Target Audience

4 Golden rules when considering the concept of audience within media studies:

1)      Who is the target audience of this text?

2)      What does the audience expect from the text?

3)      How does the text appeal to or cater for the target audience?

4)      To what extent does the target audience feel the text is successful in targeting them?

I carried out a servey to establish who i am suppose to be targeting and how i can cater for their needs and expectations...

For media studies we have to produce a two Minute opening to a film genre of our choice. As you can see I have chosen to produce a teen horror film opening, I have to research into the target audience and their expectations of the film genre. If you could please fill out the questionnaire so I can use the information to help make an effective opening including conventions which are expected.

1) What gender are you?

Male               Female

2) What age are you?

14-19

20-25

26-31

32-37

38-43

44-49

50+

3) What do you expect from a teen horror film in general?

4) What sort of characters do you expect to see in a teen horror?

5) Who do you expect to be the protagonist of the film? Male of female? (Main character)

6) What sort of location do you expect from a teen horror film?

7) What do you expect from the opening sequence to the film (first two minutes?)

I specifically targeted teenagers (14-19) to complete my questionnaire, as my film is a teen a horror obviously targeted at teenagers it seemed pointless to ask a 50 year old about a teen horror. I asked 35 teenagers in upper school and sixth form, therefore I have a slight range in age, and the general feedback was similar. I will briefly summarise the responses; most people concluded that they expect a teen horror film to grip them straight from the start to ensure they stay interested, also another frequent response was that they expect to relate to the film and obviously they anticipate being scared. In pretty much every response it stated that they expect to see a victim, hero and villain; the victim usually being female and the hero usually being male, in relation to this most people who answered expect to see a male protagonist. Lots of locations popped up in the questionnaires consisting of: remote villages, abandoned houses, but the most frequent location people listed was a forest. In EVERY response people all agreed that the first two minutes should entice the audience and contain some sort of exciting action.

This questionnaire proved valuable to me in my research as I can now plan my film and opening two minutes with this feed back in mind as it will be aimed at the same age group who completed my questionnaire, therefore I am going to give them what they want.