The document discusses the target audience and marketing strategy for a psychological thriller film. It aims its audience at late teens to middle-aged to attract a mainstream audience and maximize profits. Social media would be used to advertise cheaply and appeal to younger viewers. The main characters, a teenage female protagonist and older male, were chosen and cast to appeal to both younger and mature audiences. Costuming and props like a hoodie, suit, and gun were selected to relate to different demographics. Common genre codes and conventions were utilized but also challenged to attract viewers while making the film original.

1. Marcia Rumsey
WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT AND HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR
AUDIENCE?
attract/address your audience?

2. Looking at statistics I found that the majority of
people that watch films are an older audience with
60% being female. However we decided that our
target audience although mainstream is late teens
to middle-aged. By it being targeted at a
mainstream audience we are also more likely to
make a large profit. Also as it is aimed at a
younger audience than usual we could use social
media to advertise which is cheap therefore
further increasing our profit.
TARGET AUDIENCE

3. Uses and gratification theory originally arose in the 1940s but has been
changed since then in the 1970s and 80s. The theory is about why and
how people actively seek out specific media and is positivistic in it’s
approach. It assumes that audience members are not passive consumers
of media but actually have an active role in interpreting and integrating
media into their own lives. For example for our opening people who
regularly watch psychological thrillers make seek out our film as it is a
genre that they are familiar with.
USES AND GRATIFICATION
THEORY

4. Our main protagonist is a teenage female. We choose to
cast a younger person as the protagonist so we appealed
to a younger audience. We also cast a female as we
wouldn’t to go against the common convention of a male
lead. Another reason we cast a women is because the
majority of viewers of psychological thrillers are
female and therefore we would attract them. After
looking at how Mulvey said about how media is controlled
by men and therefore women are presented as men see them
we wanted to go against this. Therefore we tried to
present her as a pluralistic view of a teenager.
CASTING

5. Our other character is an older male. Originally we were
going to have a teenage male as it would attract a
younger audience. However we decided to change this as
we still wanted to attract a more mature audience, them
being the majority of viewers.
CASTING CONTINUED…

6. The main prop in our film is a gun. Looking at statistics this would appeal
more to men as research shows they react more than women to action and
violence. Therefore the use of a gun featuring heavily would help keep males
engaged. The younger female is wearing a hoodie which we hope would help
appeal to a younger audience as they could relate to her costume. However the
older male is wearing a suit which would hopefully attract a more mature
audience and therefore a wider viewership.
MISE EN SCÈNE

7. In our piece we used a lot of common codes and
conventions. By doing this our audience and common
viewers of psychological thrillers would recognise this
and therefore be more inclined to watch it. For example
we used the Barthes theory of hermeneutic codes (meaning
the audience asks questions). We also used white
typography on a black background, another common
convention of this genre. However we do challenge some
to make our piece more original. For example we choose
no to use the common convention of a weapon not being
used (the idea being the killer’s mind is the weapon).
Instead a gun features heavily in our
piece.
CODES AND CONVENTIONS