So, you have made your master piece. After hours, days, weeks, months maybe even years your magnum opus is finally complete! Now what? Who watches finished films? Obviously that would have to be the public, otherwise known as an audience. But no one goes to see it. No one streams it. Why? The film is perfect! It twists and turns like a roller-coaster, it looks like it came straight out of Hollywood. Hell you truly believe this could win awards. So what went wrong? You didn't think about who the film was truly for.
What do I mean by that? Well, it's very rare that a film is made for a single person. This is because of the horrible F word, Finances. If a film makes no money, the studio behind the project will be less inclined to support future projects, whether that be a sequel or another piece by the people behind it e.g. the director. At the heart of this creative industry, is money.
The key to a successful projects, in your own eyes as well as the studios, is to focus from the very beginning on who your audience are. This will effect everything about your film. How it's written, who you cast in lead roles, what style it's filmed in, the colouring, the soundtrack, the overall sound design and almost every other part of the project will need to be carefully chosen in order to target your selected audience.
All these elements were key during pre-production, production and post-production on my latest short film, Scribes. Making sure we were focusing on are desired audience was key when making a variety of creative and practical choices about the film.
First things first was deciding are age demographic. We knew from the beginning that the film was not going to be aimed towards children. This was due to the overall theming of the film and the underlying story arches of the lead characters. This also meant we could use more colour language e.g. swearing.
Knowing we were making it for young adults upwards was one thing, but that is still a huge demographic. To narrow it down, we looked into what style the film would take visually and who it would appeal too. This also effected what equipment we would be using. After waving to and fro, we decided on a cinematic look using the Black magic pocket cine-camera. We chose this style as we wanted to move away from the typical video look given by DSLRs and to more of a cinematic style that the Black magic produces. This would appeal to those looking for more of a movie experience and adds a level of professionalism that we loved.
A key part of finding your audience is the genre that the film fits into. People who love sci fi will go watch sci fi, people who love romance will go see romance and so on so forth. Are film slotted into the thriller/mystery category.
Having a film which looked amazingly cinematic as well as written in more of an adult style and with the genre of thriller/mystery gave us the audience that we were to focus on. This informational is also key for after the film is produced as it will decide how it is advertised and, if it goes on the festival circuit, what film festivals or competitions it is entered into. By showing and putting the film into the right places, you can up your chances of it either being bought or getting recognition through awards.
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