1. Target Audience and Age Group
Round the Bend

2. At first we didn’t particularly look for a certain
audience to attract for our film. We knew
what age rating our film would be but not the
TYPE of person as I never really thought
people that made films had that in mind.

3. I always imagined it as just labelling films with
their genres and people would just be like:
Oh, I like action films. This film
has a lot of action… I’ll go see
it!

4. We decided to create a questionnaire to see
what people thought of thrillers and what they
know, etc. - just a simple questionnaire. Just to
get a rough idea and overview for us to analyse.
This is our basic questionnaire layout:

6. We asked 10 people and the results
are as follows:

7. How old are you?
12 – 20 IIII
21-29 II
30-39 III
40-49 I
50-59
60+

8. Are you female/male?
Female IIIII
Male IIIII

9. How often do you watch thriller films?
Daily I
Weekly III
Fortnightly III
Monthly III
Yearly
Yearly +

10. What is your favourite sub-genre?
Crime III
Romance
Psychological I
Supernatrual I
Political
Science-Fiction II
Action I
Comedy II

11. What s your favourite thriller film?
Notable Mentions: Taken, Final Destination,
Rush Hour.
Other Mentions: Spiderman, War of the Worlds,
The Dark Knight, Domino, Scary Movie, Fast and
Furious.

12. Would you classify thriller films as your top 3
genres?
Genre Ranked First Ranked Second Ranked Third
Thriller II II I
Comedy III I I
Horror II I
Romance I I
Science-Fiction II II I
Crime I II
Political I
Supernatural I
Action II III

13. What attracts you most when
watching Thriller films?
Plot/Storyline IIIII
Characters/Actors II
Title of the film II
Director/Producer I

14. Have you heard of the institution
Summit Entertainment?
Yes IIIII
III
No II

15. What codes and conventions would
you expect to see in a thriller film?
Notable Mentions: Tension, shadows, twisted
plot, high pitched/eerie music, dark storyline,
tension building music.
Other Mentions: High key lighting, colour
symbolism, low key lighting, dark colours,
contextual background, mirrors.

16. Analysis: What we can take away from
this Questionnaire
After looking at all the answers, the clear thing that we
could pick out from a small sample was that Crime films
and Thriller films were most common in the top three
genres. So that backs up our decision to pursue our
crime/thriller idea. Also taking all notable mentions of
codes and conventions like, twisted/dark plots and eerie
music and also the use of lighting for example, we can
now add them to our opening two minutes for the
audience to know what kind of film this is and what they
will expect. Both of these question were crucial to us and
we will use this information in our filming and editing,
ensuring that it fits with the information that we have
been given.

17. …
One thing I found
interesting is that Taken
was EXTREMELY popular
when mention favourite
thriller films and that has
the same theme of Round
the Bend’s theme of
kidnapping. Which made
my partner and I more
confident on our
coursework and filming.

18. Age Rating of our film
• When deciding what age rating we would give
our film we had to think of some things that
we were going to add in our film. For example,
how much - if any - violence will there be? Will
there be any intimate scenes? What will the
language be like? There are many things that
can change the rating of a film. And because
we are only doing a two minute opening it
does not mean the whole film will be exactly
like those two minutes.

19. Here are the official description via the bbfc on
the age classifications of cinematic
films/DVDs/Blu-Rays:

20. 12
"Films under this category are considered to be
unsuitable for very young people. Those aged under 12
years are only admitted if accompanied by an adult, aged
at least 18 years, at all times during the motion picture.
However, it is generally not recommended that children
under 12 years should watch the film. Films under this
category can contain mature themes, discrimination, soft
drugs, moderate swear words, infrequent strong language
and moderate violence, sex references and nudity. Sexual
activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Sexual
violence may be implied or briefly indicated."

21. 15
"Nobody younger than 15 can rent or buy a 15-
rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game, or
watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films
under this category can contain adult themes, hard
drugs, frequent strong language and limited use
of very strong language, strong violence and strong
sex references, and nudity without graphic detail.
Sexual activity may be portrayed but without any
strong detail. Sexual violence may be shown if
discreet and justified by context."

22. 18
"Nobody younger than 18 can rent or buy an 18-
rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game, or
watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films
under this category do not have limitation on the
bad language that is used. Hard drugs are generally
allowed, and explicit sex references along with
detailed sexual activity are also allowed. Scenes of
strong real sex may be permitted if justified by the
context. Very strong, gory, and/or sadistic violence
is usually permitted. Strong sexual violence is
permitted unless it is eroticised or excessively
graphic."

23. When looking at these descriptions alone and our initial idea
and thoughts of how the film will pan out i would say it is
borderline 15. The only reason why i would say that is the
theme of the film. Kidnapping.
Kidnapping is quite a strong theme and some younger
children may not like this topic. Also when developing
characters, we were looking for sinister people to play the
kidnappers, etc. as we wanted them to seem 'truly sick/evil'.
And that seems too strong for a 12 rated film.
Strong language will be used in this film. Not too much but
enough for it to be not suitable for a 12 year old.
We took 18 out of the equation because we are not going to
push the theme to a torture level or have an twisted/sadistsic
violence scenes. Also we don't want to overdo strong words
too as we will only use them when needed.

24. When looking at films of
the same theme like,
Taken, Gone Baby Gone
and Man on Fire, they
are all 15 and up. Taken
and Man on Fire are 18
because of the violence
in them, but minus the
violence they would be
15 also. Round the Bend
does not have anywhere
near as much violence as
they do.

25. To sum it up..
Our target/ideal audience member would be:
- Male or Female
- Aged between 15-30
- People who like to get emotionally/mentally
involved in the storyline
- Particularly enjoys Thrillers and Crime films
- Have good knowledge on codes and conventions
of these types of films
- Relatively mature (due to serious theme).