Is it better to do a low budget wide audience feature or a target audience feature?

Is it better to do a low budget wide audience feature or a target audience feature?

  • Total voters
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filmmakerguy

Member
As a writer/producer/director, I've been really struggling with this question lately. I've done a lot of research on distribution and the business side of film making and one thing that keeps coming up is the importance of creating a wide audience feature.

For those that don't know, a wide audience feature is also called by some as a 4 quadrant feature or a tent pole movie. The four quadrants are man, woman, young [kids], old [seniors]. This is believed to cover everyone, put up the tent and everyone will come. This means grand parents can take their grand children to see it, and men can take their girlfriends, basically the entire family can go see it. Even if the movie is rated R, it could still be family friendly if there isn't excessive sex, violence or profanity. In my opinion, almost any sex/drugs/excessive profanity at all seems to be a killer for the senior/children quadrant, yet violence up to a point is okay.

On the other side of the coin is the target audience feature or niche feature that targets a specific demographic. The idea is that you can maybe make a better movie for your demographic if you don't worry about trying to please people outside of your demographic.


I sort of feel that for low budget features, playing it safe with a wide audience feature can get you washed out in the crowd. Versus doing a niche target audience feature you'll stand out with something different.

However on the other side of the coin, I've come to realize that pretty much all the filmmakers who broke through into Hollywood had wide audience features. El Mariachi, Primer, Following, Monsters, etc. are all wide audience features.

Whereas the one guy who does niche/target audience type movies, Kevin Smith, seems to now be struggling with his career. This is the guy who wanted to name one of his movies Two Dicks and his last feature was about extreme fundamentalist/religious people.

So what's the better approach from a business stand point in your opinion? I'm talking about getting your foot into the door in the Hollywood system. Given most of us have to establish that we can do it for a few thousand to even up to $300k before we have a shot at raising more money than that.

Do you make an awesome target audience movie, or do you water it down some to please more people? Kind of like Die Hard 4 without the curse words and edginess of the first 3.
 
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I see your dilemma. But the better question is, what kind of films do you want to make? I think you have to be true to yourself first.
 
+ 1

If you're self-financing a film you better make sure it's something you want to live with and that you yourself enjoys throughout the process.
 
Wide audience. I always wonder what the people who shoot these extremely wierd and sick horror movies are thinking, because there's no way you're breaking into Hollywood or become a big mainstream director after making a "movie" like Human Centipede
 
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Saharanturtle said:
Wide audience. I always wonder what the people who shoot these extremely wierd and sick horror movies are thinking, because Teresa no way you're breaking into Hollywood or become a big mainstream director after making a "movie" like Human Centipede
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Let me introduce to you, Sir Peter Robert Jackson's...

Meet the Feebles

:undecided
 
Saharanturtle said:
Wide audience. I always wonder what the people who shoot these extremely wierd and sick horror movies are thinking, because there's no way you're breaking into Hollywood or become a big mainstream director after making a "movie" like Human Centipede
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Don't know if you know it but South Park just did an episode that pokes fun at that movie, so it's obviously getting some national attention and he actually may be going somewhere because of it.
 
So what about Tarantino, would you consider Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction as wide audience movies? I mean in one you got a cop getting lit on fire and then a pool of blood sort of ending. And in the other you got drug overdoses, heroin use, excessive profanity and male rape. I think that's what makes his movies so awesome though is because he pushed the envelope and appealed more to his niche/target audience versus answering to the appeal of a wider audience and watering down his movies. However that is Tarantino and his stories and dialogue are great.
 
filmmakerguy said:
So what about Tarantino, would you consider Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction as wide audience movies? I mean in one you got a cop getting lit on fire and then a pool of blood sort of ending. And in the other you got drug overdoses, heroin use, excessive profanity and male rape. I think that's what makes his movies so awesome though is because he pushed the envelope and appealed more to his niche/target audience versus answering to the appeal of a wider audience and watering down his movies. However that is Tarantino and his stories and dialogue are great.
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No....Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs weren't wide audience - They did fit right in to the very lucrative 17-35 male demographic though.

Get Shorty, based on a book written by (one of Tarantino's heroes) Elmore Leonard was closer to a wide audience film....still a bit too much violence/profanity to really be there.
 
