Evaluation Question 4: Who Would be the Audience for you Film?

Due to the mature themes in our film, such as the drug use and perhaps violence after the opening, we would expect a certification of 15 for our film. A 15 certificate would cover our film, allowing drug use, frequent strong language and strong violence throughout the duration of the film. The BBFC describes the guidelines for the portrayal of dangerous behavior in films as that ’’dangerous behavior such as …suicide … should not dwell on detail that could be copied’’. As we would most likely have scenes such as this in our film, and already in the opening drug use is mentioned, we could not qualify for a 12 or 12A rating as drug use must be’’infrequent’’ and scenes of violence must be ’’moderate’’ and should not put’’emphasis on injuries or blood’’. Therefore, our audience must be from the age 15 and up, as it would be inaccessible and inappropriate for a younger audience.

       This is what we expected, and knew that our target audience would be in the category of 15-24 years. This is the most popular category for attending the cinema, and we felt the subject matter, themes and characters would be easily accessible for those in their teenage years, whilst also ensuring maximum profits for the film.

       Another insight to our target audience was comparing it to other, similar films such as Black Swan and Girl, Interrupted. These films shared similar themes with ours, and therefore we would most likely attract the same type of audience. The two comparable films attracted mainly a female audience, with Girl, Interrupted attracting a younger audience of 18-30 yrs whilst Black Swan more likely attracting a slightly older audience due to director Aronofsky credits bringing in older generations. With this information, and comparing both films to ours, it is reasonable to suggest that the audience for our film would be predominantly female, with a younger age target as it is classified under both films as a 15.

       We also used a survey to assess our target audience. The majority of the surveyed were female, with 4 males attending. From this we learnt that our target audience was exclusively in the 16-24 age category, with their cinema attendance usually from once a month. We also saw that their main attraction to films was through featured actors, followed by either the director or subject matter attracting them to a film. All the surveyed also said they would continue watching our film after viewing the opening two minutes.

       In conclusion it is fair to say that our target audience for our film would be those 15-24 years old, with a mainly female demographic. However seeing as we did not survey anyone above the age of 16 due to complications, we cannot certainly say what our audience would have been if older people had taken part in the survey.