Target Audience & Age Restrictions

Target Audience & Age Restrictions

After carrying out research through questionnaires and other thrillers targeted audience, I have come to the conclusion that my thriller would be aimed at teenagers and young adults aged between 15 and 40. 

I went on to the 'BBFC' website to find out about the guidelines and age restrictions and it helped me to choose the rating for my thriller. I have come to the conclusion that my thriller is only suitable for ages 15 and over. I believe the reason for this is because of the drugs which appear however, my thriller doesn't encourage the use of them which would then make it an 18 rating. Also, there is a stalker watching the son might be disturbing for younger children. I discovered that these sort of things don't appear in 12 rated films. 

After considering whether my thriller would be a 12 or 15, I thought about how I would intend to continue my storyline. I feel that I would include scenes of violence between my main character who is being pushed into selling drugs and his boss when he blames him for his son going missing.

Teenagers are clearly targeted as the film contains generic conventions of a crime thriller. This includes having teenage characters, and including key issues in the narrative which are specific to teenagers such as drug abuse, violence and having a family at a young age.

Adults may also be targeted as the film contains many themes suitable for an older generation possibly up to age 40 despite only being a "15" rated film. An example of these include drug abuse, violence, crime.  

This is the profile of a typical person who would watch my thriller:

Name:      Daniel East

Age:         19

Address:   Broadfields Estate HA8

Info:          Student, University - Studying Psychology

                  Enjoys spending time with his friends, going to parties, watching movies and loves to play football. He enjoys action, crime and films that relate to real life situations.

My Core Target Audience: 

Leverage is not a film someone would go go to watch in order to clear their head and be happy because of the themes involved. This includes drug dealing from a young age, violence and children being kidnapped. This film will allow the audience to escape from their own problems and focus on the characters problems. It is a start of a social conversation as it involves drug dealing, drug use and young people doing nothing but being bad role models to the younger children around. The drug dealing by someone who is responsible for a child in the film could make the audience aware that this happens in our society today in London. This might even relate to certain audience members and could help them to become aware of the situation or teach them what is the best thing to do.

I read this website: 

http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/keyconceptsgcse/keycon.php?pageID=audience 

I now have a way of coding my thriller audience.

My thriller Leverage would be viewed mostly by an audience from section 'D' and 'E as it could relate to a similar situation in their life due to low income which could be the reason for getting into drug dealing as they need the money. Audience members from section 'D' and 'E' are more likely to be of a young age which means they will relate to the character as their playing ages range from 8-20. This could help them to place themselves in the characters shoes to understand what they are going through. 

I posted a rough edit of my thriller (Leverage) on Facebook and it got 15 likes. 10 of these people were under 20 and the other 5 of them were over 21.

My thriller's core audience is people from sections D and E, ages 15-23 and my secondary audience is going to be for ages 24-40 as people of a higher income might appreciate that they have been lucky with the life they have made for themselves. It is an extremely popular subject and is very enjoyable so I think they would also enjoy watching it.