Audience ResearchBY CHRISTOPHER OSBYRNE

What is a Target Audience?

A particular group at which a product such as a film or advertisement is aimed at. ... 'The film's target audience is teenagers, who, to one degree or another, will relate to the concept of high school cliques.'

What is Our Target Audience?

Our Target Audience can range from all races, genders and personality types because we have both male and female characters starring in the short film and there are no prejudices made against neither race nor gender. However, one could argue that some of the characters may be considered as stereotypical and therefore male audiences might relate more to the male character rather than female character because he is strong and masculine whereas the female character could be considered the weaker one out of the couple.

In terms of age, however, I would say that the audience must be 15+ because of the dark and sinister tone of the film which may scare or bore audiences because they may not understand the story if they are not at a mature age.

In addition to this, our audience may be people who are fans of the psychological thriller genre ad therefore we have used many of the common elements that you would see in that type of film (e.g Violence, Symbolism, Dream Sequences etc.). This will attract our audience because of the familiarity of the genre and they can then be more immersed into the story or route for a particular character.

What Genre’s do most audiences enjoy watching?

Most audiences enjoy watching Hollywood blockbuster action/sci-fi films such as many of Marvel and DC Comics films. This is because they have exciting and expensive special effects and a star cast which all audiences can instantly recognise. According to this table, The BFI found that the film that performed he best at the UK Box Office in 2015 was the action film SPECTRE which grossed almost £40 million in the UK alone. Thrillers and Horrors, however, performed considerably less with its highest grossing films of the genres being Taken 3 at £37.1 million and The Woman in Black 2 at £34.9 million. However, our film would most likely perform better because it is a genre-hybrid which means that the elements of thriller/horror/sci-fi will be able to bring in a much larger and varied audience.

Which Genders will see our film?

With the two main protagonists of our film being both male and female, we hope that there will be a mix of both genders that would watch our film. Both genders are also conveyed equally and therefore there is no unfairness on the portrayals of each gender. However, from researching into which sex watched the most thrillers, it was men who watched them more. This is most likely a result of there being less women in the thriller films they were surveying and resulting in them losing out on a larger audience.