trusting this well recognised voice. Younger audiences could take pleasure from the authority of an older voice, perhaps seeing him as a 'granddad' figure

This is just one scene, but we can see how we can address both producer positioning and audience appeal. Without key scenes, complete with visual and technical codes, you will be making life hard for yourself. Perhaps the best way to revise is to sit down, to pick out familiar key scenes, and to dissect them with a question in front of you.

Thanks to R block and S block A2 Media for your assistance in constructing this analysis!