Target Audience and Sub-Genres

Not all films appeal to all people. Even in the thriller genre the appeal ranges between audiences; this is because of sub-genres. Films such as 'The Sixth Sense' , 'Signs' and 'The Village', borderline on horror films, which horror films are targeted more towards teenage girls, so these horror thrillers would attract the teenage female audience. Crime thrillers and legal thriller's such as 'Se7en' and 'Runaway Jury' (Gary Fleder) target a more mature audience andd often focus on criminals dealing with a successful or failed crime and the suspenseful results. Disaster thriller's like, Deep Impact (1998) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), are films that deal with some type of disaster, either natural or man-made; concentrating on the chaotic events in and around the disaster and seeing how the characters cope.Specifying the type of thriller film being created will help create a target audience. Defining a target audience includes breaking the audience primarily down to gender and age range. however additional factors may include: socioeconomic status, rural or urban environments, race, family status and interests (from political learning's, human rights and religion to simple past times.)

When the target audience is selected, the plan has to include why this has been done e.g. what makes the film unique to appeal the target audience. Endorsing marketable elements such as the sub-genre, concept, tone, subject matter, specialist interests, source material, attractiveness and additional elements will further attract the target audience.

Applying the knowledge of selecting a target audience and endorsing the marketable elements will help me better with my opening sequence. I would want to attract a wide range of audiences, but in the age group of 18- 25 in particular as this age group spend the most money on DVDs and in the cinema. The sub-genre of thriller i want to make is a drama horror, so primarily teenage girls would be more targeted. We could break down the scenes in our play even more to show a characters background and environment, implying the urban environment, race and socieconomic status. We could show this by doing such things as including shots of alleyways and digetic sound of a city; we could also show the safe environment the characters shown to be in with the impression of the location being clean and neat. We want to show the main character as an attractive girl despite her situation, the use of this will attempt to appeal to our target audience of 18 - 25 year old females.