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

Previous to actually shooting our film opening, as part of our pre-production, we did some research into our target audience and the different genres they preferred. From the outset we have wanted to aim our film to the younger generation, with a specific of audience of 16-25 year olds. We did this because our film was of the thriller genre, which is most popular with that age group. We feel that when we did our audience research, this was confirmed, and we felt sure that our thriller film needed to be aimed at that age group.

We asked 20 16-25 year olds to fill out a questionnaire, regarding different sub genres of thriller films, and the specific aspects of a thriller film, so we had some guidance when planning and storyboarding our rough cut. We then made these results into graphs, to make it easier for both us and you to see what the outcome of our audience research was.

Using our audience research, we can see that the two most popular sub-genres of thrillers are Crime and Disaster. When looking at this result we concluded it was unrealistic with our budgeting and resources to make a convincing, believable two minute opening of a disaster movie, so we therefore decided to focus on making the opening to a crime film, but with aspects of mystery to support our initial ideas of narrative.

We asked our target age group what their favourite thriller film was to be able to get inspiration, and ideas of successful and popular narratives and shots. It is clear by this chart that ‘Taken’ was the group’s favourite thriller film, so we then watched the opening to this film along with specific parts, to see how we could recreate similar shots. It is from watching this film that we got the idea of abduction and the protagonist being followed by the antagonist.

In conclusion, from looking at these 3 main questions, we focused on creating a crime/mystery thriller targeted at the age group of 16-25 year olds, both sexes. This is one of the main reasons why both the protagonist and the antagonist are teenagers, as we thought this would attract and satisfy our main target audience, as they would be able to relate, and feel part of the film.

When watching our opening now, we think it is clear that this is the age group that we have targeted our film at, as it is set in London, which is a place popular with the youth. It also includes shots of a ‘Facebook’ page and a mobile phone, which are aspects of social media that the age group of 16-25 year olds would be most familiar with. It is also relatable to the youth, as the issue of teenagers getting followed is something we see every day in real life. Therefore, we feel that we are not only making a film for the entertainment of teenagers and young adults, but that we are sending out a message to this age group about security and awareness in somewhere as busy as London.

We asked our target audience what they liked to see in their thriller films to see if we could combine some to make an original narrative, with unique shots that challenged the conventions of a thriller. We focused on abduction, which we already had in mind, as well as murder and crime as ideas. However, it is only an opening so we could feature these ideas heavily.