IMDB has been a very useful site in terms of collecting data for audience research, for each film a percentage of viewers is given, it is divided into sex etc. I have looked at a number of psychological horrors on the website and can conclude that the primary sex for this genre is male. This data may not represent all people that watch these films, it depends on how many people use the site and are active with it. The figures and conclusions I can draw will give me a a round about idea of who the audience will be, this is because of the trend in the data collected.
The early psychological horror films such as Rosemary's baby were traditionally aimed at male orientated audiences, this information surprised me as I thought this film in particular would be aimed at a female audience due to the theme of the story.
Here it is shown that the main audience for The Shining is males aged between 18-29. This data seems to trend through out the genre.
These results are again similiar for a film made 10 years later..
Looking at the results on my facebook poll the collective genre that most participants preferred was horror, which is a good results as it is the genre I have selected, it was primarily males that selected this result. This suggests to me that I need to probe more into what factors of the genre attracts males, this can be completed through creating a focus group of my target audience. Von Trier was voted as one of the favourite film directors, this is where my inspiration has originated. This question was not compulsory and so the collective answers may not represent all the participants, yet it gives me an idea of the type of styles and filmmaking that people prefer. The primary magazine purchased was film magazines (mainly empire), which allows me to see that the design and content of the magazine is popular, something I should consider when creating my own. This is something else I can enquire about with my target audience, what exactly is it that attracts them to the magazine and what else would they like to see on it. Most participants viewed films either on TV or Cinema, which is a good collective result as if I were to really create my film it would first be shown on arthouse cinema's then perhaps move to film channels on TV over a period of time, it would probably fit in well on film4 or the horror channel.
Even at present day and over the past 50 years my conclusive result is that males are the primary audience for this genre (psychological horror), males aged 18-29 will be my target audience. This age group has been configured from the data I found on IMDB and from the age groups of the people taking my poll.
It is shown from my data that it perhaps does not matter what sex the primary character of the film is, as between these popular films studied the main characters are of both sexes. As the main character for my production is a young female I believed my audience might have been primarily female, although when looking at statistics this is not proven true. The main characters in Rosemary's Baby and Silent Hill are both young females, and mainly attract a male audience, showing that it may not be the sex of the characters that determines the audience. When looking at the individual films I will try to deduct what exactly attracts an audience to this genre, be it characters, music, scenery or shots.
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