It’s best to define your audience as early on as possible. Who do you want seeing this video? Who do you think would be most influenced by your work? Different types of video appeal to different people and you can make your production in a variety of ways depending on whom you are targeting. These targeted groups are your audience. Examples may be your neighbours or politicians. Be critical when defining your audience, because it may be a much more specific group than you would first assume. No single project or issue will be interesting to, or appropriate for, everyone.
Think about where your audience lives, their income, their culture. Do any of these unite or divide your audience? Will they understand the issue(s) in the same way as you, or do you need to present them with relevant background information? Keep your audience in mind as you proceed with your work. This definition will influence the choices you make as you shoot, edit and distribute your project, and it will eventually enable you to have an impact on your audience.
Your idea should be of interest to your target audience; think carefully about whether they already know a lot about the subject matter and if you are presenting them with new information or tackling the subject in an interesting way. An interested, attentive audience is key to the success of your project; your audience does not need to be huge... it simply has to be right! Issues like the environment affect everyone, but not everyone may want to watch a film about the environment. For example, if a film is about toxic waste, then your audience could include environmentalists but also companies who create toxic waste, officials who are writing laws about it and people who live near toxic waste dumps.
Knowing your audience may help you to select appropriate information, vocabulary, and style in order to achieve maximum influence with your target groups. Make a list of the issues that may be raised by your video, then make a list of the people whom those issues may directly affect. This is your audience. Does your target audience include opposing groups? If so, think about how you can address both groups equally in your project. Think about how you can make your project interesting to the people you want to watch it. How can you best get the information across to them in a way that is relevant and that will affect them - especially if you want to inspire them to get involved or take further action?
There are a few questions to help you define your audience, available in the appendix as an "Audience Worksheet", to help you think about the types of people/community groups that your message might be aimed at, and where it might be most successful.
When promoting your project, you could build partnerships with non-profit organisations or community groups that are connected to your audience. Start locally and ask all of your friends and advisors if they have any ideas or contacts. Maybe they could make an introductory call for you. This way you can make sure that you are in touch with the people your film is intended to reach.
If your video is trying to raise awareness of an issue, your audience may want to know what action they can take and how they can take it. You could include examples of successful action taken by others and contact details of people or organisations your audience could use if they want to follow up the issue.
Plan how you will measure your effectiveness. You could ask people after they have seen your video what they thought; be specific and set dates to review your progress. A valuable way to judge your piece’s effectiveness and your audience’s reaction is to have a rough-cut screening - see more about this in Chapter 2.
You could contact some members of your audience and ask for their advice in your planning. As your project takes shape, ask them to review and provide feedback on the results. This ongoing dialogue will help keep your purpose and focus in mind during the project, and give you helpful feedback for improving your work. Hopefully, you will also have the opportunity to have a discussion with audience members. Remember, you don’t have to do everything the audience members suggest, but the information that you gather from them will prove to be very valuable!
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