Research On Audience

Thriller is such a wide and varied Genre, therefore when we consider what audience our film will be tailored towards we have to be very careful. The amount of sub-genres and the different type of audience they attract means we have to be very considerate of the type of film that we are making. An example of this is that more women will be attracted to a romantic comedy or more of a male audience for an action film.

Our film could be described as a hybrid of two thriller sub-genres, the hybrid would be between psychological thriller and crime thriller. The decision allows us to target a specific audience. The audience that our film is likely to attract would be both male and female, the specific age range that the film will target will be between 16-25. It is most likely to attract this specific audience due to the characters in the film being teenagers, making the film more likely to appeal to the teenage generation. Also an audience of this specific age should be gripped by the excitement and suspense the film presents.

The Thriller genre tends to be aimed from the age 12+. The genre however isn't just aimed towards children primarily, a lot of films classified in the thriller genre tend to have a much older audience due to the nature of the films and are therefore rated 16+ and to a lesser extent 18+. The thriller genre targets this audience primarily because with the rating 12+ the film will appeal to a much larger audience, specifically those interested in thriller films. 15+ is much the same, however, unfortunately this targets off a little sector of the audience between the ages of 12 and 15. But one of the benefits of this age rating is that it allows the film to be more controversial in a sense there are less limitations and almost any kind of sequence can be put in. However the rating of 18+ does exist within the thriller genre, an example of this is 'Pulp Fiction'(1994). However the 18+ rating is targeted more at the horror genre, it is therefore less evident within the Thriller Genre as it cuts of the key demographic for the thriller film which is the teenage audience.

The thriller genre has many subgenres such as:



Action-Adventure Thriller
Treasure hunt, search for a lost archaeological site, the worlds lost meteorite, a mystery lost to time--action-adventure brings back our childhood fantasies of being the adventurer. This is also one of the hardest subgenres of thriller to write because of the amount of action required.

Disaster Thriller
Any kind of disaster that can affect lots of people--a dam bursting, a tornado sweeping through Los Angeles, a luxury cruise liner sinking.

Historical Thriller
Thrillers set in the past, usually combined with other subgenres. This particular subgenre is rather uncommon.

Medical Thriller
Robin Cook introduced us to the medical thriller, where modern medical technology that is supposed to help people is morphed into something deadly.

Religious Thriller

Popularized by the blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, this subgenre uses the rich and long history of religion to build stories with high stakes and deadly politics.

Serial Killer Thriller
This is an extremely popular subgenre of thriller. In this subgenre, a serial killer is terrorizing a group of people with horrific violence. The detective's goal is to stop the killer before he takes his next victim.

Techno Thriller
When people talk about thriller, the first thing they usually think of is a techno thriller like Tom Clancy's books. In techno-thrillers, the technology drives the plot, whether it's new military technology for a submarine or forensics.