Media studies evaluation - question 4 and 5

1. Question 4 & 5
WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT?
HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

2. • To look at the type of audience I would need to aim my film towards, I looked at
other movies in the genres, thriller, drama and crime and using the site YouGov I was
able to pull together details about my target audience which gave me an insight into
the type of people who like these kinds of films.
• I used the film “Taken” (2008) for the crime genre,
and “Psycho” (1960) for the thriller genre, basing it
more on the psychological side.

3. • I chose to only look at crime and thriller films as those are the two main themes
featured in my trailer of “To Catch A Killer”.
• “Taken” is a crime, action film that features a father fighting and determined to find
and protect his daughter, this helped stem the idea of “To Catch A Killer” as we
wanted the main character to show that physical and mental determination however,
differ from the norm and create a sub dilemma that shows her progressive
weakening, adding a sense of realism to the trailer.
• From my research, the film “Taken” has a largely male audience
(50.6% male) in the age range of 25-39 years old many of which
have a profession in finance, manufacturing and mining/quarrying.

4. • Similarities with the different types of audiences are shown in the common interest
for films and the “Taken” film series. In the thriller genre, I looked at the
demographics for the 1960s movie “Psycho”, similarly to “Taken”, the main audience
for the film is male (50.6%) however the age-range is 40-56 years old, this makes
sense as the film was made long before Taken, meaning much of the viewers who
still enjoy the film will be much older.
• Also in comparison to the other film, the main professions of the audience of
“Psycho” is more relaxing, based around entertainment, home and garden and retail.
• Also because the audience is part of the older generation, much of their hobbies are
focused around the generic hobbies associated with that age group, their hobbies are
reported to be visiting galleries and museums, watching TV and reading non-fiction
as well as having interests in music, books, puzzles and charities.

5. • Since my film is based around these two genres I had to incorporate some of this
research into the production and plan of my trailer, I did this through looking at
both the trailer of “Taken” and clips from “Psycho”.
• However, I also wanted to challenge the stereotypical views and audience for the
crime thriller genre.
• By including a mother as the protagonist, it could
possibly encourage a higher percentage of a female
audience, and since she is the mother of a daughter it
may also include more people (both men and women)
who have children, giving them a sense of fear and
reality to the situation of the trailer, encouraging them to watch the film to find out
more about the characters and the grief of the mother still searching for her child.