Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

AGE: For our production we used only young actors which means our thriller should attract that kind of

audience. As a group we came to the conclusion that our film would attract mostly an audience in the age range of 15 to 21 demographic. We would attract this kind of audience because they may find particular aspects of the film which they can relate to in terms of themselves or others they know. The storyline of our thriller may also be seen as being interesting to them due to what it is about (using the stereotype of teenagers getting into trouble). This type of appeal comes into play with a lot of other films which use young actors. An example of one of these films is 'Fish Tank' (2009) which is of a drama genre. This is probably more relatedable to a teenager because the primary purpose of drama productions is to give the audience something to relate to. The film 'Fish Tank' concentrates on the troubles of a 15 year old girl named Mia who lives in Essex. This is evidently going to be more accurate to the real world of a teenager than being chased by two hitman who may want to kill you.

 Another reason our thriller would attract an younger audiences is the slightly modern/urban locations that are used. The barn in which we filmed had a empty alcohol bottles and burnt items which is considered to be associated with stereotypical behaviour for teenagers. This results in the location being more modern and appealing to teenagers. This type of location appeal to adults to an extent because thrillers in countries like Scandinavia see the location of an old barn as a 'timeless' location that is used in a lot of thriller productions. Certain other aspects of our thriller may appeal to a slightly older audience like the use of the record player as the first shot and the slightly sophisticated costumes of Hazel and Cha cha. However, the use of locations and mise-en-scene create a look and feel that would attract more of a younger audience. An example of this being used in another production is in Sherlock. There is a scene near the beginning of episode 3 in series 3 in which Sherlock is found by John in an old abandoned house that is full of drug users. The location itself is quite old, but the interior is built to look more urban with it damaged walls and furniture. This location is designed to attract younger audiences, which isn't always the case in each episode. Occasionally very old locations are used which opens up a more diverse audience for the viewing of the show.

GENDER: Our thriller is designed to attract both a male and female demographic. Action thrillers such as 'The Dark Knight' are built to attract mostly men with the violence and overall fast pace of them, but our thriller combines this with a femme fatale. This results in it also appealing to a female audience. Due to Eve being the main character of our film, females be able to connect with her more and possibly understand the attractiveness of the diamond necklace that she is stealing. This would cause them to find aspects of our opening fractionally relateable. At the same time men will also be the target audience for our thriller because there is the sense of action and fast pace. The audience of our film would probably be primarily male due to Eve not being as strong of femme fatale as say The Bride in Kill Bill. Eve is shown running away from the hitmen instead of confronting them which still shows she has a sense of vulnerability to her. This would possibly be seen as a thing that would attract men more because it sticks to the conventional stereotype of how women are usually portrayed in both thriller and other productions. Women tend to be victims in many thrillers and other genre films. An example of a TV series which does this is Twin Peaks in which Laura Palmer's body is found wrapped up on a beach.


SOCIAL CLASS: (spoken about in question two) This was probably one the easiest things to come to a conclusion on for this question of my evaluation. Due to the fact all three actors in our thriller were of a middle class our production should attract an audience which is of a middle class. This is because to them they see that they will be able to relate more to the actors and the characters which they are playing. They will see similarities in their clothing and attitudes which should be alike to them in some senses. Our thriller could also maybe gain access to a lower class due to some storyline and locations that are portrayed in our opening. Using a stereotype for lower classes they have to steal sometimes to get through (obviously this is for very a low class) and they may be use to slightly rougher locations. Sometimes other texts both thriller and not have the same access to these two classes due to the locations, storyline and actors they use. An example of a TV show that does this is Misfits. The first series of this show was aired in 2009 and the last was aired in 2013. This show involves a group of fairly young adults doing community service and getting super powers through a freak lightning storm. The storyline of the characters show some of them go from middle class to lower class which is where a larger audience opens up for the show. The locations they also allow them to attract a larger audience because they use urban locations (e.g. dark underpasses) and what would consider to be a everyday location (e.g. a modern business setting).

NATIONALITY AND ETHNICITY: This was also a very easy thing to come to a conclusion on. We used all white British actors in all British locations so this kind of limits us to a purely British audience. The actors we used are obviously unknown so the sense of  'Britishness' which some other films (e.g. Submarine) have accomplished, wasn't achieved in our thriller. The fact that all of our actors are also all from the same white ethnic group means we would struggle to gain access to other ethnic groups because they may not find the situation as relatable. We also used all British locations which are very rural so they would be very unknown to anyone who lived out of the area. This also means our audience becomes more limited. This makes our film a niche film (this is explained more in the previous question). This means it would harder to sell outside of the UK. An example of a production like this is Skins. This shows looks at three different groups of teenagers going through sixth form and all the troubles that life brings a long with it. The first series of this show was aired in 2007 and the last in 2013. This show consisted of a mostly British cast acting in mostly British locations so it struggled to sell outside of the UK, due to other nations not being able to relate to the stories and characters as much. This show is the perfect example of how a show set in one country with actors from the same county limits the majority of the audience to the nationality of the country in which the film is set.

LIFE STYLE: The kind of person who would watch her film will probably be very up-to-date with their social media sites. These could include websites like Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. The audience would probably use websites like this due to the age range they are in (15-21). People who are our age use this kinds of websites all the time so you can only assume they would use them to fit in with friendship groups. These could be seen as a way of providing free advertisement for our film. Also due to their age range you could guess what types of music our audience would listen to. My guess is that the young audience would have a very diverse taste in music due to people being more open to many different genres in the modern day. This mean they may listen to things such as rock, punk, indie, pop, heavy rock, pop-punk and alternative.
          In terms of the films which our audience would watch, they would most probably view films with a fast pace and a slight mystery. This means they may watch films in the thriller, action, drama and sci-fi genre. An example of some films they may watch are Fast and Furious, The Avengers, The Matrix, and Man of Steel. One scene from The Avengers which carries a large amount of similarities to the chase scene from our thriller is the section where Hulk chases Black Widow after their ship gets attacked. The clip below shows this scene: So, in terms of mainstream and niche films, our audience would probably watch a good mixture of the two. They would probably mainly watch mainstream films because the age of our audience it fairly young. They would be attracted by the known actors and better visual effects, but at the same time they may see the attraction in niche films. They may like the artistic camera work or obscure storylines.