Target Audience and Certification

When deciding on the target audience for our film we decided to ask different people about whether they would see the film and some adults whether they would let their child see it due to some of the themes we will be displaying. We asked them questions about what genre of film they like and also asked them if they had seen and consequently enjoyed films that influenced us and are slightly similar to ours. In addition to this we also decided to look at films that influenced us and see who the main audience for these films were when they were released.

We decided to make a questionnaire on survey monkey and send it to people we know of different genders and ages. Here are the results we have found:

Certification

When deciding on the certificate for our film we looked at some of the issues and themes in our trailer and decided to look at other films and TV programs featuring similar themes.

Themes in our film include:

• Loneliness and Isolation
• Murder
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Elective Mutism 

Several films and TV programs that we have found that feature similar themes are:

This is 'Touch' the Sky 1 TV show which features a little boy who has selective mutism and has chosen to never speak. The difference between this boy and the young by that will feature in our trailer is that the boy in ours has become a mute later in his life due to a traumatic event that he witnessed. The certification is a 12 due to other themes in the program.

This is the film 'The Art of Getting By' which features a young boy, who although finds a friend and falls in love, is very isolated and tends to wander alone much like the boy in our trailer. The certification is a PG-13 as it is mainly a coming of age drama merged with a romantic comedy.

This is the film 'Speak' based on the novel with the same name. The film's themes are very similar to ours as the girl in the film experiences a blurred trauma over the summer of a sexual assault and starts high school a selective mute. The certificate given to the film was a PG-13 as it doesn't contain too much violence or the use of expletives.

The film 'The Piano' was made in 1993 and is also about a woman who is a mute however not due to a traumatic experience. But as it contains themes of violence much the same as ours it was given the certificate R in America and a 15 in the UK.

In addition to our research of films we also looked at the BBFC website where they discuss classification of films and what each certificate entails.

As a result of the answers we got from our survey and the research we have done into certification we have decided that our film will be a 15 certificate and our target audience will be females and males from the age of 15 and over.