what are the potential audiences of a short film?

The potential audience of a feature length film and a short film would be different as the purpose of each would normally be different, feature length films being profit orientated would normally try appeal to the greatest audience and a big range of people.

The potential audience of a short film would change depending on what the purpose of the short film is, for example educational short films would tend to be aimed at school kids. A short film designed to teach how to count would be aimed at key stage 1 children and a biological short film would be aimed at secondary school children. Also short films that are made for self-promotion would be aimed at 30+ as they would need to attract the eyes of film producers.

However the potential audience could have changed in the past few years as technology has expanded and it is now easier to watch short films. When technology was less advanced, the only way to watch short films would be at school or to catch one being shown on television. But now there are many ways to watch short films, one being www.youtube.com a community video sharing website, and probably one of the biggest. This is the host of many short films which can be watched from the comfort of your own home. There is also the BBC which in their website have a section just for short films. With the distribution of short films being easier, the potential audience can be altered as more people are able to watch it. If being distributed on youtube, the potential audience could be 16-25 as at that age is the age of many of the youtube users, with the help of facebook and twitter, it would be easier to get even more people watching.

If the BBFC (British board of film classification) gives a film an age certificate, this could affect the potential viewers, as most people would assume that a film with the classification Universal would be a film for little kids to watch, whereas a film with the 18 age rating, would limit their audience to people who are 18 or older and a big chunk of the public wouldn’t be able to watch it. Watchmen (left) was given a BBFC rating of 18 because