How to Determine Your Audience

After you’ve come up with your idea, you need to establish what type of movie you want to write—this is known as the genre. You should also know what style of movie you’re aiming to write: Hollywood or independent. Zeroing in on these two aspects will help you pinpoint your potential audience and their expectations.

Movies with shared elements are grouped into genres. Following is a basic list of genres and some examples of each.

There are many more genres and subgenres than those described here—plus, genres often overlap. So don’t get too wrapped up in categorization, but follow these two tips:

Audiences go to the movies expecting certain things based on the genre. If you’re writing an action movie, for example, viewers will expect some chases or explosions. That said, audiences will be bored if you adhere too strictly to convention and your script lacks originality. So give your audience what they expect from the genre, but surprise them too.

Historically, the difference between Hollywood and independent, or indie, movies was financial backing from film studios. Hollywood movies were produced by major Hollywood studios, such as Paramount, MGM, RKO, Twentieth Century Fox, and Warner Bros., whereas indie films were developed outside of the studio system. This is no longer 100% true, but a certain style still accompanies each term.