Evaluation Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Gender:
Our opening sequence for KIN covers many thriller conventions. However, I believe the target audience would be very male orientated due to the male-only characters present in the scene. However, more than 56% of our interviewees from our thriller research were female, meaning Csenge and I could potentially market the film to a wider target audience than we initially assumed.

Data sampled from a former Media student.

On the right is some additional research conducted by another media student Snehal Khimani who conducted this research in 2011. Whilst being published five years ago, the data mirrors the research Csenge and I completed earlier in the course.

Interestingly, the data shows that 53% of the cinema audience are female, furthering my suggestion that we could promote our film to be more inclusive of various demographics.
 

Statistics of the film's reviewers on IMDB. 

These are the results collected by IMDB on the film 'Blow-Up' (1966 - Michelangelo Antonioni), a thriller I analysed earlier in the course. The data shows that the majority of the films reviewers are under 18, and are evenly split between males and females.

This fits in with our target audience as between the ages as of 18 and 29, the males dominated the females in terms of ratings. This therefore shows us that the film is generalised over gender, meaning my initial assumption of thrillers being a male specific genre may have been wrong.

This is the original poster released for Blow-Up, which shows a man atop of a (presumably) dead woman. This poster is highly male dominated as the man seems to have control and power over the woman. I therefore find the gender equality of the reviews surprising given that the film's poster depicts women with little power or dominance.

However, aside from the main image, the poster is actually very gender neutral. This is exemplified by the sans-serif, minimalist font which makes the poster un-specific to its viewer. The colour scheme of the poster is also neutral, as it does not rely on stereotypical colours such as pink or blue. The use of red gives the viewer connotations of danger or violence, potentially acting as a distraction from the derogatory main image.

Age:

The various age groups of our respondents.

With regards to age, the research we conducted also identified that our largest age demographic was the age range of 15-18 year olds. However, unlike gender, I believe that targeting our age group would require less improvement or change, given that we have already included a younger protagonist as the lead role of the film. The main focus of targeting this age group would be ensuring our film was certified with an appropriate BBFC rating, ensuring our target audience are legally able to view KIN. To do this we would need to ensure that our film featured minimal or infrequent drug use, strong violence, sex and discrimination as these are each factors which directly influence a film's classification.

This is the original poster for The Bourne Ultimatum (2007 - Paul Greengrass), a more recent addition to the thriller genre. The data gathered from IMDB below shows that the majority of the film's reviewers were aged over 18, therefore contradicting my film's target age of 15-18. This is interesting as it now allows me to question this film's comparably low reviewers aged under 18. Personally, I believe this is due to the Ultimatum's slower pace of plot, a feature often dismissed by younger viewers as they often desire fast-moving plot and action. Therefore, in order for KIN to be well received by our target age, we would need to utilise our previous research, potentially leading us to conduct a more in-depth analysis of our audience. Whilst my suggestion is not the definitive reason for the film's low amount of younger reviewers, I believe it would serve as an objective for me and Csnege to make the film intriguing, whilst not 
 compromising its quality of story or plot.

Statistics of the film's reviewers on IMDB

Below is the link to the student who provided the research above as well as the IMDB page for Blow-Up and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Other Demographics:
Through the use of various thriller conventions implemented into our film (see Evaluation Question One), we hope we will also attract a large audience who enjoy thrillers, especially individuals who take a particular interest in British films. As well as this, given the extremely low budget of KIN, we would also aim to target a considerably niche audience market, which, while potentially proving difficulty, may also add individuality to KIN as a whole.

• http://snehalsthrillerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/target-audience-research-audience.html 
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060176/ 
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440963/