Target audience and BBFC Classification

In my short film the central protagonist is 18 years old, which of course helps target a young adult audience between the ages of 15-24. It also contains many social issues that effect teenagers, such as bullying, smoking, self-harming and conforming to peer pressure. It also contains images of drug use and scenes of self-harming which I feel is inappropiate for anyone under the age of 15. BBFC states that Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable. For example BBFC has just recently classified 2009 'Hell's Pavement' as a 15, as it contains strong language, scenes of self-harming and hard drug abuse.

I have not cast any non-caucasian characters in my film however my film is not targeting a specific caucasian audience as I do not want to narrow my audience. Many productions cast a non-caucasian cast and do not suffer commercially, such as Joe Wright's 'Pride and Prejudice' but this is more because of the time period it was set in and Nick Moore's 2008 'Wild Child' which took around $21,534,664 worldwide. Which proves that having a non-caucasian cast does not effect the sales dramatically of a film, or at all.

My main protagonist in my film is an 18 year old girl which helps the teenage female audience relate to her as she is the same age range and gender, it also attracts a wider age range of females if the central character is a woman like in the 2001 film, 'The Others' where the main protagonist was a female. And a key audience for short films seems to be the younger generation who seem to be more willing and are able to access short films on digitial technoolgy such as the i-phone. Also because the genre of my film is 'supernatural', a sub-genre of horror this should appeal to both males and females as it is a genre that is not specifically tied to one sex such as rom-coms. Supernatural is a sub-genre of Horror, this type of genre strives to educe fear and apprehension from their viewers by colliding supernatural into reality situations. Everything a normal society values is systematically destroyed throughout the film. It often can be completely paranormal without any reality whatsoever and are based on classic literature of the gothic/horror genre. They can also incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction (sci-fi), fantasy, black comedies or thriller.

I have not cast any actors in my film with a strong, recognizable accent, the central protagonist has a neutral accent which helps not restrict my potential audience as films featuring strong welsh, scottish, irsh and northen accents struggle at the box office as they cannnot be as easily identifiable for an international audience.

Because my Short Film is of the supernatural genre and it contains images of self-harming and drug abuse I would suggest that my potential audience would be fans of supernatural films such as 'The Others' but because it also contains scenes of drug and alcohol taking and the main protagonist is of the age of 18 I would say it also attract an audience who are fans of the teen drama, 'Skins.'