Target Audience Research

The target audience for short films tend to be a fine selection of people who are from backgrounds with experience in the film industry. For example, film enthusiasts, film critics or directors. Short films are quite often produced as a means to give ideas for feature films, or as the producer of the short film is using the idea of making as a stepping stone to display their talent, and hope that this way, a scouts person will notice their skills. It is for this reason that people with film experience are the ideal target audience as people such as directors are are likely to visit short film networks (such as BBC) hoping to find raw talent or inspiration.

Examples of short films which have been used for inspiration for feature films would be well known films such as "Napolean Dynamite", which was inspired by the Spanish short film "Peluca" (2003). The recently released computer-animated film "9" storyline was also originally produced by a student from UCLA Animation as the idea for his thesis. The infamous pentalogy "Saw" also received its storyline from the minds of two Australian film students in 2003, before the first of the Saw series films was produced in 2004.

Whilst it may seem that targeting these film enthusiasts would be best, a number of short films also have a broader audience as the goal of the producer's short film is not only to be scouted by a company, but to also entertain a wider audience. The easiest target for this is young people as there are many factors and scenarios which can be used to relate to them. It is for this reason that the audience for my own short film shall be the youth range of teenagers. Furthermore, since the protagonist and antagonist of the film are high school students, and the scenario is a school, it would make sense for the target audience to be of the same age range.