Target Audience Profile

The film that we are making is a horror and will be politically aimed at British people. Our film will be able to be seen at all A, B, C1, C2, D and E class groups but our film is mainly aimed at B, C1, C2 and D class groups. These groups intended for are the middle classed, unemployed group of people around which is around teen-young adult; 15-25. The reason for this is because of the modern era being based around gore and violence which is the most popular out of the sub genres. Our film is going to be aimed at mainly males as both our protagonist and antagonists are going to be males. Reason for this is because for the film we are making using a male is more likely to be realistic in wanting revenge for the bullying in the past.

For the age certificate being 15, this allows the film to be aimed at teens-young adults as a 15 certificated film can contain the same depth of an 18 film but in slightly lesser detail; minimizing the swearing and the amount of violence in the film but still having enough for the realism of horror to be in effect. Also, certificating the film a 15 allows the audience of the film to be aimed at a wider range of people. More and more people are starting to play electronic games like the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and standard computers and are ranged around the class group we decided to set for our film and involved in the gaming are horror, action, gore, violence etc… which are all included in our film so is ideal to set our film around these as they are the most popular at the moment. Also, from a questionnaire we made, the majority said that they would prefer the rating of the horror film to be 15.

Making our film a 15 is ideal because included in our film will be moments of swearing but not very often. Using swearing in various parts of the film allows getting across to the audience the full impact of the scenario set for character. For example, if a character is in a dark room and didn’t know how he got there he/she would not say where am I, how I got here, they would be emphasizing there emotions as much as possible because they are scared and frightened as they do not know what is going to happen next. So using swearing in parts of the film will allow the characters to illustrate there emotions to the audience and add the tension to the audience as if they are in that position. A film that demonstrates this is Saw 1, as in the opening couple of minutes of the film the two protagonists are in a pitch black room and one of the characters says swear words to emphasize his emotions and being in a dark room the audience cannot see his expressions so him using the swear words tells the audience how he is feeling. Also, some parts of the film when the killings are present, they either have already happened like the opening of the film or are happening off camera so this takes away some of the gore and violence from the film but using this technique can also make the audience just as scared because the actions the antagonist is performing on the character could mean that it is too disgusting to show on camera. A film that demonstrates this is Halloween when the antagonist kills one of his victims with a scythe but instead of seeing him kill the victim all you see is blood splatter across the barn. However, in the other parts of the murders, they will be showed on the camera to help set the certificated rating and add the suspense and tension to the audience so they will get scared.

In our questionnaire we made, we first asked the question if they liked horror films. Most of the people we asked said they liked horror films but two people (both female) said they didn’t and one was 50/50 (male) as he likes some types of horrors and doesn’t like others. We then asked what it they didn’t like about them. One of them said that they didn’t like gore in films and the other said that the writers were twisted and what they come up with, some things have gone too far.

Types of media works our audience consumes are soaps like Hollyoaks which are based on real events that have happened or can happen so this allows it to compare itself to the audience. Having said this so does our film with either films they enjoy watching like Saw or Halloween or games that they play on there console as they can relate the type of genre or the components involved in the media to what is going to be in our film, gore violence, horror.
From the questionnaire, One of the questions we asked was what other genres do they enjoy watching. We asked five females and five males and all five females said they enjoyed watching comedy films and two out of the five said they enjoyed watching Rom-Coms. Furthermore, all five of the males said they enjoyed watching comedy also and three out of the five said they enjoyed watching action films as well. From the information gathered, we found out that comedy was the other favourite genre our audience likes watching; we can include a bit of comedy in our film, but as it’s a horror- gore and violence, it would not fit in. Although from the other two popular genres that were said; action and Rom-Com we could add a bit of both in as throughout the film, action at some point will be a slight role in our film as its admissible and maybe we could include Rom-Com as the Protagonist could save an opposite sex character.

From the questionnaire, one of the questions we asked was what there favourite horror film was. The feedback was very good for our target audience profile as every single answer that was given by both boys and girls were completely different. Although, the films that they said were there favourite links in with each other as the majority of the films are similar to what we are going to make so this helps us a lot as it tells us that we are on the same lines of our audience and is making the appropriate film.
Also, we asked what they prefer in a horror film. The five female audience members were about 50/50 with the answers we got from them. Two out of five said that they would prefer the film to be based on a psychological thriller, Two out of five said they would prefer the film to be based on scary and the other said they would prefer the film to be based on comedy. Whereas, two out of the five males said they would prefer the film to be based on gore, one said comedy, another said scary and another said other. From these results overall were a success as our film will contain gore and will be scary.
Moreover, we asked what they like about horror films. On the female side of the questionnaire, Three out of five said they like paranormal activities in films and the rest said they like spoofs in horror films. On the male side of the questionnaire, two out of the five said they liked monsters (i.e. zombies), one said they liked spoofs, another said they liked paranormal activities and the other said they liked mass murders. Although we are not making a paranormal activity film, spoof film or monster film which was what the majority of the audience likes I believe that this was not so important in our research as mass murder was selected; being one out of the ten, means that that sort of activity in a film is still liked and I believe will still be popular.
In a horror film our target audience said what they would expect to see in one. Three out of the five males said that they would expect to see blood in a horror film and the other two said they would expect to see death in a horror film. Two of the females said that they would expect killing/death in a horror film, another said an innocent victim, another said twists in the story line to make the audience think and the other said scariness; something to make the audience react to what is happening. From this information gathered, the majority thought killing, death, blood was the most expected to be in a horror film and that is what we are containing in ours so I believe we made the right decision.

To advertise our film, we believe that we would use the TV as nowadays most people have at least one TV in there home so a lot of people would be able to see it. As well as TV, we would use websites like facebook, Bebo, MySpace etc…. as most people these days use social networking sites so our film will be able to be advertised globally interesting more people.

To advertise my film trailer in the cinema, I would screen it in films that are similar to our film and that are the same genre; being horror like Saw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Halloween. Screening our film’s trailer in films similar to ours allows the audience that is interested in that type of film to want to see our film as well as its like the film they are about to watch.

Overall, our film is aimed at young teens-adults with the certificate of 15. This is because we believe the younger generation prefer to watch horror films than the older so basing it at 15 allows us to include enough depth in a typical horror film for the audience to enjoy a good scare including gore and violence and allows us to get as much audience as we can. A film that is similar to this is ‘The Ring’ as the certificate for this film is a 15 but it is scary at various points in the film as it makes the audience jump and react with it, also contains violence and gore as blood is presented and a couple of killings.