Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product would be teenagers and possible young adults, roughly 16-25. This is because the storyline of the film is childish and not a very believable concept, therefore younger people are more likely to get more involved with the idea rather than older people. Younger people, especially teenagers usually prefer crazy ideas and unbelievable stories in their films whereas older people stereotypically prefer more serious, realistic and possibly truthful stories.

Also, the characters in Red Run are 17, relating to the teenage audience and most likely encouraging teenagers to watch the film opening. With our film being a similar story to Child’s Play, we can relate our audience to theirs and I know that Red Run will gain a big audience as Child’s Play (1988) grossed $6,583,000 in its opening weekend on 1377 screens and $44,196,684 (Worldwide). This shows that people are obviously interested in the killer doll concept, especially seeing as the film became a franchise, later leading to another four films based on the killer doll idea.

Looking at films that relate to Red Run such as Halloween and Child’s Play both had similar target audiences of 16-25 and with both of these films being extremely successful this leads me to believe that LS29 have decided on the right, appropriate target audience. However, with the target audience being as low as 25, I don’t believe that the promotion and distribution of Red Run rules out an older target audience and I don’t feel as if people older than 25 will be put off watching the film, due to the marketing which plays a huge part in the audience that is attracted to watch the film. For example, Green Zone, a $100m film wasn't marketed correctly and the film was portrayed to be too much alike the Bourne film franchise, consisting of the Bourne Identity, Supremacy, Ultimatum and Legacy, which at this time wasn't very porpular and therefore the film was a flop and lost a huge amount of money due to the marketing. For this reason, it's important that LS29 distribute Red Run in order to give a good representation of the film and to appeal to the correct audience.

Green Zone Was Marketed Too Much Alike The Bourne Films.

Green Zone - A Huge Flop For Working Title.

Another reason as to why an audience of 16-25 was chosen is simply because it’s well known that scary, horror/slasher films are more popular within teenagers of around 18-20 and they usually like the scare more than other age groups. However, linking in with the previous paragraph, if the marketing is done well, there could be features included that attract an older audience. This technique has been used before in the film Bridget Jones' Diary; the film was very English and wasn't understood by the American audience until a visual joke is shown, making the American audience laugh and engage in the film. There's a joke in Red Run which involves the main character asking if the doll is going to kill him sarcastically, only resulting in him being killed by the doll soon after.