1. Who would be the audience for your
media product?
An evaluation question answered by
Ben Stockdale and Thomas Oliver
2. Survey Results
• The main source of information for us
throughout the research stage of the
production of our opening was using
surveys, where we generated a survey
through a very useful survey creating
website (surveymoneky) and then
collected the results after a sufficient
amount had been collected. After we
gained these results, we were able to
look through them and carefully
review all of them, which allowed us
to get a good idea of who our target
audience for this film will be and also
what it is that the target audience we
have found want to see in this movie.
3. Target audience
• The target audience we have found for
our opening is young adults, mainly
male, as this is the main demographic
that would probably enjoy our film,
both from predicting this trend and also
checking the results of the survey,
which showed mainly male respondents
and also the results of these male
respondents pointing towards the
conclusion that they would enjoy this
style of film that we are producing an
opening for.
4. Desired opening
• The target audience we have identified
seems to prefer a movie with mixed themes
and also prefer a movie that is a pleasant mix
of certain genres. This was made obvious
from the survey results that we collected,
but this could also have been predicted. This
information assisted us in creating the
opening for the film, as it allowed for us to
predict what our target audience would
enjoy seeing in an opening for a film and
also what would attract them to watching a
film. We have hopefully incorporated these
aspects into our opening to distinct our
movie opening from others, to make it
specifically appeal to our target audience.
5. Mixed genres
• For our opening, we decided to include
mixed genres to make the opening stand
out slightly and also to appeal to a wider
audience. We did this after receiving our
survey results which confirmed to us
that a good mix for our opening would
be the combination of horror and slight
comedy. For the film as a whole we also
planned to have some sci-fi elements,
but, for the opening we kept it quite
tame, except having a few nods to sci-fi,
for example displaying futuristic images
in our time frame that was set in the
past, creating a contrast in time. We also
included one or two moments that could
be seen as comical, to broaden our
opening even further.
6. Related Films
• One core part of identifying our
target audience involved researching
similar films, and their openings, to
our own. This was to identify what
parts of said films could possibly
attract the audience that we are
aiming to get for our own opening.
We did this by carefully examining
the openings of certain films that we
had deduced to share target
audiences with our own opening
(young adults, male). This was a bit
difficult as there are limited films out
there that are quite like ours, but, we
still examined a few films that gave us
some extra insight into what our
target audience might be attracted to.
7. Shaun of the Dead
• One similar film that we looked into was
Shaun of the Dead, as it was one of our
personal favourites and also was a brilliant
combination of the comedy and horror
genre, and most importantly, the film had
a target audience of young adult males,
around the age range of 15-25. This is the
same target audience as our film, so it was
definitely worth it for us to look into this
movie. We learn some valuable things
about how to shoot an opening and how
to passively hint at the oncoming storyline
while also delivering an interesting
experience that is satisfying for our target
audience to watch.
8. The Woman In Black
• One other dominant film that we
researched for the sake of our production
was The Woman In Black, as although this
film may have had a very slightly older
target audience than our film, this film
was quite prominently horror based and
so it also gave us a good insight into jump-
scares and the genre as a whole. Focusing
on the target audience of the film though,
researching this film allowed us to see
what parts of a horror may make people in
our target audience inclined to watch the
movie or at least be excited when the part
comes up with the jump-scare. We found
out some extra information about sound
design from this film also.
9. The Exorcist
• Some major inspiration for our opening
had to be taken from another horror film,
and our main source of both inspiration
and teaching was The Exorcist. This film
helped us to see how to correctly set up a
jump scare for maximum effect, how to
build tension, how to discretely build
tension in some ways and finally how all of
this links to a target audience. It was clear
that, in looking at the contrast between
this and other horror films, strong changes
had been made to target it at a specific
audience. We noted these changes down
and altered our plans for the opening
accordingly.
10. Target Audience - Conclusion
• In conclusion, to pinpoint our target
audience we researched similar films to our
opening and also some that are only slightly
related to it, to get a better idea of how to
tailor our opening to our target audience,
and also who our target audience would be.
It has been made clear, but, in conclusion,
our target audience is a young, adult male
audience, around the age range of 15-25