TARGET AUDIENCESamantha Bevan

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERThe chosen genre for our opening sequence is a psychological thriller. This genre of film is often targeted at teenagers/young adults around 16-21, the age restriction of 16+ is used if violent or disturbing scenes are used in the film that may cause discomfort for younger viewers. My group and I feel that we could relate to this genre and come up with many idea due to all of us being in this age range. Such thriller conventions as tension would highly appeal to audiences of a young age as they enjoy to be put more on edge and like a thrill, by using this convention in our opening sequence would make our audience want to further watch the rest of the film, which is what we aim to do.

GENDERWe are going to make our opening sequence to be mainly aimed towards females due to our idea of a female protagonist. Teenage girls would be attracted to our film due to the female protagonist for them to look up to, as our female lead role will be challenging the stereotypes of women in films, where as many women in films are portrayed as the weak character always needing to be saved, in our opening sequence the female is in it on her own and doesn’t need anyone, this way females feel inspired by her and further want to watch the rest of the film. Although this does not prevent male viewers watching our opening sequence as our opening sequence will be filled with many other conventions of a thriller, such as tension.

NOT TARGETINGWe have decided not to target our opening sequence at the older generation, as many of the conventions of a psychological thriller would not seem to appeal to an older audience. Many scenes may make them feel uncomfortable and unsafe. They may prefer older thriller films but since film technology has developed, older people may not enjoy it as much. Older audiences are more likely to enjoy lighter films such as The Titanic.

Secondly we are not targeting our opening sequence to children any younger then 12, as many of the conventions of a thriller are to make the audience feel on edge and uncomfortable, but younger audiences may find this too scary and end up not being able to sleep. Younger audiences may also find the storylines difficult to understand. Therefore this genre of film is not appropriate. Younger audiences are more likely to enjoy lighter films such as Disney's Frozen.