Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has helped us choose what certificate to make our film. As a group we decided on a fifteen rating as if we had made it an eighteen certificate, then we would have lost out on large range of audience seeing as if it was an eighteen then people of fifteen wouldn’t be able to see it and that would mean our film could lose out on an exceed able amount of profit. This happened with Bruno (Larry Charles, 2009) when it was first released into the cinema. It was originally rated as an eighteen certificate but the film company realised they would lose out on a considerable amount of audience as Borat (Larry Charles, 2006) was such a hit with this age group. In the end some footage deemed unsuitable for a fifteen certificate was cut out and thus it became a fifteen rating.

 The fifteen rating was also decided because of the boundaries; for example we didn’t want our film too violent and although there is a murder, it is suggested violence and the pain isn’t focused on which is what the BBFC states is allowed in a fifteen rating. I feel that the only pain that is shown is the main character’s pain of his loss of life. We also feel that there wouldn’t be much sexual references or a wide range of strong language, but there might be the occasional outburst from the character and this also relates to a fifteen.

In our audience research we asked ‘what age do you think most watches thrillers’ with the choices of under 20, 21-34 or 35+. We asked twenty candidates and the most popular answer was 21-34 year olds. We didn't ask what gender they thought most watched thrillers but we have obviously learnt this for next time so we can either prove or contradict the stereotype that only middle aged males watch thrillers.

Although we have decided that our film is a fifteen certificate, originally we rated it as a twelve. After talking to both our media teachers about it and re watching our sequence, we collectively decided it should be rated as a fifteen because our teachers pointed out that there was an underlying malicious tone to it that suggests more mature themes in it. This was annoying to some members of our group because some of us had already written this question but with a twelve certificate in mind. This meant that we had to re write what we had already written but luckily it was easily changeable because a twelve and fifteen rating are similar in some aspects of the boundaries.