Target Audience

Shaun Of The Dead

The target audience that this film is aimed at is a young adult audience of ages from 15-19 and stereotypically male. This is because it's quite a modern film and it's a spoof, which many male teenagers prefer due to the specific type of humour. Whereas the elderly will not watch this due to the graphical imagery and the humour may not come across as funny as it would be for a teenager as it is modern humour. Also, many elderly people are more into documentaries or historic genres rather than horror. However, there is an increase in the number of teenagers whom are watching the horror genre as it's becoming more popular within the film industry.

            (1) Income bracket/status: Bollywood- Low budget

            (2) Age: Middle age (25-45)

            (3) Gender: Both (mainly women due to it being a romance)

            (4) Race: Asian (Indian)

            (5)  Location of the film opposite: India

From the image on the left, it shows that it's a Bollywood genre film due to it being mainly targeted at an Indian audience due to the bright colours used, such as yellow and orange which are stereotypical colours for Indian clothing and films. The class represented is a middle to upper class due to the smart costumes worn such as jewellery and the crystal white suit. 

Demographics

A method of categorising known as demographics is used . The demographic data is used to shape the text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listening habits.

One common way of describing audiences is to use a letter code to show their income bracket:

As I'm a student, I am currently at point E. In my opinion, I feel victimised due to this being another form of hierarchy, and I'm not being seen as not as important as others in society due to me not having a working status yet as I'm still in education. 

With the film Shaun of the Dead, the rank that it will be aimed at is D to E. This is because the characters are shown as working class people and with their costumes, they are not dressed smart and they're wearing casual wear. Also, the location of the film is at a council estate in London, which many of this audience come from.

Cross-Cultural Consumer Characterisation model

-A more useful audience segmentation model than the traditional ABC1 categorization.

-It acknowledges the global nature of media audiences.

-Divides audiences into 7 types of consumer.

The 4 main categories are (MARS):

MAINSTREAMERS, ASPIRERS, REFORMERS, SUCCEEDERS.

-The other categories to be added to this are (ERS) EXPLORER RESIGNED  STRUGGLER.

-It takes the following as consumer motivations: SECURITY, CONTROL, STATUS, INDIVIDUALITY, FREEDOM, SURVIVAL and ESCAPE.

Clear links with Maslow

Gears- Identifying the audience. For example gender; ethnicity; age; region/nationality; socio-economic group.

4C- MAINSTREAMERS, ASPIRERS, REFORMERS, SUCCEEDERS.

Firstly, I researched Thir13en Ghost due to it being a horror/ thriller genre, which is the same as my film genre therefore I took ideas from the film trailer to include in my own opening. For example, the mise-enscene use of a knife and blood, which links to Barthes Enigma Theory due to using the symbolic code, which gives clues to the audience of what may happen next and therefore they would want to watch more as these clues are drawing in their attention.
However in my film opening, I will not show the murderers face due to using silhouettes of them and close-up's of the dead victims, which is a use of the Hermeneutic Code which refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the watcher. The purpose of this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all is revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved.
Furthermore, the mise-en-scene also includes dim lighting and facial disfigurement of the antagonists, which I may include in my film opening  due to this also being a noter convention of the horror genre as it frightens the audience and builds tension.