Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Typical audience for our film The core audience for our film is people aged around 16 – 36. The film will attract both genders equally as each gender will enjoy different aspects of the film. For example males will enjoy the crime elements, which includes guns and chase scenes, and females will enjoy the love/ romance aspects of the film. Our core audience would most likely enjoy films with gory elements but also strong memorable characters with interesting backgrounds such as the film ‘Se7en’. The main character is a detective and the film is based around that, which means that our core audience would most likely enjoy films with a detective as the protagonist or films based on the idea of the good guy finding the antagonist in a time limit. For example they would enjoy the films ‘Shutter Island’ or ‘Taken’. Our core audience would most likely enjoy films by David Fincher and like actors such as Brad Pitt.

Target audience The target audience for our film is males and females aged 15-25. This is because the main characters are of a similar age group so our target audience will relate to them more than if they were much older/ younger. Our target audience are also British. This is because our film is an independent film so we don’t have the budget to market to a bigger audience, however the film doesn’t feature any typical British themes so our film would be almost as successful in other countries. Our target audience isn’t any specific social class, meaning that everyone will enjoy it.

Typical Audience member Our typical audience member is 19 year old Jimmy. He lives in the outskirts of Brighton with his mum and younger sister. He enjoys playing video games and going out with his mates. He usually wears casual clothing such as jeans, t-shirt and a hoodie which he buys from places such as H&M and Topman. He often watches TV programs such as ‘Dexter’ or ‘Breaking Bad’ on his laptop, where he also watches some of his favourite films: Se7en, Shutter Island, Taken and Brick. He often watches films on his laptop but every time a new film comes out he always goes to see it in cinema.

Similar Thriller Films & Marketing The film that is most similar to our film is David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’. They promoted their film with push advertising such as the use of trailers and posters which would reach their target audience. An interesting thing that they did was to leave Kevin Spacey’s name out of the opening credits so the audience didn’t know who the bad guy was. Although ‘Se7en’ has a similar narrative to our film, it is a mainstream film whereas our film is an independent film so it will not have as high budget, meaning that our method of promotion will be cheaper. Our film will most likely be marketed through the use of pull advertising, such as Facebook pages and fan sites. This is a good way to reach our target audience as most young people have Facebook or access to the internet. It is also an effective way to market our film as it is a lot cheaper than push advertising.

Age Rating The age rating for our film is 15. I came to that conclusion after I researched the specifications for a 15 film on the BBFC website. What you might see in a 15 film, based on the BBFC website, is: Strong violence Frequent strong language Portrayals of sexual activity Strong verbal references to sex Sexual nudity Brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence Discriminatory language or behaviour Drug taking Our film contains mainly strong violence and also frequent strong language, which is why our film is a 15.