How important is the target audience?

Hello .

I've been throwing a lot of threads lately ,mostly because I'll be starting a Youtube channel and releasing couple of short films so I try to be as prepared as possible and to clear my plans .


Here is the thing . Some of my short films are usually pretty dark. They are not 100% horror , but they are suspenseful thrillers .

And as I love to follow my style of filmmaking , to be quite honest , I don't think this is the way to get big on Youtube and since there are no film festivals in my country ( very few , and most of them are for professionals ) I want some exposure and I want to get my stuff out there .

Couple of months ago I made an experiment .I made a dark short film , 5 minutes long and I posted it on Youtube . I did posted it in a couple of forums but it made about 1000 views MAX .

Then I made the same thing , the same idea and concept , I made it dark again , but it was more like a dark comedy . From a very serious tone I switched to a funnier one and it kinda looked like a Star Wars spoof . This got me 37 000 which for me is like the biggest thing on the planet earth . I felt like Christopher Nolan .

Everyone was sharing the short over Facebook ( all my friends and their friends ) because they thought it was very funny . But then on the darker one I don't think people cared that much .

I see that CorridorDigital and Freddie Wong are making somewhat fun / comedy videos as well and they are very successful and doing great .

Honestly as long as there are people who are watching my stuff and I find more people to colaborate with I don't mind doing the comedy thing . I enjoy every part of filmmaking and every genre I go into .

My problem is that I am 17 right now and I'll be going to university in 2 years and I am afraid that the teachers or whoever is going to see my work and portfolio before accepting me to the school are not going to take me serious at all since my films would not be that serious .

I have no clue if this whole thing makes any sense to you guys but I would like to advice me what should I do and how should I go with my channel .

I know it may sound like I am doing this for fame and glory but honestly this is the absolute last thing Im doing , I just like to have feedback and finding people who want to work with me and this happens only if I hit the target audience of the platform Im uploading at . And this is Youtube . And the audience there is mostly 14-20 I believe and then all the people from Facebook and my country who are going to watch this would prefer something funnier as well .

Ah.

THanks in advance as always.

Hi,
I think that you should not worry about teachers not taking you seriously, because a) it's more about the film values, like if you did tell the story without unnecessary stuff or was the image quality (if poor) not disturbing, b) you can always make another type of film as a try whether the audience will dislike it or not and even if then those teachers will see it and see you tried your bests but the audience wants something else.

NickysFX, comedy is still technically very serious work when in narrative format. If you are uploading on Youtube, then your target audience in the most general sense is Youtube users. You may consider doing what's needed to build your audience and then hitting them with more of your "serious" work.

Yeah, comedy is definitely going to get you farther in terms of people sharing your work via youtube. I wouldn't worry too much about the impact on film school - they're going to be looking at your potential and dedication more than your subject matter. But you could also just do something like make every fourth short you do more serious - then you'll build an audience with the funny ones, likely get that audience looking at your serious work, and have a good mix of stuff when you apply to film school (they'll probably only want 2-3 examples of your work anyway).