Research Into Potential Audience

It is not uncommon for psychological thrillers to contain disturbing and violent elements. As a result, they often hold a certificate of 15 or 18 and are most often viewed by a more adult audience that can appreciate such themes. It is also a trait for psychological thrillers to be intellectually demanding or intentionally confusing. This is indeed the case for Memento (2000), in which a man creates a strange system to help him remember things so he can hunt for the murderer of his wife without his short-term memory loss being an obstacle. The presence of mental strain or disturbing content is often not marketable for younger audiences, and thus the genre is more popular within older age groups.

The above pie chart displays the distribution of age groups that view psychological thriller films. The most occupied segments of the chart appear to be the ages of 26-40 (at 35%) and 19-25 (at 24%). It seems likely that most of the data of the 26-40 age bracket will be skewed more towards 26. There is also a reasonable number of viewers in the 13-18 range (17%). In light of this information, it would be sensible to target our film at audiences approximately between the ages of 18 and 35. By calculation from information in the chart, the average age of psychological thriller audiences is around 27 years old. However, given that our film features two teenagers as the main characters, it seems likely that the audience of our film would be slightly younger than this; perhaps more towards their early 20s. This would therefore be the approximate age of our target audience.

When considering our ideal target audience, we must also take into account the gender of the viewer. Within this genre, the proportion of gender will vary from film to film. Nonetheless, there does appear to be an overall trend (seen below).

The psychological thriller genre appears to be popular with males and females; although 14% more popular with males. Given the nature of the overall thriller genre, it seems likely that viewers are seeking some kind of excitement; a trait that is more common amongst the male population. Hence, the distribution is slightly male dominated. While a skew in the data is clearly present, it is unlikely to have any significant effect on the nature of our target audience. Furthermore, our film contains aspects appealing to both genders (e.g. - a female protagonist, adrenaline inducing scenes). Thus, it seems unnecessary to adapt our film in any way based on the gender of the viewer; it can be equally targeted at both simultaneously.