Target audience is important in media, all pieces of media are created with a target audience in mind. These pieces of media can include posters, trailers, TV and radio. For a company to make sure they reach a specific target audience they have to research. To research they will create questionnaires, interviews and compare their ideas to existing media texts. Producers want to know the status, age, gender, race, education, occupation and location of their audience so they can shape their media to fit them.

 

For our film we want a target audience of teenagers aged 15+. We chose this audience as our film idea is set at a party and it also includes teenage actors. These two aspects appeal to our target audience as teenagers around 15+ enjoy parties and meeting up with friends. Also as our film is a horror, horror genres are usually aimed at older teenagers rather than older audiences. Our target audience isn't for any specific gender but it sways more towards a female audience, although only a little. It is more for a female audience as it includes relationships and many female main characters. Our film is aimed at a more middle class audience as that is mainly each characters status within the film as their costume is smart and casual and they are at a party in a middle class home. The location of our film is in Sutton in England. This could pull in a local audience as they will be able to recognise the area. However during our film we will only include house scenes so the only identification of where it is located is through dialogue/accents.

 

It is important to ensure that our target audience is met as it shows our film has a clear focus and they have essentially helped with the content within the film. For example, a reason why target audience is important, a horror genre doesn't have a large amount of 30+ year old viewers, so if a horror was aimed for them there wouldn't be a large audience as it isn't a film they would usually watch.