Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

To determine which age category this thriller opening would best suit, I went on to the official British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) website, where there is a guide showing how each film can come into each age rating and what is allowed and disallowed for each. 

We decided that the best age to market the product would be to those able to watch a '15'. This appeals to a large amount of people while still being acceptable to a relatively young audience - while sending out our questionnaires from the audience I found that our audience likes to see violence, menace, and do not shy away from bad language while watching their films - luckily I found that this fits in perfectly with films rated as 15+.

The majority of people who prefer thrillers turned out to be males in our audience research, so with this considered I expect the majority of our viewers will be males, however I did not feel narrowing the market would be acceptable so it would be appropriate for females of this age too. Two different genders do not have a specifically acquired taste in that they are happy to watch a lot of things and a lot of them are happy to watch a similar film, so we would not have to chop and change anything when considering who we were aiming at. Fundamentally, our film will be aimed at people aged 15 plus who have a taste for thriller films of any gender or ethnic background.

People of this age group are mostly using social networking sites such as Facebook, where word of mouth is probably the most used form of marketing and their social interests consist of going to the cinema with friends, which is also another sign that this would be a good age demographic to use - films often market themselves via these methods.

"The laws on 15 rated films become much stricter than others (excluding 18, more on this later). No child under the age of 15 is allowed to watch a film with this certificate at the cinema and must be unable to rent or purchase any works of this in a shop. Drugs are allowed to be used more openly in these films, as long as easily obtainable drugs are not glorified, such as solvents, and strong threat and menace are permitted providing they are not sadistic or sexual. Sex is allowed to be portrayed unless specifically strong detail is used. Violence is permitted unless there is a prolonged dwelling on infliction of injury and strongly gory images are not allowed. Any sexual violence must be discreet and uncommon."

Above is some of my previous market research, where I examined what should be permitted in a 15+ film. Considering that our opening itself has no mention of drugs, sex or strong gory images, I felt that we could keep our options open for the rest of the film by allowing such things. There has to be a consideration based on where the film will actually lead, it may continue to have fairly graphic violence or use drugs in some context or the odd amount of sexual violence - by making our film a 15 we permitted this. On one hand, a 12 film may not be open enough and could mean that the film ends up sub-par compared to the opening, but there is no intention of using constant 18+ material and it would need to be much scarier for this, so a 15 rated film is the best middle-ground that we can add in. 

This is an ideally typical member of our audience who we will aim to target our thriller opening on. It is clear that he is a teenager who enjoys thriller films and will be able to watch and enjoy our film.