If you can find a great low-budget wide audience script then you should make it, but I really can't think of very many films that fit that description.

Actually, I can't think of any right now. Even "Once" was Rated-R.

Low-budget films are a target marketplace in general, regardless of what the subject matter is, and I think genre film buffs are more likely to put up with low-budget films than wider audiences.

A true wide audience expects a film to look like a Hollywood movie. Even "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" cost several million dollars to produce.
 
Going for all 4 quadrants with a low/no-budget feature without studio backing is out there. I don't like to use the word "impossible" or even "absurd," but it's out there. Genre filmmaking (which is different than niche filmmaking) is probably the best bet if you want to get future work IN the Hollywood system. Well-made genre films usually translate to dollars, depending on the release and marketing and, of course, how well made is "well-made."

Reservoir and Pulp weren't niche films, they were ensemble Crime Thrillers with a lot of style. That's genre filmmaking. He hit the beats, he made his marks, he just twisted it all out of order and made it more interesting than almost any other films in that genre.

I'd actually say that Kill Bill and Deathproof (which I haven't seen, and am going based on what I know of it) are more niche films than Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Kill Bill very specifically targets fans of the action genre - which, granted, is a wide audience in itself, but this film targets the more hardcore element of that audience. I personally hated the film, and I assume that's because I haven't seen many of the films he was paying homage to.

I personally write more to genre than to a niche. I've got a pretty cool idea for a niche film, but it would have to be slightly bigger budget and therefore I'll have to give it a broad scope while still targeting that niche. But that's a script for another day. For now, I'll stick to genre filmmaking. Like hard-R Crime Thrillers.

(NOTE: If you want to get known in the Indie scene, niche filmmaking is probably a much better idea.)

Would love to hear what people like Kholi, Barry, David, Giriki, and others think of this.
 
The most successful indy low budget films out there tend to be niche films. Never seen a wide audience low budget film do well.

Hobo with a shotgun is a good example of niche indy low budget doing well.

Saharanturtle said:
Wide audience. I always wonder what the people who shoot these extremely wierd and sick horror movies are thinking, because there's no way you're breaking into Hollywood or become a big mainstream director after making a "movie" like Human Centipede
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First of all, Human Centipede is becoming a HUGE sensation. They even interviewed the guy on TMZ and did a whole segment on it... not that I watch TMZ... *cough*

Second of all, Horror seems to have proven to be the best way to break it into mainstream. There are a few examples out there without even having to think about it.
 
I voted for target audience. For me, I wouldn't want to make a film that I wouldn't want to see, therefore, the target audience becomes myself. Making that the smallest audience possible. After that, if more people want to see it and enjoy it, great, if not, oh well.
 
just a note: I used to do test screenings professionally for the studios and the four quadrants are actually Males under 25, Males over 25, Females under 25, Females over 25.
 
Michael Traven said:
Would love to hear what people like Kholi, Barry, David, Giriki, and others think of this.
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I know it's been sort of touched on already, but, I would only do the type of feature I want to see, no matter the budget. It so happens that what I would watch can cover a broad audience or some two very very large communities: video games and anime. Can't say that I would know how to do it any differently! And, well, we're only on feature number one here so there's still no telling how I might feel after it's all said and sold*.

*that's me being optimistic.
 
Kholi said:
I know it's been sort of touched on already, but, I would only do the type of feature I want to see, no matter the budget. It so happens that what I would watch can cover a broad audience or some two very very large communities: video games and anime. Can't say that I would know how to do it any differently! And, well, we're only on feature number one here so there's still no telling how I might feel after it's all said and sold*.

*that's me being optimistic.
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that's exactly what I would do as well. make the sort of movie I want to see, THEN identify why that is and seek out the audiences that share those reasons. buddy of mine made a doc about mma fighter Jens Pulver. he crowdfunded the budget and sells dvds and downloads to mma fans.
 
Zak Forsman said:
that's exactly what I would do as well. make the sort of movie I want to see, THEN identify why that is and seek out the audiences that share those reasons. buddy of mine made a doc about mma fighter Jens Pulver. he crowdfunded the budget and sells dvds and downloads to mma fans.
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This is what we're doing as well. I feel like targeting like this is more likely to make your money back AND help your career, because you're showing off material you want to show off.
 
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