Reflective Evaluation - Question 4 and 5 - Catherine Middleton

4.) Who would be the audience for our media product?
+ 5.) How did we attract/address our audience?

After looking at the target audiences and main viewers of a selection of successful horror films, we got a clearer idea bout who we wanted ours to be aimed at and who the most likely viewers would be (in terms of gender, race, age, etc.) Knowing this helped us to use shape our film around aiming to attract and appeal to that particular demographic.

For example, I looked at these results for who is the main viewer of The Shining and, a more recent horror film, Insidious.

The Shining -                                                                             Insidious -

                                

The main audience for The Shining was males aged 18-29, however it was also very popular with slightly older man (aged 30-44). Many horror films are around this age group but bacause of the certificate given to this film it explains why younger viewers were not a large percentage of the overall audience - i.e. the BBFC classified this film as an 18 due to the violence and heavy threat and horror involved. Whilst limiting the potential audience, it is still an incredibly successful film of its sub-genre. This film i think is a lot more physical than ours would be - i.e. it is aimed at a more mature audience, havign a very complicated and frightening plot, as well as middle aged main characters. Therefore, i dont think ours would have quite such a mature audience, possibly slightly younger teenagers as ours would not be classified with such a high certificate. Insidious however was classed with a 15 certificate, so understandably the audiences had a lower average age. Whilst being within the same sub-genre of horror as The Shining, it has a very different plot that conveys a slightly less intense type of fear - its more jumpy and haunting than mentally violent, which is the reason for the lower rating i think. A very recent psychological horror Black Swan was rated the highest by under 18s, and with its 15 certificate this is quite suprising. It was very popular with critics as well as the public and again the main target audience i think is adults due to the quite complicated plot.                                                   

I also looked at 2 horror films from different subgenres to see if there was a noticable difference in the audience and ratings. For example I looked at  popular vampire film, Twilight, and this, along with many other vampire films, was given a much lower certificate of a 12A . This is likely to be because of its much lower violence, and gore compared to many other horror subgenres, as well as the fear level being greatly reduced. This lower certiifcate allows for a much broader age of viewers, which in this case has really been successful with teenagers, especially females, worldwide, making the film series itself much more successful. The graph underneath shows it had the most reviews from males, however females from all age groups rated the film more highly and were therefore more likely to watch the sequels.


Twilight -                                                         Night of the Living Dead - 

                            

I looked at the viewer ratings and certificates for Night of The Living Dead (see graph above), a much older, zombie horror film. It was certified as a 15, but due to it being made over 40 years ago, if it was to be re-classified now it may have a different certificate - i.e. the BBFC update their ideas behind what classes a 15/18 etc. regularly so could well be different now. However, i still looked into the user ratings and audiences and found that males rated the film slightly higher, but it still appealed and was enjoyed by both genders. Obviously the 15 certificate allows a slightly younger audience to view it but again was mainly watched and targeted at young adults e.g. 20-30 year olds.

When anlaysing taget audience and how to attract them i looked at The Ring, a film from our chosen subgenre, earlier in my analysis. Their target audience is teenagers and young adults (the same as ours) and they have used a modern setting and appropriate props recognisable by public today (e.g. modern technologies like televisions and mobiles etc.) as well as a young character a similar age to their targeted audience, allowing viewers of that age to very easily connect with the character and therefore the storyline becomes scarier and more relevant to them. As we have a very similar plot the that of The Ring and after looking at the target audiences for our subgenre as a whole we decided that our own film's target audience would be a similar age - roughly ages 15-30, but can be enjoyed by older, and is suitable for either gender.


The Ring - 

I looked at the BBFC website and how they classify films. I looked at the description for both a 15 and an 18 certificate as they were the most likely for our film and are the most common for released films from our subgenre.

Under a 15 certificate strong threat is allowed, but is is not permitted to be sadistic. Language is allowed but strong language only if it is justified. Violence can be strong but not too gory or graphic. Under an 18 certificate the film can include actions that are strong criminal offenses and very strong, graphic violence and gore as well as very frequent strong language.

I carried out a small online survey to look further into target audiences. I asked a small group of people, between 15-40 years old, a series of simple questions regarding their views on films, specifically horrors. I found that from all genres of film, horror was more popular than i was expecting, particularly with the older people asked, with 33%  choosing horror as their first choice of film. I then asked which sub genre they were each most likely to watch and found that psychological horrors were the most popular both within the entire group asked and interestingly were the chosen sub genre of all the teenagers questioned. Psychological horrors were more popular with females than males in this survey which, whilst going against some of my earlier findings. went well with our ideas for our target audience and decision to have a female character. 

After looking at a range of examples of audiences from both our chosen subgenre and from an opposing subgenre of horror films, and how this is affected by certificate, we decided our target audience is most likely to be older teenagers and young adults e.g. 15-29. Although our main character is female, i think the film will be easily relatable and watchable for both genders. I think it will appeal to any race/ethnicity as it is very easy to relate to the story and the main character is mixed race, which gives it a subtle level of equality. I dont think there is any particular group of people unable to watch our film but knowing our target audience is young adults has made us able to shape the film for their expectations adn make it a film they would want to watch adn enjoy watching. I think our film will be classified a 15 due to the disturbing mental impact and fear involved in the plot. However it will have a very low level of violence and gore and is not using strong enough themes to be classed as an 18.

Attracting our audience -

Teenage girls have the stereotype of being scared quite easily so we want the film to very quickly create and establish a creepy feeling and setting and clearly explain the plot, without giving a lot of information away. We chose ouir main character (and therefore actor) to be a late teenage girl, to conform with the idea previously mentioned about stereotypes which makes it more relatable for our target audience as they are a similar age to the victim so therefore feel for her more and feel more scared as its more realistic and relevant to them - they will be more likely to worry over it happenning to them to as its someone the same age. I think because we chose a female character, the story and her fear is more believable thatn if they were male, but it also attracts both female and male viewers. We chose to use the typewriter as a prop that links all the elements of our plot and backstory together - e.g. her job as a writer, the threat becomes apparent through it, it also shows her personality e.g. shes very traditional and perhaps lives quite a quiet, simple life - the house isnt full of technology. Shes very down to earth, the everyday setting and costume make her very relatable for audiences. Getting our initial feedback form a sample audience after our first shoot helped us to include more shots that explained the relevance of the typewriter in her life and explains how it fitted in, which tied up any lose ends that seemed to have caused confusion. 

From our feedback we found that people really did connect with our character because of her age, appearance and natural personality etc. Looking at our final film, the music we created is quite simple but uses the simplcity to draw in the audience and almost makes you on edge and expectant of a suprise or reveal. The music builds to a reveal which helps it sound frightening and influences the audiences response towards both the plot and character - i.e. we feel scared for her as well as worrying about the reveal of the threat. The title sequence links directly to our opening sequence and overall plot, involving the typewriter especially. Its visually interesting so works well in attracting the audience and helping them to want to see more and continue watching.

Key themes / associations from our film and feedback -

You can see from the below clip from our film that we aimed to target quite a wide audience as it appeals to all ages/genders/ethnicities etc. The house and actress looks to be lower middle class which helps her appeal to most audience embers - shes very easy to relate to as its in a very normal setting - she seems very natural (shes working, living in a comfortable house etc.) Many of the points i have previously mentioned are evident in the film below e..g the casting of the actress etc as well as the location and style of filming. when comparing to the clips form existing films above, it uses similar techniques to attract and engage an audience - the modern setting and character and singlular character - in many cases a young woman - you instantly worry for her because she is alone.