R+P Post 2: Our target audience and how we plan to attract and address them

Our target audience is fans of crime, mystery, and drama films, mostly from the young adult 15-25 age range, and even more specifically those in Britain. Although we are producing an indie film, we are trying to appeal to the mainstream, which is why we chose such a popular genre and age range to market to. As our target audience includes ourselves and all our schoolmates, we thought about what we'd like to see and what is currently popular and talked about nowadays, which is what lead us to realise how popular crime dramas are.

A selection of some of the kinds of documents we used to write down very, very early ideas, in a very loose and freehand way, including many unfinished or unpursued ideas that were cut very soon after, and doubtless some that will be cut later in the project as it develops. As you can see, we were looking at what age group we could target in the left document, and considering genres and representation topics in the right document. You may need to click to enlarge.

We had to work in ways to appeal to our target audience with our film opening. We have ways of appealing to the entire group, like making the majority of the characters fall in the age range of the audience for relatability and including music of a style popular amongst the group, and as our planning developed we were able to think of more specific things to include also. For example, we have one character using headphones to listen to this music, as listening to music is a popular pastime for this age group, but we also have a second sound track more conventional of the genre to attract fans of the genre.

One extract from an interview I did with a friend, who is part of the target audience but wishes to remain anonymous. He provided useful information, even mentioning one of our influences, 'Sherlock,' by name, and confirming some of our thoughts on genre and audience. He is the white boxes, I am green. Click to enlarge.

We've got a wide range of characters in terms of gender, ethnicity and so on to meet the growing needs of representation and concern for diversity amongst younger people, who fall inside our targeted age group. We also further ensured appeal to fans of the genre by setting the opening in an interrogation room during some questioning. Furthermore, the one main character outside of the target audience's age range is the detective, so we retain appeal to our core audience of mystery/crime fans outside of the main age group.

A second extract from the interview. Again, he confirmed some of our ideas, this time on representation of his age group, as well as the need for diversity alongside quality. As before, he is the white boxes, while I am green. Click to enlarge.

These decisions have been very important so far. As we are in the early stages of the project, every choice we make will provide a foundation for further development, whereas in the later stages it is easier to change ideas without having too heavy of an impact on the rest of the project. Talking to members of the target audience was a very helpful thing to do, as it really allowed us to ensure these aforementioned decisions were based in fact.