Evaluation: Who would be your audience for your media product?

Before I define my target audience, I need to decide what rating would be given to my film, as naturally this defines a certain starting point for my audience. The two organisations I would need to predominantly rate my film would be the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and the Motion Picture Assocation of America (MPAA) as they are the organisations that determine movie ratings in countris where my film would gain the most attention.
The ratings system of the BBFC are; Universal, Parental Guidance, 12A, 12, 15, 18, and Restriced 18. While the MPAA's rating system is; General, Parental Guidance, PG-13, R (under 17), and NC-17 (17 and under).
For the BBFC rating, I would consider my film to be rated as a 15. This is due to the fact that 15's and 18's are generally the ratings for crime/action thriller films because of their inclusion of murder, the wide portrayal or even glorifying of crime, and the gritty nature of the characters. Also i intend to include elements of psychological thrillers through the killers interaction witht the detectives, which is usually lost on younger audiences. From the off, my film immidiately includes death and will go on to do so in the rest of the film aswell. However I don't believe it to be an 18 due to the plot being more focused on the intrigue of finding the killer rather than the gory nature of the killer and his deeds.
I think R would be the appropriate rating for MPAA system as although I personally think 17 is too high a cut off age, I more strongly feel 13 is too low an age. Also the larger gaps between the ages of the MPAA system indicates to me they are more strict with film ratings than the BBFC.



I believe my target audience would be mainly be the young adult demographic of 18-25, however this is in no way the only audience I would aim at. I'd imagine due to the focus on the psychological nature of crime than the gory side, older audiences would also appreciate the film. In terms of gender, thrillers would normally be perceived as appealing more to a male audience, but not ruling out a female fanbase for the same reasons as why older viewers may enjoy it. In terms of socio-economic group, groups B/C seem to be the most likely to watch the film, with C likely being more prominent as students who fall perfectly into our age demographic will be in that socioeconomic group.

These were my initial thoughts on the target audience I believe they have been upheld through some quick surveys I did where all the people in my class who fit into my main target audience of young males said they would be interested to see the film. Whereas when I asked people out of this group such as those over 25 or female, although most responses were positive, there were those who said it would not interest them.