Short Films - Potential Audiences

Potential audiences for short films are quite wide depending on a number of factors and they are affected by several key elements; institutional implications in terms of funding and distribution, expansion of media as a whole leading to the expansion of short film audiences, intended audiences of the film makers, BBFC ratings also affect the audience that the shorts are aimed at.

Potential Audiences

Because of the considerable limitations that short films face due to often negligible budgets and limited distribution possibilities, they're limited in terms of audience that they are able to reach and the audience they are able to attract and watch their movies. Mainstream movies have budgets that are mainstream and are able to attract the huge mainstream audiences while short films with their limited budgets are only able to attract limited audiences as they're simply unable to provide the sort of effects that wide audiences are attracted and used to. Additionally the means of distribution for short films are completely different to mainstream movies which are distributed in cinemas in limited numbers while shorts are distributed on the internet but in huge quantities meaning that even though their easier to access, the large amount of choice that is present prevents many shorts from ever breaking through to a wider audience.

Types of Films

In the 1940s when a viewer went to a cinema while paying for the main A movie, he would also expect to see several shorter movies (usually serials) through this short(ish) films reached wider audiences. This doesn't happen anymore and even though the internet provides wider access only very limited audiences that look for them get to see short films. Thus although it is easier to access them now and it is also often for free - the audience has for short films has actually shrunk in the long run.

1940s Cinema

The intended audience for 'Veronqiue' was quite wide for short films as it wasn't artistic and it had quite a lighthearted romantic theme which due to the internet allowed it to go viral and reach a suprisingly large audience for a short film. The short 'Cherries' on the other hand was most likely aimed at schools and was intended to be shown there in order to provide social awareness about the themes that it puts forward. (State control and War weariness)

Short films would usually get the the age certificates aimed at older audiences usually 15 and above due to the hard themes that they usually tackle and engage with. It is quite rare for teenage audiences to engage with short films so the older age certificates are not in any significant way limiting the audience that watches short films. Short films are almost exclusively distributed on the internet and at festivals. The audience either disregards age certificates or when it goes to festivals it is usually 18 and above anyway so age certificates don't have any large impact on the audience that gets to see short films anyway.

Age Certificates

The above affects our audience as we had to make a decision whether to make an art film or a mainstream one and we finally decided that an art film would be more practical for us to make and the audience that we are likely to reach will be mostly interested in Art films. Because of our limited distribution possibilities we will only distribute our movie on the internet meaning that it is extremely unlikely that we will reach mainstream audiences. We're going to include themes that are relevant to a contemporary British audience and we would like to target late teens and maybe early 20s as our audience.