Evaluation 4

The audience for this media production.

Audience, age rating and genre intro video


Audience - We thought that the audience for the film would be young people aged 15+. This was because of our own knowledge of popular films for this age group such as:
Final Destination series
Suicide Squad
Se7en
Nerve
Matrix
Birdman

'Nerve'. The female character was enticed into a game of dare where she had to walk across a ladder between two buildings.

'The Matrix'. Agent Smith a computer A.I. is the antagotist that chases Neo in the computer matrix throughout the film.






The theme of the film fitted in with the interests of teenagers as it is based around teenagers relationship and a thriller genera which seems popular with teenagers. All of these films are rated 15 for various reasons.

People's favourite thriller in the survey was :

Typical audience member -
age 15 to 30
film interests thriller, psychological films, action movies, suspense
both male and female
viewing at the cinema and on home viewing
not family viewing


Film rating - The group anticipated that the film would receive a 15 age rating due to the suggested themes in the film. These were:
threat of violence, assault, harassment and imprisonment.
While these were mostly psychological we thought that these would still be too frightening for ages under 15.

UK Film Classification - There are examples of why a film is classified with certain ratings.

Survey - We carried out a survey researching sample audience views by presenting the initial ideas for the story and characters using the plot diagram (see link).

http://jamesthorneycroftmaintask.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/idea-pitch.html

People then gave their opinions on different film and the characteristics for a thriller film. We gathered this by them completing Surveymonkey (see below).

• 30 people completed the survey
• most people were in the 15-19 age group
• a non chronological order was expected as part of a thriller plot
• top 3 plot elements chosen were crime, plot twist and mystery
• protagonist/ film hero should feature, bravery, intelligence and underdog  

The survey showed a wide variety of favourite thriller films including, Se7en, Final Destination, Jason Bourne and Silence of the Lambs many of which were 15 age rating. The survey support the group view that the film should contain the plot elements planned for in the initial ideas.

Implications of a 15 rating - The problem with being a film 15 rating is that the audience is more limited compared to lower ratings because less people are able to see it. This could affect the profit and commercial appeal of the film. For example lower audiences number and less people interested in merchandise and less appeal because people may think that it contains things that they don't want to see. We thought that the plot was not suitable for age 12 rating but also that there was no need to have a higher rating.