- Our product is target a 15-24 year old audience so decided to rate our film 15 as the themes and context could be deemed as inappropriate for an audience which is any younger. We are targeting this age range as the characters in our production are of this age and it is also being produced by people who fit into the age category.
The source www.sbbfc.co.uk showed us the guidelines to which films have to stick to in order to fit into that classification and we also compared it to other films similar to ours in terms of themes, language, nudity, sex, violence, imitable techniques, horror and drugs. Following bbfc guidelines we made comparsions from our trailer to other trailers believe it fits a 15 classification.
- Our production doesn't include any non-Caucasian characters. However, this does not mean our text only targets a narrow Caucasian audience as many other productions continue to sideline non-Caucasian talent and still are successful such as Donkey Punch, which is a successful british horror which just features white characters. Our teaser trailer has therefore gained a hegamonic status.
- Horror films are seen as a male dominated genre which is shown by all horror films using the male gaze theory to attract to the male audience to attractive characters used. We have also followed this code and convention by using 4 attractive blonde females in our production. Although, to avoid only appealing to half of an potential audience horror films generally feauture a tough, resourceful final girl character. Shown in Halloween with Laurie Strode. However, in our trailer we have not used a final girl . Eventhough horror films are typically a male dominated genre we didn't want to alienate half of our potential audience by ignoring females so the cast is predominatly females. This means that the female audience can relate and emphasis with the female characters.We considered the movie-as-date factor as the couples going on dates are predominately teenagers so even though horror films target males more, there needs to be characters which the female audience can relate to. The character females relate could be Sophie, the first blonde girl who doesn't get killed. This is because she is an attractive female who isn't portrayed negativly like the other girls are. In our trailer there are no obvious characters who would bring in the pink pound audience, however the 2 male characters may interest the pink pound as they could find them sexually attractive.
- From our research into Horror films we found that most horrors are aimed at C1C2DE. As it is using middle class characters and a middle class setting this will also guarantee a middle class audience. To bring in ABC1s we could have used more sophisticated characters such as a adult for them to relate too. Even-though Northern films struggle a lot at the box office we still decided to keep with the northern accents and settings. However, there is advantages to using southern English characters and settings as it has an hegemonic status. Films such as Notting Hill, which is set in London, makes it accessible for a UK wide audience to relate to as its the capital of the country, therefore making it successful. Using northern England stereotypes could jeopardize the foreign sales as the southern England stereotype is normally the one given out to other countries. But there are successful Northern films which have overcome this such as Full Monty and This is England as the main themes in the films are accessible to all audiences. For example, the main theme in the Full Monty is unemployment, and the main theme in This is England is Thatcherism ( a prime minister which has been described as a dictator) Warp X and Redwave films chose such broad themes as everyone can associate to a time where they or there country has been unemployed or had a high unemployment rate, and the audience all know of a country which has had trouble due to the countries leader. After considering our options, we still decided to keep to keep our northern accents as we don't see it as a great problem. Also, if we had decided to use southern accents, then there would be the problem with finding southern actors or the characters accents sounding realistic.
We would expect our target audience to be interested in films which are similar to ours, especially the horror classics. Such as Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. This may be because these films are the ones that got our target audience interested in horror films in the first place. Our trailer is linked to these films as the cast/characters are all of similar ages and there are numerous killings throughtout the films.
- Warp X could be a possible distributor of our film as they specialise in regional films with a lower socio-economic grouping, such as This is England. These factors tie into our film as is it set in Yorkshire. WarpX also deals with low budget production methods to make high value movies that can reach cinema audiences across the world.
- Psychographic profile of our audience would be a teen/youth audience.
- Maslows hierarchy of needs is a pyramid system with a hierarchy of motivation. The levels must be completed before a state of self-motivation is reached. Maslows hierarchy of needs applies to my target audience as it they are most likely to be in the safely and security and love and belonginess levels as they may not have a steady job or relationship which they can relate to the characters in the film as they have relationship problems too therefore lack self motivation and are unable to move on emotionally.
