Today’s guest post from producer Cotty Chubb concludes his post on recognizing audiences.
“Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away.”
But here’s what we do have to do. We have to know who needs what we make. The days of a generalized appetite are likely past. The great magazines of my childhood are gone: The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look.
In their place a multiplicity of niches… Bass-fishing, trout-fishing, salt-water-flat fishing, each with its own devotees, each with its own audience and its own media that satisfies with fact and fantasy.
When Beverly Hills was awash with money in 2006 I was talking to a successful independent producer friend who’d amassed a stash of cash, hedge fund money looking for a non-correlated asset paired with a compliant bank selling leverage. [No disrespect to my friend, none; I couldn’t have raised that money.] About a picture he was intending I asked, “Who’s the audience?” With the calm that comes from a full wallet, he said “If it’s a good movie, people will come to it.” Except that he’s since entirely lost his equity, tapped out. And he made some good movies.
Really, it’s only sensible. If your job is gratifying the unspoken needs of a group of people, shouldn’t you have some idea who those people are?
