Wednesday, 27 January 2016

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

Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

We decided that our target audience would be between the ages of 15 and 30 years old. It would be aimed at any gender because the conventions appeal to all of them and so it will allow for a wider audience to appeal to. We thought those of an average/normal background who enjoy going out to cinema and have interests in thriller movies. Similar things they may be interested in may include tv shows such as Orphan Black and The Walking Dead and movies such as Taken and Man on Fire. We thought that members of the demographic groups C2, D and E would be best to aim our thriller at. We feel that this mainly consists of younger people and part-time employees who have enough time to visit the cinema during the week to see our film as opposed to someone who has a fulltime job and may be made too busy by it or too tired out from it to watch a movie. We then decided to aim our thriller at people in the psychographic groups Explorers. We thought this would be a good group to aim at because they're attracted to adventure, experience and energy which is what they would find within our thriller. They like to try new things as well and so if we bent the conventions and made our thriller completely different and unique to other thrillers, they would be interested in viewing our thriller.

This is an example of how our audience may look followed by an audience profile:


  • Gender: All genders.  
  • Age: 15-30 = young adults 
  • Other media consumption: 
  • TV - shows such as: The Walking Dead, Orphan Black, Sense6, Hannibal. 
  • Movies - films such as: Taken, Man on Fire, Orphan, Hunger games. 
  • Video Games- The Last of Us, Fallout, GTA 
  • Magazines- Empire, SSFX, Entertainment 


Typically, they may follow what is popular at the time. They'll want to seek something that is incredibly entertaining and fun to watch and so they may seek out films that are incredibly popular at the time with everyone because they'd want to see what the fuss is about, especially if it is quite different. And so this means they would shop at popular shops such as HMV, Game and other similar popular movie and video games stores to find new media to keep them entertained.

To help research our audience, we created a vox pop to see what kind of thrillers and conventions of thrillers people of our target audience's age would enjoy. This was incredibly useful and it taught us a lot about what our target audience enjoys from their thrillers. The results came out as so:
Audiences enjoy thrillers that have a good use of props, such as guns and generally threatening or deadly weaponry within them, and a good chase scene within. A good opening will keep the audience wanting to continue watching the thriller and should include something dramatic in the beginning which will create a lot of enigmas for the thriller that need to be answered. It needs to be fast paced with lots of cuts to make it seem filled with action and keeps the audience on the edge of their seat. Storyline is also crucial to the thriller because it is what keeps the whole film going. Also recognisable actors make people more inclined to watch one thriller as opposed to one that does not include that said actor.

People like thrillers that are fast paced and use bright lighting so that it is not dark. However creepy elements are really engaging. It should play with the mind a lot and be constantly be asking questions because if the thriller is predictable then it ruins the idea of it being thrilling. There needs to be a lot of enigmas because it makes it exciting as to what will happen next. If there is some form of problem solving its engaging because it gets the audience to join in and think about how it could be solved. Interesting characters make for a good thriller because they make up a large part of the story and how enjoyable it is.

The BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental independent organisation that reviews movies before they are released to establish a recommended age rating for them to be shown at.

Films rated at a 15 include:

  • strong violence 
  • frequent strong language 
  • sexual activity  
  • nudity 
  • sexual violence of references made to it 
  • drug taking 
  • discriminating language or behaviour 


Our thriller only contained the violence factor and drug usage. The violence in our piece was only mild however. So because of this, we looked at the 12 rating in the hope that it could be appropriate for even younger audiences.
Films rated at a 12 include:


  • Mature themes 
  • Mild language 
  • Brief nudity 
  • Suggested sex 
  • Mild violence 
  • Mild use of drugs 
  • Discrimination 


Our thriller had use of drugs, mild violence and mature themes. This could mean that our thriller could be rated at a 12 which means that our product can be viewed from a much wider audience.  Similar films that contain the use of these themes within them and have resulted in being rated a 12 are The Hunger Games franchise because of its deathly violence against children, drug usage in the form of berries that were used to kill an government official and mature themes because one of the characters that is later introduced is commented to have had his body sold to people in the Capitol in exchange for secrets.

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