Target Audience PP#11

     I've talked a lot about the production aspects, especially the more literal aspects of it since I'm a huge sucker when it comes to doing pre-planning stuff that involves physical aspects, like location finding and fighting and all that.  But today we're gonna take it back a notch, and determine who the fuck this film is for.  

    Fight Simulator VR is a sci-fi action film that leans more toward action than sci-fi, yet still has a great combination of both.  It follows a teenager named David who manages to land his hands on a black market-listed VR headset, only allowed in the hands of a few.  He regards the caution labels, straps in, and is placed in the most realistic combat tutorial ever.  The fighting and language get extreme for good reason.  It's a video game!  And everything in video games is amped up to 10.  Language is explicit, and blood is abundant, which is why this film is going to be targeted at 14-35-year-old middle-class males.  Lemme break down exactly why this demographic is chosen.

• The average age of a gamer is apparently 35 years old, within the United States.  I feel like my film can most definitely tap into those older audiences who simply love video games.
• 58% of total gamers in the United States are aged <18-35 years old, which is why I choose my demographic to reach out to these individuals.
• 54% of gamers in the U.S. are males, which is no surprise.  Figured I'd target them since they make up the majority of my main audience, while also gearing certain conventions of film, like fighting and action, to people who really like it.  

Here's a pie chart from Statista that shows the demographic range of ages for gamers!

• I also chose middle-class individuals because I believe they would have the easiest access to not only the distribution platform that I plan to release this on, but when it comes to video games, they would most likely have more access than lower-class individuals.  According to a study done at Columbia UIniversity, the digital divide when it comes to video games is explicit, showing that lower-income families tend to distance their children from game-sharing networks for financial reasons.  Now, I question the validity of this article, as they only collected data from two high schools, and I feel like a larger sample size would've led to more definitive results, along with being outdated by about 15 years, however, I believe a logical point can still be drawn from the article.  Lower-income individuals are going to have less access to video games, which is why I want to target middle-class individuals who would be able to relate to the main premise of the film.  

    Some more notes:

• I understand that my film is going to be bloody and have some bad words in it, but I'm still reaching toward that teenage audience as opposed to just adults.  Kids all the time play violent video games, and they're well aware of the content they're viewing, which is why I believe kids are going to love my bloody film as well.  

So yeah, I believe that this film would follow similar target audiences to films like Ready Player one and John Wick, and maybe even The Matrix!

-Noa