Evaluation - Question 4

"Who would be the audience for your media product?"

In Question 3 I discussed how our film opening would be distributed in cinemas so on answering this question this has to be takin into account.

The Core audience for visiting cinemas regularly in the UK is 15-24's according to this survey taken in 2007 (a good survey to base our intentions on as it focuses on the UK, with our film not likely to travel beyond the UK on first release, being a low-budget movie):

http://www.cinemauk.org.uk/ukcinemasector/ukcinema-audienceanalysis/frequencyofcinemavisitbyage2007/.

It states that 42% of 15-24's attend the cinema at least once a month (this is more important than the once a year category) compared to other age brackets - the highest being 7-14's at 28%. I think this is a fairly good representation of age diversity in cinema audiences with the teenagers and young adults being the core market for most films - I think ours would be the same.

Our film is likely to merit an 18 rating due to its frightening and violent nature. Therefore our core or primary audience is more likely to represent 18-24's at the cinema (children under 18 would be a big part of our DVD campaign but not for the cinema). I would round this up to a core audience of 18-25's.

Obviously our main audience will be the horror enthusiasts and especially fans of the 'Saw' and 'Hostel' films, who were likely to share a similar core audience. I tried to find statistical evidence of this but I found this difficult. Instead I managed to find this quote by Tom Ortenberg (see pictures below) - Lions Gate, President of Releasing (upon releasing Saw II):

"We were confident going into this weekend as the only new horror release that we would hit our target audience of genre fans, but this has exceeded all our expectations. With 'Saw,' James Wan and Leigh Whannell have tapped into filmgoers' most base fears and have created something that people immediately feel they need to talk about with others, and see again to catch clues they may have missed the first time."

Tom mentions the target audience of genre fans, meaning the fans particularly of the "gore" subgenre and many classic horror fans interested in the spread of niche modern horror. He also mentions how the film tapped into the audiences worst fears, which I believe ours does (trapped situation, claustrophobia, torture weapons, death and blood) - so our film would maintain a similar appeal, especially to the adrenalin "junkies" and thrill-seekers out there, but also to those with any interest in the genre. Our film (sequence) could basically attract any age if they share these interests, but is important to focus specifically on the 18-25 group who endulge most in cinema entertainment, and for a film it is cinema audience ratings that matter most in its success. Our wider or secondary audience would definately stretch out beyond this small cluster of ages as there are many horror fans over 25 (considering the horror genre originates from the Sir Alfred Hitchcock Period in the 50's and 'Psycho' was produced in 1960 - youngsters from this era will now be in their 60's so some are certainly going to share an interest in how horror has developed).

Gender-wise, our core audience would involve both because of the following points:

• Teenagers and young adults often hang around in mixed gender groups (cinema visits can be a frequent occurance for these groups).
• Horror maintains a strong appeal for couples, especially young couples, on a date (the frights give them a good reason to cuddle and get closer to one another early in the date).
• The film sequence could be seen as male-orientated, in that the actors involved are men and the film involves alot of "masculine traits" - however this is just a generalisation.
• 'The female gaze', derived from Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze), states that although females provoke the gazes of men because of their bodies, males can provoke the gazes of women if they are involved in a private environment as it creates a sexual kind of atmosphere. This can cause females to be attracted to male actors in films (our opening sequence could create this atmosphere as it is private and intimate), and this is a natural reaction (known as scopohilia in medical terms) so is likely to work well. [Scopophiliais the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature - http://www.dictionary.com/]

Overall, there is appeal for both genders and all ages, as long as they hold an interest in the horror genre (or even if they are with people who enjoy horror). Our film would target a core audience of 18-25's (the cinema-goers) and fans of the gore and torture sugenres (or modern horror in general). The mass of this audience would be national (although local to London, our home city, to begin with - see question 3) because of main distribution in the UK.