Blog Post #17 - Target Audience

       The main reasoning for a documentary, or any type of media content, to be created is usually directed towards the audience it wants to serve. These are the people who are most likely to be interested and interact with the content being produced. Because of this, many producers create content specifically made for a certain group. Whether this is toddlers, teenagers, adults, etc, is primarily up to the producers on how they choose to create their products.  

       Since this is such an important factor in developing media content, I decided to research the different types and select the best one for me. The first type of audience is children, this would pertain to those ages 0-11 but they would most likely not be interested in a documentary such as mine as their type of media content would more concern fantasies and cartoons. The second type of audience is teenagers, typically those from ages 12-19. These ages may be interested in the documentary as content like this would apply to them, the same can be said for the third type of audience, young adults (20-30). This group would also carry an interest into the documentary and become more invested with a larger span of attention. Beyond this, adults (30-50) and elderly (50 and higher) individuals would be less interested in this as it may not apply to them in the same significant way as it may to younger people. Based upon this, I can determine that my target audience will be a mix of both teenagers and young adults. 

       Continuing, my target audience must be even more specific than this, considering that it is a non-fiction documentary. This means that my content must be further tailored to the people I am wanting to reach. So, I decided that I mainly want the documentary to reach young athletes and those who left their sports. I feel as though content such as this can really be meaningful and significant to these types of people as they may share similar experiences and feelings, reaching into their nostalgia and memories. 

       In order to help reach these audiences, I need to make small details that help build into the impact I am intending on creating. Some examples of this are my interviewees, my locations, and my cinematography. For my interviewees, I chose young, teenage volleyball players to give the target audiences something they can directly relate to as they see someone similar to them on screen. Location wise, I need to select locations with a fairly busy background but keep it in a shallow focus, maintaining the audiences attention on the content while keeping it entertaining. Lastly, with my cinematography I need to make decisions depending on my goals with the audiences. In the times I want the content to be impactful, I need long takes with straight cuts between angles that add depth, in the times I want it to be entertaining I need to use creative, short takes with different movements and angles that will pique their interest and keep them on the edge of their seats while watching.