Planning: Target Audience

From our research into the thriller/horror genre, films conventionally include elements of suspense, unnaturalness and a sense of vulnarability. They create a feeling of anxiety and suspense when watching the short film, however as our short film contains a narrative that subverts the horror/thriller genre slightly we thought that it would be appropriate to develop the stereotypical target audience. Therefore our proposed primary target audience will be adults aged around 15 -30 who are both female and male. This is because some of the a scene of violence and general scariness may not be suited to a younger audience as they could be either psychologically harmed or disturbed by these scenes. 


Also it may not appeal to an older audience due to the older generation may not enjoy the feeling of suspense and vulnerability. Although stereo typically the genre has a more older-generation based audience.

In order for us to target our teenage based audience, we have decided to cast actors that are a similar age to our target audience. This is because the audience will easily be able to relate towards the characters themselves, it will give the short film a sense of realism as it will highlight a realistic experience. Also making sure that the content of the film matches personal cultures of teens, the theme within our narrative is something that can occur to people at any age making it a realistic theme that may can relate to.

After researching into the BBFC Certificates and their individual contents, both Jimmy and I have come to a mutual decision that our short film will be classified as a '15'. This is because the content we are including isn't suitable for children/teenagers under the age of 15. Our film includes:

• Violence
• Use of dangerous weapon
• Inclusion of a psychopath

These fall into the category of '15'. After making this decision, this means we need to ensure that we keep to the content included in the category, to keep it suitable for our target audience. Therefore, we need to make sure we don't include any content linking to the 18 BBFC certificate i.e. strong blood and gore and strong horror, which our film could easily lead to. However we plan to not include any sort of blood shown or any strong graphic gore.