The document discusses planning stages for a film project. It begins by noting they didn't know details about the target audience initially. They conducted a mass audience questionnaire to learn more, finding the younger audience prefers horror/thriller and a combined genre would work. They selected the institution "Twisted Pictures" and realized storylines with hooks are important. Considering age ratings, they determined their niche audience would be ages 15-25. A final niche questionnaire provided further guidance on titles, institutions, backstories and engaging openings.

2. At first we didn’t know details of the age, gender or type of audience that would be
attracted to our film, or that we would be producing to. This is because we were
still at the beginning of planning stages and hadn’t thought that far yet.
However, we knew it was important to get out into the world of media
consumers, and find out what people think about the information we had already
decided on.
WE ALREADY KNEW:
 Our genre was going to be horror/thriller
 Our mass audience was going to be somewhere between the age of 12+
 Appeal to both genders
As we had already decided on these points, we were able to create a MASS
AUDIENCE questionnaire about them.

3. This is the questionnaire that I
produced individually for our
mass audience of people aged
12+. I made sure I asked a range
of people within this age
group, and an even amount
from both genders so that I can
get as much variety of answers
as possible. Once I received all
of the answers back from the
10 people I asked, I went onto
INFORMATION WE NOW KNEW: analysing the results and
• The younger audience is more interested in finding out some more
horror/thriller genre information from our audience
• A horror and thriller film combined would be a success
• Twisted Pictures is going to be one of our institutions
which we could then decide
• The storyline and hooks/cliff-hangers are most important on.
to include in our film

4. o Our mass audience questionnaire showed us that they liked the
institution ‘Twisted Pictures’. We remembered this when we analysed
the 2 possible institutions, and this questionnaire helped us form our
decision to choose ‘Twisted Pictures’ as one to use.
o Our mass audience liked the idea of a film combined with both
horror/thriller elements. We exceeded in this by using the horror
elements of there being a bloody massacre in the town, and the thriller
elements by not revealing the murderer’s face and having a ‘chase’
through the town.
o Our mass audience thought the storyline and hooks/cliff-hangers were
the most important aspects of a horror/thriller film. We used both of
these in our films by keeping the storyline simple enough so that it can
be recognised straight away, but then with twists and hooks to keep the Ab0ve: The
audience interested. We also included a cliff-hanger at the end of the ending of our
opening where a
opening, where victims have just been chased into a room, and it goes cliff-hanger
from 5 seconds of complete silence to a loud, disruptive noise. appears
o Finally, our mass audience also showed us that it was the younger
generation of people asked that are most interested in horror/thriller
films, therefore this helped us choose who our niche audience was
going to be.

5. Now we had finished our mass audience questionnaire and research, we had an
idea of the type of audience and the age that we were going to produce to. But
before we could finalise a decision on that, we had to remember the BBFC age
ratings that all films must have, and look at the type of film we are wanting to
create and see whether it was actually legal for us to promote it to the audience we
wanted to.
It ended up as a decision between the age ratings of ’15’
or ’18’. This was because our film involves some violence
and horror elements which might not be suitable for
younger ages. When studying the guidelines for both of
these ratings, we decided as a group that the rating of ‘15’
was most appropriate for our film, as the rating of ’18’
was far too extreme for what we were creating.
Now we had decided on an age rating, we knew what our
niche audience was going to be, remembering that it had
to fit in with this rating.

6. As our BBFC age rating of our film is a ‘15’, our niche audience couldn’t be anything
lower than this. Therefore, we decided that our niche audience would be both genders
aged between 15-25. It was important we came to this decision before we went onto
further developing our film, so that we could create another more specific
questionnaire for this new audience now.
WE ALEADY KNEW:
 Our genre was going to be horror/thriller
 Our mass audience was going to be somewhere between the age of 12+
 Appeal to both genders
• The younger audience is more interested in horror/thriller genre
• A horror and thriller film combined would be a success
• Twisted Pictures is going to be one of our institutions
• The storyline and hooks/cliff-hangers are most important to include in our film
• Our niche audience is going to be between the ages of 15-25

7. So what information did we still need to find out?
 Is Legend Productions going to be appealing and successful with our niche audience?
 Would a potential title of ‘Necrophobia’ stand out to them?
 What are their thoughts on the institution ‘Twisted Pictures’?
 Do they like films with an interesting back story to the whole storyline?
This was the final niche audience questionnaire
that I asked through the popular social
networking site of Facebook, as I knew that’s
where most people aged between 15-25 are going
to be. I asked 6 people this questionnaire, which
included more specific questions focussed on
our actual film.
INFORMATION WE NOW KNEW:
Left: These
• The actors are important to the film are the
• The opening is vital and must be engaging to responses
audience
• The idea of having a back story is good
• The mixed horror/thriller genre is popular

8. Our niche audience’s responses were the most important, so we had to make sure
we involved every single point they mentioned in our film.
 Our niche audience though the institution ‘Legend Productions’ sounded
important, high quality, friendly and popular, which is the message that we
wanted.
 Our niche audience thought the actors were important to the film. This meant
we had to select people that best fit our characters, and make sure their
appearance’s were appropriate too.
 Our niche audience thought the opening must be extremely engaging for them
to carry on watching the film. Techniques we used to involve this response were
by using several hooks throughout, lots of fast paced cuts and a cliff-hanger at
the end.
 Finally, our niche audience believed that a back story was interesting and kept
them trying to guess the storyline as they watched.

9. Mass Audience Member FOR Niche Audience Member
EXAMPLE:
Name: Bob Name: Kiran
Age: 40 Age: 17
Likes: Watching action and sci-fi Likes: Watching horror
films, doesn’t mind watching and thriller films because
some thrillers they’re her favourite

10. THE USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY
When creating our film, we had to remember this as one of the most important
audience’s theories. It simply means that the audience watches your film for either for
INFORMATION, PERSONAL IDENTITY, ENTERTAINMENT, or SOCIAL
INTERACTION.
I think that our film definitely makes our audience gain insight into certain
circumstances which aren’t necessarily common, but are possible. For example, the
whole mass murder in the small town isn’t exactly common around the world, but I
believe that if our audience watches our film, they’ll understand that it can happen
and it might happen. This falls under the social interaction section because they are
finding some empathy towards the victims involved in the film. They also might feel
empathy towards our main character because his past of loneliness, depression and
the fact he suffers from mental health problems could contribute to the way he acts in
the film. This means our audience might feel sorry for him or understand why he
thinks that way.
Similarly, I believe our film ‘Necrophobia’ would create a good gossip source for the
younger audience to talk about amongst their peers, and I think it would open their
eyes to the world and inform them about possibilities and dangers.
And finally, the audience of our film would be entertained by our film, as it has been
carefully produced to keep them intrigued and engaged at all times, so they are going
to be separated from the outside world and their lives, and are just watching the film.

11. Some other popular theories that our film uses for the purpose of the
audience is:
The Whammo Theory – this means that there is bursts of action and
extreme events approximately every 10 minutes to keep the audience
involved. We have used this by building up the tension at the
beginning, then having a whammo when he kills the first victim, and then
another at the end.
Hypodermic Syringe Theory – this means that our audience believes what
they see to be true. This might be the case because the events are so life-
like and the fact that they are possible shows the audience that it could
happen to anyone and anywhere.