Sunday, 24 March 2013

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?


Describe the audience more specific to your sub-genre - Psychological thriller


The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) – 15

Fatal Attraction (1987) – 18

The Game (1997) – 15

Cape Fear (1991) – 18

American Psycho (2000) – 18

Les Diaboliques (1955) – X

Straw Dogs (1971) – X

Play Misty for Me (1971) - X

The Usual Suspects (1995) – 18

Memento (2000) – 15

Se7en (1995) – 18

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – 15

Rear Window (1954) – PG

Silence of the Lambs (1991) – 18

 

The general age for thrillers is around 18 however our thriller will be 15+ because it is not too explicit, even though as it is a psychological thriller, there are some issues which are potentially quite disturbing and hard hitting. 15 is a sensible and appropriate age for our film. The specific sub-genre of a psychological thriller tends to be more disturbing than other thrillers because there is a heavy focus on the unstable emotional states of the characters, sometimes the suspense comes from within one character where characters must resolve conflicts within their own minds. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of either physical manifestations, or torsions of the characters.
The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state. This could be seen as very disturbing to someone who is not emotionally ready to understand these kinds of issues so in order to protect them from any harm or distress it is important that the age certificate is suitable. As we have chosen the sub-genre of a psychological thriller for ‘Karma’, we too have made sure that the age certificate is suitable and we decided that 15+ is a good age. I do not think that our film is too distressing and there is no violent imagery but the topics we cover of bullying, revenge and psychological instability can be seen as sensitive topics so I want to be careful about the audience suitability.


When researching target audiences I also looked at some Research audience data from the Film Distributors Association (FDA) yearbook about thriller audiences. I looked on their website and found two relevant interviews with a couple of professionals in the film industry, talking about the importance of understanding who your target audience is and how to market specifically to them. I also found some data from 2007 on thrillers and found that it is not the most popular genre, so it is hard to have an extremely successful and popular thriller film, however I think this only encourages me more to work hard on marketing specifically to who will want to go and see it.



http://www.launchingfilms.tv/planning.php?video=1&autostart=1

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