Target Audience - Thriller Film

This is providing research into the thriller genre and its target audience's for different films. It is now possible to make a target audience profile for our thriller film in production.
The age group of the target audience is around 16-25 years, as 75% of the thriller-viewers sample were students. For our film, this can be related to by the audience, as our main characters are teenagers/young adults, providing a pathway for connection from the audience.
The gender of the target audience isn't as specific as age ranges or demographic classification, but is important nonetheless. For our film, the gender of the target audience would mainly be males, though females could be attracted to the film also. This is because, research done into the films we were "inspired" by, showed that males enjoyed the type of film more than females. Kidulthood for example, had user ratings from males as 6.0, however females were only 4.3. It also showed that 18 to 29 year olds (both male and female) enjoyed the film more than under 18's, as both 18-29 year groups voted at 6.4, however under 18 males only voted 6.0, and females only voted a low 3.2. Also, for Layer Cake, males overall rated the movie higher than females, though it was pretty close. However, for our other inspirational film Adulthood, although males overall voted 7.0, and females voted at 6.0, females under 18 voted 0.4 more than males, and were equal in ratings in the 18-29 group. This shows how the female audience is already attracted to our type of film, as there is a certain aspect of a male lead (etc) that is appealing to them, even though there are few females in each movie, and most of them that do appear are not portrayed in a respected manner. Our film isn't going to have any female actresses.
The majority of our target audience will be made up of students due to the age range. Also because of how around 75% of my thriller consumption research proved to be thriller fans.
The interests of our target audience are demonstrated mostly by other thriller films they like, so film reviews of films that we have associated with our film (such as kidulthood, its sequal, and layer cake) are important, as shown above with the gender and age results i obtained from http://www.imdb.com/ and their user ratings.
I think the demographic choice for us will be more C1 and C2. Most films are made for B, C1 & C2 due to the fact that they can afford luxuries like the cinema, and have the means and time to go see films or buy DVD's, however i think B may be aiming a bit high for our film, as it is mainly about C1 and C2 people, students in fact, who have not yet reached the B standard.

Audience Categories

Audiences for media related productes can be divided into 3 main categories:
- social types,
- psychological,
- and demographic audience.

Social Class is based on a persons ocupation, and is separated into groups A, B, C1, C3, C3, and D.
Group A (3%) are the top professionsla like MP's or top hospital consultants, directors, and members of top boardrooms.
Group B (13%) includes occupations like Hospital surgeons, head teachers, teachers, lawyers, and the like.
Group C1 (22%) are the "white collar" (suits) workers, often with a degree, like teaching assistants, nurses and retail shop managers.
Group C2 (31%) is the largest group, and are the mainstream focus for most media texts, these are employee's and workers who read tabloids etc.
Group C3 (19%) are the "unskilled" or "blue collar" (no suits) workers, and they often only just have enough money for luxury products, these include occupations such as shop assistants.
Group D (10.5%) are the unemployed people, or people who live off benefits, who don't usually have any spare money to spend on things they dont need but want.

Psychological (to come)

Demographic Audience's are based on your age, gender, race, occupation and social class. It looks at all the aspects to a person's life. (more to come)

Method 2 - My Media Questionnaire

Gender:
Age:
Occupation:


How often do you watch the news?
- Every day
- 3 – 4 times pw
- 2 – 3 times pw
- <> 5 times pw
- 3 – 5 times pw
- < 3 times pw


Do you like documentaries?
- Yes
- No
- Sometimes


What attracts you to a TV show?
- Action
- Comedy
- Famous Actor
- Reviews (friends/prof)


What type of movie do you watch in the cinema?
- Comedy
- Action
- Romance
- Thriller
- Sci-fi
- Other


Do you prefer old classics or new films?
- Old classics
- New films


Whats your favourite cinema in Norwich?
- Odeon
- Vue
- Hollywood
- Cinema City



Question 1:
Every day: the majority of this group were either over 18 or female, suggesting that as you grow older you may pay more interest to the news, and female’s maybe have more interest or time for the news.
3 – 4 times pw: no males were included in this group, and the majority of the females were under 18, suggesting again the females interest in the news, and that under 18’s still have an interest in the news.
2 – 3 times pw: the majority of this group was male, although there was 1 under 18 female. This still suggests that males watch news less.
<2 times pw: Only 2 males included in this group, both under 18, hinting that young males probably don’t have much interest or time for the news.


Question 2:
Overall this shows that female’s probably have more interest in going to the cinema, as all but one go more than 3 times a month. The men however don’t go more than 3 times a month except 1 over 18, probably because lack of interest, or beliefs that it is too expensive.


Question 3:
This chart shows that half the people I interviewed aren’t interested in documentaries, the majority of which were male. In fact only one male and 3 females said they actually liked watching them, and 2 females sometimes did. This may show that boys don’t have too much interest in documentaries, as they probably like to watch other TV.


Question 4:
This shows that people are attracted to a program mainly because of the genre, and not much about reviews, although women and not men said they would watch something with a favorite actor in, which shows that who programs pick to be in their TV show or the main genre of the film can be extremely important

Question 5:
This shows a wide variety of preferences, but looking back at the table, the only film genre that contains both male and female vote is comedy, as the other genre’s are picked by either male or female, demonstrating the different tastes we have.


Question 6:
This pie chart shows that most people preferred more modern films, probably showing either an improvement in film making and narrative, or just that people like newer films better. Only one under 18 male and one over 18 female liked old classic films better than newer films, maybe demonstrating a lack in acknowledgement of good old films.


Question 7:
This chart shows that the 2 main cinema’s in Norwich are the most popular, however some older people prefer the quiet Hollywood one which doesn’t get as much publicity.


Question 8:
This shows a wide variety on favorite channels, and doesn’t really say much about gender or age, except the older people interviewed seemed to enjoy BBC and Dave more than Film 4 or E4.