Audience and Rules and regulations

Age ratings:

What are age ratings?

In order to protect children from unsuitable and even harmful content in films the BBFC give the public information they might need about a particular film. This include age rating, genre, length who is suitable to watch the film or if there is anything in the film that will cause harm to anyone who views the film. The BBFC examines and age rates films before they are released. The BBFC are a good guideline to a suitable film for anyone.

The BBFC look at issues such as discrimination, drugs, horror, dangerous and easily imitable behavior, language, nudity, sex, and violence when making decisions. The more frequent these groups are in the film the higher the age rating meaning the film is only suitable for adults.

BBFC reviews of some thriller films:

SNATCH

Type of media: Feature

Approved Running time: 98m 30s

BBFCInsight:Contains frequent strong bloody violence & very strong language

Director(s): Guy Ritchie

Cast includes: Brad Pitt, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Ewen Bremner, Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Jason Flemyng, Alan Ford, Stephen Graham, Mike Reid, Rade Serbedzija

Cut: This work was passed uncut.

With Snatch because of its strong bloody violence and strong inappropriate language used so frequently the BBFC has given it an age rating of 18, children and young teenagers could learn such violence and language and repeat it in real life, which no one wants anyone to get hurt,also children of that age shouldn't be using that kind of language.


Sherlock Holmes:

Type: Feature

Approx. Running minutes: 125

Release dates: 26/04/2010, 26/12/2009

BBFCInsight: Contains moderate violence

Genre(s): Mystery, Crime, Adventure

Director(s): Guy Ritchie

Cast includes: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, James Fox, Hans Matheson, William Houston, William Hope, Bronagh Gallagher, Geraldine James, Robert Maillet, Joe Egan, Robert Stone, David Garrick

Unlike Snatch, Sherlock Holmes is suitable for young teenagers as it has been given a age range of 12, it is 12 because it only contains moderate violence whereas Snatch had non stop heavy violence. The violent in Sherlock Holmes is too little for there to be a higher age rating and because its story is mainly mystery the children and young teenagers mind will be focused on that and not the violence.

Audience for thrillers as a whole

Demographics and Pyschographics

The two main ways a audience profile for a film is created is through demographics and psychographics.

Demographics defines the human population by what they do, it breaks the population into six different groups with lettered coding to show the difference between income and the types of job roles what fit into the category.

 Psychographics like demographics also splits the human population into different groups but this time with personalities and behavior traits.

 When it comes to applying these demographics and psychographics to thrillers they always change with every film as each different film has different genres and narratives that appeal to different kinds of people, for example the two films i looked at earlier: Sherlock Holmes and Snatch, Sherlock Holmes will have a different target audience with different demographics and psychographics as its genre is detective and its narrative will be slower as the characters and the audience take their time to piece up the evidence resulting in the end catching a killer etc, whereas Snatch being a gangster genre its narrative will be very fast paced with lots of action targeting an audience that like to feel gripped by action instead of a puzzle solving narrative.

Sherlock Holmes 

Demographics: 

 With Sherlock Holmes as it is a detective sub genre of a thriller the kind of person that would watch this kind of film are people that are quite educated but who still have time to watch such detective movies of which may have a long running time and a hard plot to follow and piece together so the categories the target audience of Sherlock Holmes would wall in are C1/C2/D and maybe E. Starting at C1 and not B because the people in the B category such as teachers and graphic designers wouldn't have enough time to watch such detective films where as the people in categories C1/C2/D and maybe E would have time to watch these films as their jobs do allow time for it.

Psychographics:

Again as Sherlock Holmes is a detective thriller it may require puzzle solving and a strong mind to follow the plot, the psychographics the target audience would fall into is explorers and resigned; Explorers because they seek adventure and exploration, this complimented greatly with the puzzle solving side of the detective work and the adventure of the pieces of the case coming together to reach a goal at the end and the viewer feeling a sense of accomplishment. Resigned because it compliments the fact resigned people like seeing tradition and are interested in the past what there is plenty in Sherlock Holmes as it is set in the Victorian times.

Snatch

Demographics:

With Snatch it is a gangster type thriller containing a lot of fast paced action and gripping fight scenes, because of this it has different demographics than Sherlock Holmes. The categories for the Snatch target audience would fall in the C2/D and E as the film doesn't have a plot that needs a strong mind to inter prate the plot so students just starting and the unemployed are perfect candidates but then C2 and D people who have got a good education can still watch it as they may like the action also and again as the same as Sherlock Holmes these categories have time to watch these thrillers where as the others may not.

Psychographics:

As the target audience for Snatch may be the less educated the personalities of the viewers may be more physical instead of stronger minds, this maybe why they prefer films containing such violence that is in Snatch so the category that would fit Snatch's audience is strugglers as they have few resources beyond physical instead of mind and also they are the people that by junk food and their behavior isn't the best, this showing a relationship between the audience and the characters in the moviescape as they feel themselves as some sort of gangsters.