This document discusses target audiences for films. It explains that identifying a target audience helps film producers understand what direction to take the film in order to attract viewers and earn back production costs. Gender and age are discussed as important factors for target audiences. Statistics show males generally prefer action and comedy films while females prefer a broader range of genres. Younger children are targeted through animated films and toys while those aged 15-34 prefer comedies and action films. Older audiences aged 35+ enjoy musicals, dramas, and romantic comedies. The document also notes thrillers should keep audiences guessing without becoming too complicated.

1. Target Audience
DAVID 8030

2. Why do we need a Target
Audience?
 As a media product there must be a target audience for the film to
focus on. Without this, the film can fail to attract enough viewers to
earn back its production costs. Most importantly, the producers (us
at Eclipse Studios) will need to convince a distributor that there is a
sizable audience for the film and where this audience may be
found.
 A target audience helps the film producers understand what
direction they are going to go with their film. For example,
stereotypically, if the distributor was looking for a male target
audience, the trailer would be filled with explosives, fast cars and
the sexualisation of females. If they were looking for a predominantly
female target audience, they would advertise more about love and
possibly play on the emotion sadness.

3. Gender
 The overall audience for the top 20 and top UK films in 2013 had a slight bias towards males who
made up 53% of total cinema-goers for these films. On an individual basis, some films attracted
substantially more of one gender than the other. Table 15.7 below is from the BFI Statistical
Yearbook 2014. This shows the top six films with statistically significant above-average female and
male audiences, and the six films that had no significant gender appeal. As in 2012, males
preferred thriller, action and comedy films with Captain Phillips, Star Trek Into Darkness and Alan
Partridge: Alpha Papa topping the list of films with a greater appeal to male audiences. Again as
in 2012, female audiences preferred a broader range of genres with One Direction: This Is Us,
About Time and Frozen having the highest appeal. Female audiences had a stronger preference
for UK films in 2013, unlike 2012 when the majority of films attracting above-average male
audiences were British.

4. Gender
 These statistics are unsurprising as the genres of the films with the
greater male share are stereotypically male based movies. All of the
six films with a higher percentage of Male audience, all have a
male protagonist. Five off these films are also action films while the
other is a comedy.
 Again, the female target audience is unsurprising as the genres of
film include, musicals, Romantic Comedies and teen band tours. The
highest percentage is “One Direction: This Is Us”. The band One
Direction have a large teenage girl fan base and it would be
unusual to see a male wanting to see this movie.

5. Age (7-14)
Animation movies (Wreck-It Ralph, Dispicable Me) unsurprisingly have a high target
audience of young children. They target their film at them through various ways such as
making the film seem enjoyable for the child however have small punchlines that the
parents can enjoy also. They will also be likely to sell small toys along with the film which
again appeals to the children as they persuade their parents to take them.

6. Age (15-34)
Comedies and action films have the highest percentage of viewers between the
ages of 15 to 34. You could say that this is due to the films including large amounts
of “boy humour”. For example, it is common that is someone falls over in a film the
male audience will laugh, while the female audience will feel sympathetic towards
the character. Django Unchained is also a popular title and this could be due the
fact that its based on a true story and shows gritty history.

7. Age (35+)
Musicals, action, drama, sci-fi and romantic comedy were popular with people in the 45-54
age range. 'Sunshine on Leith', 'Rush' and 'Filth' had the highest significant above-average
audiences in this category.
Films such as 'Frozen', 'The Croods', and 'Jack the Giant Slayer' were the only films with
above-average audiences in the 35-44 age group category. This was probably because parents
were taking their children to go see these films.

8. What do audiences like in our
genre of Thriller?
The main purpose of a thriller is to keep people guessing. We need the audience to
question every character, location and relationship in the film. They need to be willing to
sympathise with certain characters even though they might be the huge plot twist
towards the end of the picture. For our production we need to keep it very mysterious
and keep the audience interested as they try to understand what is going on.
The following image is a 5 star review for the Thriller “Shutter Island”. The review says the
thriller is “unmissable” and questions any other films that do not leave him feeling the
same way.

9. What do audience dislike in our
genre of Thriller?
 There is a fine line between mysterious and far too complicated. We
need to make sure that we keep the audience guessing however
do not lose them along the way. The small clues that may go
unnoticed by some may be incredibly noticeable to others.
 This is a review from the exact same film and this critic has a
completely opposite