Research - Audience Profile (Elliot)

Audience profiling allows media businesses to narrow down their audience/customers to find their target audience and it is best for such industries to define their target audience before marketing their products. This allows for maximum success, particularly in the film industry where marketers can tailor marketing campaigns to reach their specified audience and construct their media pieces to suit them. A target audience is an audience that is most relevant to the media product and to whom the product is targeted towards, hence the name 'target' audience. Factors to consider when marketing to a target audience may include, but are not limited to:
 - Age
 - Gender
 - Religion
 - Race
 - Sexuality
 - Education
 - Occupation
 - Income

The FDA - Film Distributors' Association

With regards to the film industry, the Film Distributors' Association Ltd. (FDA), originally established in London in 1915 is the trade body for theatrical film distributors in the UK - the companies that release films for UK  cinema audiences - and liaises and works with individuals, companies and organisations. FDA's Council, or board, comprising a senior representative of each member company, normally meets six times a year and considers only matters of generic interest to film distributors.

The website includes a calendar informing users of the UK Film release schedule - past, present and future. Here you can view the scheduled films for release in the UK over the recent and coming months. Moreover, it features a section on the UK monthly cinema admission for each month and year. Additionally, they have a featured section on the top 100 films of all time and top 100 films in UK cinemas

The BBFC - British Board for Film Classification

The BBFC (British Board for Film Classification) is a non-governmental organization, founded by the film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom and set guidelines for age ratings of films.Two key principles that affect the rating of a film are: (1) of intent to protect children and vulnerable adults from potentially harmful or otherwise unsuitable content and (2) to help those with responsibility for children such as parents, to make informed viewing decisions. The BBFC has a variety of age ratings and, as a group, we feel that 15 would be a suitable rating for out thriller. This means that no person(s) under the age of 15 would be allowed to view it in cinema or buy/rent it.

What might I see in a 15 rated film or video?

 - strong violence
 - frequent strong language
 - portrayals of sexual activity
 - strong verbal references to sex
 - sexual nudity
 - brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
 - discriminatory language or behaviour
 - drug taking

In a nutshell, the product must not display or endorse any discriminatory language or behaviour. Also, it must not promote or encourage drug misuse or self harm and easily accessible substances also may not be shown. At 15 sexual activity can be portrayed, but usually without strong detail. 

If this is the case however, then why would our product not be rated 18 instead? A good question - but in general, 18 films contain significantly more graphic references to sex and strong portrayals of violence. 

18 works are for adults and can contain strong issues such as:
 - very strong violence
 - frequent strong/very strong language
 - strong portrayals of sexual activity
 - scenes of sexual violence
 - strong horror
 - strong blood and gore
 - real sex (in some circumstances)
 - discriminatory language and behaviour

BBFC’s public consultations and The Human Rights Act 1998 states that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment however, very dangerous or criminal  material that has been a commission of a criminal offence may be cut.

Due to the fact that our thriller would be lacking in this as most of the 'thriller elements' will come from psychological aspects not physical, it would be foolish to cap-line the age rating for an older audience. Although it could be argued that perhaps some 15-year-olds might not be able to understand the content, this is not the case as the content will be simple and the plot not overly complicated. In addition, by having a younger age rating, the film becomes available to a wider audience and so allows for greater success. Not only this, but by turning to recent thrillers such as Lucy (Besson, 2014) or The Hunger Games - Catching Fire (Lawrence, 2014) we can see that similar thrillers were also very successful amongst the ages of 15-18 and so this age rating would be most suitable. Finally, this rating is at the bottom of the key demographic for film viewing, thus, having such a rating could be strategically clever.