Target Audience and BBFC rating

Target Audience:

For our film opening, we have identified our primary target market will be males of the age of 15+. This is also based on the fact that the two main protagonists are male. The 2 central protaganists are of different age with different personal issues which may address different audiences as they can relate to these problems.  Recent research shows that '15-24 year olds made up the largest proportion of the UK cinema audience, at 31%.' This is beneficial towards the possible success of our film. 
A wide range of genres appealed to women, whereas men were drawn to films with a strong action element. The film contains thug-like behaviour and violence which attraction male attention. Despite this, a secondary target audience of females may be attracted based on the emotional theme related to the older protagonist. The age range for our target audience is 15-30.

Age-
Normally in a social realist film the age rating is 15 and above. The is primarily because the target audience they are trying to promote their film too, is an older audience. They tend to aim for an older target audience due to the untypical storylines that youths wouldn't particularly appreciate or understand. There is also the point that there is usually heavy amount of violence, sex, drugs etc... that adults wouldn't want their children seeing. And so the rating legally has to be a 15. Another aspect of age is the use of teenage characters. This is shown in 'This is England', 'Ill manors' and 'Billy Elliot' for examples. This use of a teenage cast appeal to a teenage audience as they can relate to certain characters and understand the characters. Although in some cases films are rated 18 so teenagers cant watch it e.g 'This is England'.

Gender-
Gender is another important aspect as a social realism film must try to attract both a female and male audience. Films often do this by creating feel and emotion. For example, Tyrannosaur uses a predominantly violent male protagonist which promotes the film to men but also adds romance to promote a female audience too. This can be very beneficial to the success of a film as it opens up the amount of people going to see the film.

BBFC Rating:

For our film opening, we have decided to rate our film a 15. This is based on the fact it contains violence, drug use and discriminate language or behaviour. This means that No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15 rated video. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age. This enables us to add features relating to our genre of social realism. 

What might I see in a 15 rated film or video?

•   strong violence

•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').

•   portrayals of sexual activity

•   strong verbal references to sex

•   sexual nudity

•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence

•   discriminatory language or behaviour

•   drug taking