Primary Target Audience Research

In 1974, Blumler and Katz created the Uses and Gratification theory which categorizes the ways in which audiences interact with media products, and it is evident that, as a film, media product is wanted from the audience for: entertainment, social interaction, and potentially information. With this in mind, knowing what the audience want to get out of the film specifically when headed by these categories, it makes my media product much more efficient as a piece of entertainment for a specific audience.

In 2008, Plunkett stated “A new generation of UK media power players are ditching the traditional gatekeepers and going straight to their audience via the web,” (Plunkett, 2008). This is just as relevant now, with the Internet being potentially the biggest worldwide phenomenon and thus this makes it so much easier to get quick audience feedback from people anywhere across the globe. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a triangular model that visually represents the amount of each level of life that humans need to live. Physical things such as food, water, and shelter are absolute essentials, and therefore lie at the bottom of the model, whereas Maslow's depiction of the least essential things to human survival come with self-actualisation. Morality, creativity, and spontaneity are the main things that can be retrieved from a humans interaction with media, more specifically my media products: films, posters, and magazine articles. However, these are still essentials, and therefore people will be looking into entertainment to find self-actualisation. 

The NRS Social Grade Table shows the break down of the class system in the UK, based on household income due to profession. Based on my direct audience reach (being a student would be other students), the likelihood of having a target audience in the highest half of the NRS table is low, and therefore a narrative that people from C2-E can relate to/will enjoy most is the best way to go with this short film, however this will depend on the feedback I get from my audience research.

In order to easily create a survey for the collection of information about my primary target audience I used a website called Survey Monkey. This allowed me to quickly type in questions and answers and decide on the way which people can respond (I thought it would be easier for it to be multiple choice so that people would be more inclined to fill it in and also this makes analysis of results much easier). Once the survey has been filled in, it then put the information on graphs and in tables so they are easy to analyse, as I will below. 

My first question was How Old Are You? and it is clear from this response that everyone who completed the survey is  young person between 13 and 25. More specifically though, the main portion of the results come from 16-21 year olds and therefore this will be my primary audience. This means I have to cater for their needs and wants in the creation of my film and auxiliary tasks in order to attract them as an audience.  

From these results it is very clear that the audience I will primarily be targeting is of males and females and therefore the representation of the characters and costume etc has the whole audience in consideration.

From the response to this question it's obvious that with an audience of 16-21 year olds, they're mostly all students or workers on low pay and therefore the classes of my audience all stay fairly low and thus the representation of the higher classes is not an essential part of the creation of my film, and also making the film accessible to all audiences by making it free to access. 

From this it is clear that my audience is predominantly heterosexual. As my film is a psychological horror (found in the information gathered later on), representation of sexualities is irrelevant to the narrative and therefore the sexualities of the characters will be unknown. 

This data shows that most of my audience do already enjoy watching short films, and only 20% don't and this means for me that at least 80% of my audience will already have experience in watching shorts and know what to expect from a short narrative, therefore I have to make it unique and interesting. 

These results show that the majority mostly prefer horrors/psychological thrillers and therefore these are the genres that my short film should fit into in order to fulfil their needs. 

From this it is clear that using an Asylum as a setting for my horror film will be most appropriate so I can make a film that this audience will enjoy.

This information tells me that the name "No Escape" has the most votes and therefore this will be the name of my short and therefore a basis for my narrative to be based around. 

From this it is clear that the people who took this survey are really keen on seeing a new horror short because the basic logline that was most popular was "A schizophrenic adolescent seeks to escape his own mind in an unlawful venture into the asylum." This shows that a film about a boy in an asylum would be the most popular narrative for my primary target audience. 




Overall, this primary target audience research has given me a really good idea on what my audience of 16-21 year-olds want to see in a short film. They would like a horror film that is titled "No Escape" and focuses the plot on a boy going into an old asylum. This is really helpful in allowing me to come up with ideas surrounding this basis that the audience has set for my film. 


My secondary target audience is made up of 13-25 years olds, people of non-hetero sexualities, and people of higher social classes, mainly C1 (potentially with representation of adult professionals). This means that, although I have a specific primary target audience, there is no limit as to the amount of people you can cater your film for, and in that I can include themes, characters, locations etc that people outside of the primary target audience can relate to, hence the secondary target audience.