Who would be the audience for your media product?

A company called the Life Matrix devised a contemporary approach to audience targeting by defining audiences into ten categories. For our film 'Arabella' I think that our target audience would fall into the Tribe Wired or people within the Fun / Atics category. People within the Tribe Wired category are described as digital, free-spirited and creative thinking people and people within the Fun/Atics are described as aspirational, fun-seeking and active young people. Our film, 'Arabella' is a creative film that addresses urban legends which is a controversial topic which people would need to keep an open mind to enjoy as if somebody is dead set that they do not believe in them, the film would not trigger their fears. Also, due to the film starring teenagers, I believe younger people of a similar age may enjoy the film more then older people as they can relate to the characters and the themes within it. 

The age group we look to aim our film at is between 15-24, as research shows that teenagers and young adults enjoy thrills and the thrills created by horror films are more likely to excite a younger audience than an older one. Due to their immaturity, teenagers are generally not put off by graphic images and in some cases actually go looking for them, whilst an older audience may be put off by them. Most horror films are aimed at males due to them stereotypically being more susceptible to gore and violence than females. However, although males may enjoy the content of 'Arabella' our film will be mainly aimed at females due to both the antagonist and protagonist being females. 

Our film highlights suburban Britain and the safety female teenagers find within their homes. Instead of conveying teenagers in a negative light in which they vandalize and abuse drinking and drugs. Teenagers gain a bad reputation through the media's portrayal so with our film we aim to sensationalise things by including elements of reality. Teenage girls are usually mature and ordinary, spending time watching television, spending time with friends and focusing on school work, rather than hanging around in dark alleys at night time mugging elderly people and causing trouble in the community. We aim to display the gentle nature of feminine young women who find comfort within staying at home in a safe environment and having fun within boundaries, the only danger coming from ancient stories told at a stereotypical sleepover. Fears for these teenage girls involve evil intruding their homes, which they view as their 'safe base' and the unknown forces that lurk outside of the comfort of their own homes. Therefore our target audience would be girls who follow similar practices and would therefore find thrills by being able to relate to the characters.

To further my research I went on to an audience profiling site to see if this would help profile audiences for my film. This is what advertisers use to get a better understanding of their target audience and learn more about them then just gender and age. It enables them to look into their lifestyles and then use this information to target them in more detail.

As I could not profile an audience for my film, I looked into the film 'Scream' which has similar features to 'Arabella' due to the suburban setting and the 'Last Girl Theory' which refers to a concept within horror films that specifically refers to the last girl left alive to confront the killer and survive to tell the tale. As you can see from the screenshot, the audience profiling site targets the film towards women aged 25-39 who live in areas such as London and Central Scotland. The typical professions our audience would have include media&publishing, consumer goods and entertainment and we found these same patterns within the film 'The Conjuring' which also has similarities to the theme of our film.

This helps me to try and profile my own audience, some things I found relevant and useful to know whilst others weren't.