OUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Mainstream vs Niche audience:

Mainstream - targeted towards the masses, more commercial compared to Niche audiences. Targets the four-quadrant audience: male, female, young and old. The films are often hybrids, combinations of genres in order to broaden the appeal. They also have larger budgets to accommodate having an A-list star cast, franchise, IP, IMAX and 3D, setting, special effects etc. According to the Charles Gant films that come out in the UK box office will make ten times more in the US (ignoring currency rates). In order to have wider release and larger commercial appeal Working title films like Notting Hill (1999) and Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) are set in London, rather than a small town that no American has heard off. Both films have characters with South English, posh accents and an A-list American star as the lead role. 

Niche - niche marketing focuses on targeting a small audience with easily identifiable preferences, wants and needs. These are often independent (indie) or arthouse films that don't have a mass-market appeal. The indie company Warp, focuses on representing minorities, and feature characters of under-privileged areas positively rather than reducing them to a stereotype. This makes the films less commercially viable, and the films have limited theatrical releases. For example, the film Submarine (2010) is set in Wales, and She A Chinese (2009), is about a Chinese immigrant, with the film's dialogue being mostly in Mandarin. Because of the niche representations, the UK government often give grants to the company, to help support them financially and fund representations for certain areas. These films are typically low budget (under $10m) and social-realist drama's, with little known actors. 

AGE: 

When looking at possible age rating for our film I looked at the BBFC (UK) and MPAA (US) age rating systems

As an indie filmmaker making a slasher film with a primary target audience of 15-24+ I would aim to fit into the 15 BBFC classification. I would need to avoid the 18 rating as this would damage my commercial prospects and theatrical distribution. However, due to Web 2.0 and the effects of digitisation and disruption, such as streaming platforms, my film could still be viewed by those under the age rating or classification I receive. 

Horror films tend to attract a slightly younger audience, predominantly under 25s. As our main characters are 16 years old, through the use of representations and stereotypes we will make our characters more easier to associate with to a wider audience. The age of the main character directly reflects the age of your primary audience. Our teenage cast would therefore attract a teenage audience. Our scream queen, is a stereotypical rebellious teenager, this makes her more relatable to our teenage audience. We modelled her after the Scream opening sequence, where Casey gets murdered as punishment for her somewhat immoral behaviour. Our final girl, while being presented as the stereotypical virgin-pure nerd, is a countertype as she is the counter type since she turns out to be the killer. We also used the clique idea which is a stereotype seen in many teen horrors.

Our secondary audience is adults 24+. Our BFFC rating is 15 so the movie wouldn't be accessible to the audience younger than that. To appeal to this age group, our full film would include older actors in the roles of parents, teachers, or police.

According to the BBFC, my restrictions to remain under this rating are:

• Dangerous behaviour should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Whether the depiction of easily accessible weapons is acceptable will depend on factors such as realism, context and setting.
• The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour, although there may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory themes and language.
• Drug taking may be shown but the work as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse (for example, through detailed instruction). The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.
• There may be strong language. Very strong language may be permitted, depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency within the work as a whole and any special contextual justification.
• There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context. Sexual nudity may be permitted but strong detail is likely to be brief or presented in a comic context.
• Sexual activity may be portrayed, but usually without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour. Repeated very strong references, particularly those using pornographic language, are unlikely to be acceptable. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal are unacceptable.
• There may be strong verbal references to sexual violence but any depiction of the stronger forms of sexual violence, including rape, must not be detailed or prolonged. A strong and sustained focus on sexual threat is unacceptable.
• There may be strong threat and horror. A sustained focus on sadistic threat is unlikely to be acceptable.
• Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic violence is also unlikely to be acceptable.

GENDER: 

Our primary target is females, specifically due to the female protagonists of the film, and our inspiration from Jennifer's Body (2009) and Heathers (1998). 

It is said that roughly 42% of horror audiences are women, with 58% being men. After our audience survey, we found women to be less interested in horror, and the slasher genre, but found female targeted horror films appealing. The main reason women found slasher unappealing, was due to the negative portrayal of female characters in the film, something we are attempting to avoid by blurring character tropes. The character archetypes we used in our film: the scream queen and the final girl, which are binary opposites and are simplified representations of women. There is also frequent nudity or women wearing revealing clothing in the genre, and the female characters are objectified for male pleasure. According to Mulvey's male gaze, this attracts male audiences to see a slasher film which is way we dressed our characters in very male-gazey clothing.

Another way we positively represent female characters is through the Bechdel Test, seen in our opening when Laurie and Mandy talk about Marion's disappearance at their locker. 

CLASS:  

Since it is not a social realist film class wouldn't be a strong deterrent or attractor for audiences. However, if a film is aiming for commercial success, a BC1C2 group would be represented, as middle class or wealthy characters are easily marketed internationally. 

Slasher films are typically viewed as pop-culture, and cater to a C1C2DE audience. As our film is not social realist, or revolving around working class characters, our characters would belong to the C1C2 group. The accents in the film are international and easily understood, and don't denote any specific regions, further breading the appeal. 

To appeal to a highbrow or arthouse, ABC1 audience, we are relying on the use of intertextual references. 

NATIONALITY: 

Often ethnically diverse representations were negative, and resulted in the "murdered minority" trope, where minority characters would be killed first. This is also known as the "black guy dies first" trope. We decided to against this trope for out film opening, as I didn't want to have a negative representation, as well as satirising the conventional slasher archetypes. All the characters in our opening are white, which broadens the commercial appeal and is commonly used in Working Title films. I would have included ethnic diversity in a full length film. 

The characters in our film have international accents, mixing between British and American. This broadens the audience appeal to the international and specifically American market, as the accents are clearly understood, a technique used by Working Title. To avoid a limited appeal or difficulty understanding an accent, often the case with Warp films like For Those in Peril (2013) set in Scotland and She a Chinese (2009) which is a mostly subtitled film. We have avoided using any actors with strong regional accents. 

SEXUALITY:

We do have heteronormative representations in our film, a heterosexual couple. The character of Mandy also jokes about Laurie not having a boyfriend, a heteronormative assumption. 

The main reason for not including an LGBT+ character in the opening is due to stereotyping, as we thought a 2 minute opening would negatively portray the character. In the film Psycho (1960), the killer Norman Bates is a cross-dresser, which is a negative representation for the LGBTQ+ community. LGBTQ+ characters also fall under the "murdered minority" trope, and I similarly did not want to include any negative representations in my opening, but would have if it was a full length film.