Evaluating Our Target Audience

Before we can fully start devloping the ideas for our film we need to think about our audience and who we will be targetting in particular. From our questionnaire results we can see the age group is rather large ranging from 15 - 35 year olds, we hope their life experiences, for example loss of someone close to them, or hard emotional experiences may help them relate to the story-line and the characters. Due to such a large age range we have used different theories to narrow down our target audience.

If we use Rubicam and Young's idea of audience theory we should be aiming our film towards a mixture of Explorer types, Succeeder types, Reformer types and also the Mainstream types. We believe our film will provide something which all these groups would enjoy. Also we plan to make the audience become aligned with our main character and feel as if they are in her shoes, feeling her emotions, this is perhaps why there is such a broad spectrum of audience types.

An Explorer type are the people driven by a need for discovery, challenge and new frontiers. An audience member of this type would be aligned with Olivia's need to discover her real mum, to discover who she actually is, what see looks like, the mysteries surrounding her and enjoy the journey and obsicles in Oliva's way.

A Succeeder type are the poeople who possess self-confidence and have a strong goal orientation. An audience member of this type would identify with Oliva's need to find her real mum also. Oliva is set and is confident she will find what she is looking for (reaching her goal). A succeeders need in life is for control and that particular audience will see her need for control as she takes charge of herself as she ventures out to find her real mum, changing her life forever.

The Reformer type are the people who value their own judgement "don't tell me what tgo do or think". Their need is for enlightenment which I think will be noticed in the film as this also plays a part in Oliva trying to discover her real mum. Just who is she? I beleive the Reformers in the audience will take note.

And finally the Mainstream type of audience. These are the people who live in the world of the domestic and the everyday. They consentrate on the way they live their lives and the choices they make. They think more 'we' than 'me'. As their name implies they are the mainstream of society and respond to 'family' brands. Their core need is for security. We think that as the mainstream members of the audience become aligned with Oliva they will almost take her under their wing and feel sympathetic towards her. Their big statement of family will make this film even more attractive to them as it is all about family.

However using Mcquail and Katz theory of gratification states that audiences select the Media they use differently, they could use it for information, to define their identity, for social interaction and finally for diversion, play and entertainment. We believe our target audience will use our film to use the characters to help define themselves (identification) and for a connection with the characters on the screen (social interaction).