Audience
When a film is aimed at its audience, it marketed in ways
that would work for its target audience. So it’s advertised so that the target
audience would see it in their everyday lives, and the trailers that make the
targets want to go and watch the film. Every movie made including horror is
aimed at a specific demographic. With horror is broadly in the ‘teenagers’
bracket of target audiences. But a film company can’t just aim a film at
‘teenagers’ they must be more specific. It would be an ignorant assumption from
a film company to think all teenagers are the same. The audience is usually
trimmed down to a fine example to which the film is aimed at. For example, our
film that we’re making a trailer for would be aimed at young adults between 15
and 24, of course nothing stops anyone older from watching it, but that is our
target. The gender percentage to go and watch the film will be around 50/50,
but like almost all horror films it’s catered to a male audience (see
‘representation of women in horror films). The kind of person we aim our film
at is an outgoing person with an income of some sort to go and use a cinema to
experience the film. The target would be someone who enjoys horror, but doesn’t
like when religion and Satanism are brought into films with ‘spirits’ as our
film’s spirit is secular and has no ties to any religion. (Often films with
ties into religion are not as scary for someone who does not believe in a god,
or follow a religion).
The main way in which our film is aimed at teenagers is
because the characters are teenagers, which allows the audience to relate to
them more. The teenagers are relatable because they are a true reflection of
young adults, they’re not dumbed down or made to seem fake (to the exception of
the villain’s character). The audience would probably go and watch a horror
film once or twice a month, and would go with friends. They enjoy scary yet
realistic scenarios in a movie. (Not monsters from another world). The audience
must be familiar with horror films, and can cope with any gore or frightening
scenes.
We expect our audience to be scared by the film, and feel
emotions such as fear, terror, anxiety and suspense. Of course we expect there
to also be another audience who view the film in a different way (oppositional
reading). We hope to minimise this audience as much as possible by aiming the
film at a wide audience, who would have a preferred or negotiated reading. This
is when the film succeeds in getting its point across (for example, representation
or young people). With the internet available to the majority of people, and is
frequently used to advertised products. We feel that the best way to showcase
an advert would be an advertising campaign using the internet (YouTube ads and
side adverts) and TV advertisement.
