Target Audience

Before creating our opening sequence we must be able to understand the audience demographic. This will help us to understand who our film should be targeted at and what elements we should include in order to present this. After conducting research we made the decision to produce a thriller film. Our target audience is mainly going to be focused on older teenagers-young adults (age 15-25). Therefore we made the decision for our film to be rated age appropriate 15 due to scenes of possible violence and strong language. There have been a number of films which are Thrillers which have been very successfully for this age category and for 18+ for example Shutter Island, Fatal Attraction and Se7en; these films have got positive reviews and a high viewer count from the youth-young adult market. We decided to choose the age rating to be 15 as it broadens the market and gives our film the opportunity to become more up-and-coming. The main primary audience we are both males/females who are 15 plus to young adults; however we are specifically targeting males due the fact males are the ones that are typically drawn to thrillers. We can see this as they commonly appear to play video games which contain this for content for example Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. There will be no specific social group/ethnicity that the film will be intended for as it would be suitable and interesting for the majority. We also have the hope it would attract people of other ages and gender who are generally interested in films of a thrilling nature. 

The secondary audience of this film would be people who watch this film with the primary audience; therefore in this case it might be girlfriends, friends or in some cases family members who are interested in the film from word of the youth. The film will essentially attract the lower/middle class as there might be some content that people from the higher class may find disturbing and may not approve of it. I believe if this film was released during winter it would be more successful due to the fact teenagers have difficulty making plans during the cold weather period so the cinema would be a good place to go with your friends/ partners at a reasonable price. 

I feel that we are targeting people under the C1 and C2 category as teenagers of 15+ don’t tend to have a substantial income and cinema is a low-priced place to go if you have a part time job. The money they earn can be spent on leisure and not for responsibilities that adults may have for example paying for bills/mortgages. I believe C1 and C2 are appropriate categories as the film may realise merchandise/commercial products which would boost the marketing of the film, meaning it is more associated with the target audience as it would appeal to them. I believe that our target audience would have common interests for example play sport, watch television and socialise with friends. By pursuing our film at teenagers who have collective interests would hopefully enhance the popularity of our film as it’s more likely to be enjoyable for all the demographics in the specific category.