Target Audience

 Hey Blog! Though I've looked at genre, and how my film is gonna fit into genre conventions, I haven't looked deeply into specifically finding a target audience.

Not sure where to start I started with this article, (Brubaker, 2024) that shows a general way to find a target audience for the film. In this search the most important concept is genre. Thankfully, I've already found that my genre is thriller, making this process much easier. Other Important questions Include: 

 

Reccomended questions to ask oneself when determining an Audience.

Outside of Genre, the film is in English and will mainly appear to an English-speaking audience in the Anglo-sphere, primarily the United States, and secondarily in places like the U.K. and Australia.

Which then brings me to what the usual target audience is for Thrillers. When it comes to gender, Thrillers tend to appeal heavily to both genders with a Statista Research Department study finding that in 2018, 83% of Female adults and 84% of male adults list Thrillers as one of their favorite genres. With my film, I hope to maintain this mix by having both prominent Male and Female Characters.

Statistics show thrillers have roughly equal appeal among genders.

 (Stryker et al., 2021)

As far as age is concerned, Thrillers tend to have wide appeal among Gen Z, Millenials, and Gen X. However, with 16-24 year olds being "the segment of the population that goes to the cinema most frequently" (thefilmspace.org), it is important for my film to especially capture this audience, which  I will do by featuring a teenage character as the lead, which may bring in additional interest to that commercially important cohort of Gen Z cinema fans.

 

Younger Generations are enjoying Horror and Thrillers (Arkenberg, 2022)

Aside from genre conventions one group that I feel this film will especially resonate with is with Immigrant kids. A lot of us come to this country and face strong pressures to perform, especially academically, as we are essentially the hopes for our family to achieve a better future. This is exemplified by extremely high rates of stress among Latinos, compared to other groups (Stryker, et. al, 2021). Sometimes these pressures come from our family, but especially in this film, its highlighted how this pressure can come from within a duty for oneself that is imposed by society. The Child Development Institute places children in a situation, where they aren't being forced to perform by a coercive physical form of violence, but instead by a psychological violence that if they do not perform, they will take away an essential source of potential of promise for their family. By showcasing this conflict that many Immigrants feel, I hope to bring in this audience by providing them with a retrospective piece that makes them think about their experience as immigrants.

So gathering all of that information up, my film will mainly appeal to Thriller fans, aged 16 - 59 (the ages that make up Gen Z, Millenials, and Gen X, with a special focus on targetting teens and young adults), as well as all genders. The film will especially appeal to Latin Americans, given that the main character is Latin American, but will also generally appeal to all immigrants, especially first-generation immigrants.

 

Arkenberg, C. (2022, November 1). Halloween horror: Feeding audiences’ appetites for cheap and Bloody Thrills. Deloitte Insights. https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/insights/industry/technology/horror-movie-audience-statistics.html

Brubaker, J. (2024, January 30). How to uncover the proper target audience for your film. Filmmaking Stuff. https://www.filmmakingstuff.com/define-your-movies-target-audience/

Stryker, S. D., Andrew Yockey, R., Rabin, J., Vaughn, L. M., & Jacquez, F. (2021, May 19). How do we measure stress in Latinos in the United States? A systematic review. Health equity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8140353/

thefilmspace.org. (n.d.). The film space: Fda 100 Years. The Film Space | FDA 100 YEARS. https://thefilmspace.org/fda100/distribution/who