Question 4-

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Age Range Classification

The classification of age range for films is dependent on the context within the film and how appropriate it is for different ages.

We needed to take into account the film classification rating, according to the BBFC’s (British Board of Film Classification) regulations to decide which would be appropriate.

We have based our audience classification choice from the BBFC website where they explain the boundaries that fit into each category. of ages.

They decide the age ratings by breaking it down by issues such as discrimination, drugs, horror, the tone/mood created by the narrative, dangerous behavior, nudity, sex, and violence.

‘U’- stands for Universal. It is suitable for children the ages of four and over.

A U age rating only allows ‘mild bad language’ as stated on the BBFC website.

The mood/tone given from films affects children because they may copy activity. Common themes given off from these sort of films are loyalty, honesty and friendship. They mostly end with a happy ending.

‘PG’- stands for Parental Guidance. This means the film is suitable for general viewing however some scenes may be unsuitable for young children therefore it is at the parents risk whether they want their child to view it.

Some examples of unsuitable behaviour may be-

Racism

Bullying

Bereavement.

‘12A’ means that someone has to be 12, unless accompanied by an adult, to see the film.

‘12’ is when, no matter if the audience is with an adult, they must be 12 or older.

’12’ classified films may include strong language depending on the manner in which it is used.

Discriminatory language is still unlikely to be considered appropriate to this age group.

Violence and drug use can be featured but not to be in detail.

A film rated ‘15’ means that nobody under the age of 15 can buy, rent or watch a film at a cinema.

A 15 rated film can contain:

Strong violence

Frequent strong language

Sexual nudity

Drug taking

Brief scenes of sexual violence

A film rated ’18’ is when no theme is prohibited, adults are allowed to choose their own entertainment provided that the content isn’t illegal or potentially harmful.

A film rated ’18’ can contain:

Very strong violence

Frequent strong language

Strong blood and gore

Discriminatory language and behaviour.

Researching thriller film classifications:Seven- 1995

• Contains strong bloody violence, horror and threat. The Maze Runner-

2014• Contains threat and

violence.

Inception- 2010• Contains moderate

language

The Prestige-2006• Contains moderate

violence and fatalities.

Taken-2008• Strong Violence, torture.

The most common classification of age rating for thriller films that I have researched is ’12’/’12A’. This tells me that generally, thriller films are commonly targeted at the audience age range of 12 and above.

After this research I then needed to research some sub-genre specific films, ‘psychological thrillers’ to help with my decision making to decide the correct audience for my media product.

Sub-Genre Classification- Psychological Thriller

Shutter Island-2010• Contains strong

language, bloody injury and disturbing images

The Butterfly Effect-• Contains strong

language and violence.

I have researched into psychological thrillers and found that they seemed to be mainly 15 age ratings.

My research into thrillers and psychological thrillers has helped me to decide what my own thriller opening sequence classification age range would be.

I have reached the conclusion that I will classify my product as a 12 age rating. Even though my target audience during my planning was 15-25 year olds I have decided to go for an age rating of 12 because moderate violence is featured, shown though the stabbing, but it was not brutal or bloody because there are no shots of the knife actually stabbing the two characters.

The audience questionnaire that we produced at an earlier date has helped us to identify the key aspects that our audience would want to appear in our media product.

We found that they’d like to see elements of mind games and suspense in a psychological thriller; we kept to this by adding a time shift and knife shots revealing little detail, provoking questions and therefore building suspense.

Because it was only an opening sequence, myself and my group members decided not to reveal who was the protagonist and who was the antagonist as it also builds a tense atmosphere.