Target Audience

AGE:

15-24? 15-34? Your lower starting point will be influenced by the notional BBFC rating you ascribe to your work (also compare to similar films)– the BBFC’s website has some very student-friendly features to help you with this. You could reference your work from General Studies of course! There is also a double-DVD-ROM set in the library produced by the BBFC. You may argue your film potentially appeals to younger viewers, increasingly able to circumvent these age restrictions through downloads for example, and motivated to do so by aspiring to be like their older peers (e.g. tweenagers). Are your cast reflective of your target audience age? Do you employ any slang, music or other cultural references which might be primarily familiar to a youth audience? How important is the youth audience to the film industry? (You should be able to find articles which demonstrate that cinema’s target your age group more than any other)

ETHNICITY:

If your product does include non-Caucasian characters, this will help reinforce its appeal to a multi-ethnic audience. However, you should not argue your text specifically targets a narrow Caucasian audience, many mainstream productions continuing to side-line non-Caucasian talent but not commercially suffering for this. As always, think of real-world examples here, especially if you are restricted to an entirely Caucasian cast. There is an interesting flipside to this: a range of low-budget, straight-to-DVD films principally targeted at an African American audience (especially within the horror and crime/gangster genres) produced by and starring the likes of Snoop Dogg. The impact of Asian horror over the past decade (e.g. The Ring), not just through the remakes, might be something to consider.

GENDER:

many genres are seen as gendered: sci-fi, action-adventure and horror as primarily male-oriented, period dramas and rom-coms as female, for example. This is true up to a point

– film producers don’t want to exclude half the available audience! The tough, resourceful female character (‘final girl’) at the centre of many horrors (and sci-fi/horror: Alien’s Ripley) helps to draw in a female audience notwithstanding the

crude, exploitative stereotyping of the invariably topless „scream queens‟. The comedy aspect of rom-coms helps males to overcome their reticence – and in both cases, especially for a youth audience, the movie-as-date factor cannot be overlooked! Do make some explicit

SOCIO-ECONOMIC GROUPINGS:

In crude class terms, ABs are ‘upper class’, C1 upper -middle class, C2 lower-middle class, and DE working-class (see handout for more precise detail).Typically, a complex, challenging text, perhaps relying more on dialogue than action, might be pitched to some part of an ABC1 audience (as are broadsheet newspapers like The Guardian), while a conventional slasher, often with middle-class characters, might target a C2DE audience (somewhat in line with a tabloid like The S*n). If you are employing countertypes within a horror you might argue this would help to draw in the C1s. Some horror films, especially when not centred on teens, gain sufficient critical credibility to draw in that sophisticated ABC1 audience – think of Silence of the Lambs. Plush period dramas typically appeal to ABC1s (the BBC has attracted criticism for super-serving this audience with its high-budget adaptations of the classics), while the typically more basic fare of rom-coms are generally pitched to a less wealthy audience. Again, it is worth commenting on the class profile of your characters.

NATIONALITY/REGION:

Whilst producers will not wish to restrict their potential audience to a particular part of the UK, nonetheless the southern English accent and setting retains something of a hegemonic status. Films featuring northern English, Midlands, Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish accents do face a greater challenge at the box office – although the huge success of Billy Elliot, The Full Monty and others proves this barrier is not insurmountable. This aspect may influence the company you identify as distributor (look at

distributors for Warp, WT, & Film4 productions as examples), but again you should stress you’d hope to tap into a UK-wide audience, whilst perhaps recognising the potential limitations on foreign sales. The contrasting fortunes of the similarly-budgeted films Son of Rambow and Mickybo & Me [a WT film]–  both now in the library – illustrate the commercial advantages of featuring southern English characters, while This is England is more typical of the fate of social realist movies than hits like TFMonty. Once again: address representation – are you stereotyping yourselves?! Using recognisable regional stereotypes could help a film’s prospects beyond the area it reflects.

FANS OF…

Perhaps linking back to your pitch, what existing films would you expect your potential audience to be fans of? If you were designing a promotional poster which film/s might you try and reference to help communicate the idea, but also to derive reflected glory/appeal from?

SEXUALITY:

Just as a typical film will still centre on Caucasian characters, so will heterosexuality be the default mode for any romantic aspects. Again, do not say you are targeting a heterosexual audience, but simply consider if you’re including anything which could help to draw in the ‘pink pound’ – being careful about stereotyping! It’s not uncommon to see token, heavily stereotyped, gay characters, notably the usually very camp gay best friend in many rom-coms.

PSYCHOGRAPHIC PROFILE:

You could also describe a typical would-be punter in terms of wider lifestyle and interests (e.g. a lager-drinking Sky Sports subscriber, S*n-reading Guy Ritchie fan, or a Sky Arts-subscribing, Guardian-reading liberal interested in classic literature and history)

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and if you really want to challenge yourself, do a little research on ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’  (there is a fairly good Wiki on this). You could also look at the box-office performance of recent films comparable to your own in terms of genre/narrative.

TYPICAL AUDIENCES FOR THIS GENRE:

Research audiences for your genre. If you can find articles exploring aspects such as age range, typical gender etc., great –  but at the very least have a look into the institutional side of this: box office figures especially. Is yours a currently successful/popular genre? You could try some kind of opinion poll or questionnaire (you could use a blogger gadget for this) to test out whether your supposed target audience is accurate.

Audience groups I'm doing