Target Audience Profile

Our film is a psychological horror aimed at young adults looking for thrills and suspense. It is most likely to appeal to those from E, D and C2 class grouping. Our film would be classified as a 15 and therefore our target audience would be 16 to 24 year olds. To discover more information, we composed a questionnaire for the public to answer. From doing this we discovered that the average respondent considered that a horror film should be rated 15. We feel that the rating 15 is suitable for our film because there is only mild swearing or violent scenes. Typically 16-24 is the target audience for mainstream horror films and this was correctly reflected in the information we analysed from our results. We noted that a small number of 15 year olds who responded enjoyed watching horror films. We also did background information on the typical target audience and our research showed that a greater percentage of revenue is grossed from this age group.

We have chosen young people for the target audience for a number of reasons. Firstly, our film contains characters of the same age group. The target audience can then watch the film and can relate to the social issues which occur in our film, allowing them to fully empathise with the actor’s narrative and therefore creating a more realistic viewing experience.

Research gathered shows that a growing number of females are enjoying the adrenaline rush that horror films strive to create. We feel we could, therefore, include additional female characters in our film in an attempt to make the female audience more able to relate with issues, which arise in our film and thus allowing them to empathise with the characters.

When analysing our results, we discovered that types of media work that this age range [16 – 24] view are video based websites, for example, YouTube. YouTube is a large online video based website that shows humour, horror and education (‘How To’ programs). We asked the target audience what type of videos they watched on YouTube? A large group of the audience said that they watched comedy videos. However, a small group of the audience said they frequently watched how they made the special effects in films (Saw, Watchman and Iron Man). The film “Saw” was named as the most favourite film of the target audience. This was because the directors managed to achieve a realistic atmosphere, incredibly realistic make-up and believable characters.

Considering how to advertise our film, we asked those who completed our survey where they felt they saw the most advertising for films? Television proved to be the highest rated method of advertising. However a small number of people said they saw most advertising for films whilst in the cinema. If we were going to advertise the film on TV, we would need to create a trailer that the censor would be able to rate as PG, thus allowing any age to watch. However, we would still make the trailer aimed at 16 – 24 year olds if it was going to be shown at a cinema and previewed when they were showing a film of either the same or higher certification.