Research into audience
General Target Audience
Common themes in most psychological thrillers are often violence and psychological issues. Themes like these could be too intellectually demanding for younger audiences and also be too traumatic to watch, therefore, thriller films are often targeted at young adults. For example Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Black Swan and Prisoners are all thriller films that contain adult themes such as sex, drugs, kidnap and torture.
Our film Saving Grace will be targeted at young adults (16 - 25) but will have a 12A certificate rating. We chose to rate our film as a 12A as when we researched film certificates on the British Board of Film Classification website we learnt that themes such as sex, drugs and imitable behaviour were allowed to be shown if they weren't graphic, detailed or glamourised.
When filming the short film we have decided to be modest and careful about how we shoot and portray certain stressful and traumatic scenes in order to keep the age rating as low as possible. For example, when we film the scene where Grace is getting her drink spiked in the night club we will only use one quick shot of a pill being dropped into her drink in order to control the amount of distress the audience may feel after seeing this.
Another example of a scene being shot in a careful way is at the beginning when Grace wakes up confused in a stranger's bed. There will be obvious connotations that something horrible has happened to her such as a voice over asking the audience rhetorical questions relating to her situation, however, Grace will only be filmed laying in bed not really knowing what to do.
Characters
A key appeal for the target audience in a thriller film is character. Audiences must be able to relate and build a rapport with them as the narrative unfolds. The Scream films are a perfect example of teenage characters being used to attract a young adult audience base. The use of having a mainly teenage cast with each character having their own individual storylines was effective as the audience could relate to certain characters and therefore become enthralled and emotional at what is happening to them in the film.
Mystery
A key element within the the thriller genre is the theme of disguise which creates a mysterious atmposphere in the film. Conventionally, the antagonist is the one who uses a disguise so the audience find it difficult to get to know the character properly. In our own film Saving Grace we are using this technique and have decided to not reveal who the antagonist is until the end. We hope this will keep the audience on the edge of their seats and influence them to keep watching until the end to find out who they really are.
When filming the short film we have decided to be modest and careful about how we shoot and portray certain stressful and traumatic scenes in order to keep the age rating as low as possible. For example, when we film the scene where Grace is getting her drink spiked in the night club we will only use one quick shot of a pill being dropped into her drink in order to control the amount of distress the audience may feel after seeing this.
Another example of a scene being shot in a careful way is at the beginning when Grace wakes up confused in a stranger's bed. There will be obvious connotations that something horrible has happened to her such as a voice over asking the audience rhetorical questions relating to her situation, however, Grace will only be filmed laying in bed not really knowing what to do.
Characters
A key appeal for the target audience in a thriller film is character. Audiences must be able to relate and build a rapport with them as the narrative unfolds. The Scream films are a perfect example of teenage characters being used to attract a young adult audience base. The use of having a mainly teenage cast with each character having their own individual storylines was effective as the audience could relate to certain characters and therefore become enthralled and emotional at what is happening to them in the film.
Mystery
A key element within the the thriller genre is the theme of disguise which creates a mysterious atmposphere in the film. Conventionally, the antagonist is the one who uses a disguise so the audience find it difficult to get to know the character properly. In our own film Saving Grace we are using this technique and have decided to not reveal who the antagonist is until the end. We hope this will keep the audience on the edge of their seats and influence them to keep watching until the end to find out who they really are.
No comments:
Post a Comment