Audience Profiling.

Filmmaking is just like any other product – you have to get your audience research right as a first step. Before you can begin to make your film, you need to know who your audience actually are.

The following points need to be considered:

• What are your viewer’s demographics?

      This could include the following questions :

• Sex
• Age
• Status 
• Income bracket 
• Occupation 
• Media interests 
• Culture

What type of person are you aiming at

• Leader / follower
• Sociable / recluse
• Consider a day in the life of a typical member of the audience 
• Possibly find an image of a typical person of your audience
• What do your target audience expect from their entertainment
• Eg. Music / dance / art
• Consider the emotional experience they are hoping to get

likes

 

Understanding audience preferences is a priority for film producers as it will help them to decide which films to produce and how to market them effectively.

One way of audience profiling is known as demographics. This defines the adult population by the work they do. It sorts the population into 6 groups.

A      Higher management, bankers, lawyers, doctors, professionals

B      Middle management, teachers, creative media people

C1     Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, clerical staff

C2     Skilled manual workers eg. Plumbers

D     Semi skilled and unskilled manual workers

E     Unemployed, students , pensioners

Psychographics describe an audience by looking at their behaviour and personality traits. It labels a particular type of person and makes an assessment about their views and spending habits.

Mainstreamers	Seek security, domestic, conformist, sentimental, want value for money, nearly always the largest group
Aspirers	Seek status, materialistic, think about image and appearance, typically younger people
Succeeders	Seek control, strong goals, confidence, organisation, choice based on quality, typically higher management and professionals
Resigned	Seeks survival, rigid and authoritarian values, interested in the past, typically older people
Explorers	Seeks discovery, energy, individualism, values adventure, typically younger demographic
Strugglers	Seeks escape, alienated and disorganised, enjoys junk food etc, D and E demographic
Reformers	Seeks enlightenment, freedom of restriction and personal growth, social awareness and independent judgement Has attended higher education and selects products for quality

 

By using all these ideas it is possible to create an audience profile for the genre of film you are considering making. This will enable you to advertise effectively to your target audience.

Not all crime drama genre is aimed at the same target audience. Some is aimed at younger, some at older people. Some crime drama is gritty and disturbing, some is more reassuring. Audience groups can overlap too.

The target audience for my crime/drama film is males from the ages of 18 to 30. Even though I believe that my film would appeal to most people, I have chosen to use 18 to 30 year olds as my main target audience. My target audience would not be below 18 as I will explore some intense themes in my film. I have chosen to target older teenagers and adults in social classes B+A. This would mean they are in the high end of their careers e.g. lawyers. This would mean they are extremely intelligent and would be able to follow all the complex themes and story plots that will be created in my film. They would understand the plot of the crime/drama. My target audience enjoys going out with friends to the cinema to watch films. They are very sociable. They would have an outgoing personality and are very interested in law and the legal side to crimes.