Evaluation Question 4

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? 

The target audience for our opening title would be aimed at people between 15-25. This is because our opening title sequence is of a horror genre, as it contains scenes not viewable for people under the age of 15 because they may disturb people of a younger age, as well as influence them by getting an idea to play the Ouija board, as well as trespass private property as they could think it could be fun.

Our opening title sequence will be aimed at an audience who seek the thrill and suspense of horror movies that seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience’s primal fears. Our opening title features scenes that will startle the audience in a supernatural theme, which overlaps with the supernatural horror genre. Our film is mostly aimed at men, as they are more likely to be able to interact with the characters on the screen. Women on the other hand would react differently to men, which could affect them in a negative way, for example giving them nightmares.

We as a group have also done a lot of research on the BBFC age certificates for film, which helped us target an age group for our opening title. Under the BBFC 15 age certificate, films can include strong language, portrayals of sexual activity, strong verbal references of sex, sexual nudity, discriminatory language and drug taking. Graphic detail of sexual activity should only be moderate. There may be strong violence, but not a lot of graphic detail that is not suitable for someone aged 15.

From this research we have targeted our opening title at the right age certificate, as in our opening title there are no scenes that people aged 15 cannot watch.

Evidence of horror target audiences

Below is a screenshot from an entertainment audience website that consists of segments of people who are highly engaged with entertainment, as they are looking to access the latest news on celebrities, TV shows, movies, and music. The screenshot below gives evidence of what people like horror films, as shown below it says that horrors are mostly attracted at males, as males have a target audience percentage of horror movies of 54.98%, whereas females only have 45.02%. This information is relevant to us, as we have targeted our opening title at males mostly between the ages of 15-25. 

Below is a graph from the national metro showing that people aged between 18-24 are the target audience for horror films, even though this age group is classified as the smallest population group, as seen on the second graph.