A funding scheme dedicated to innovative audience research. That's the crux of AudienceFocus (PublikumsFokus), set up in 2020 to enable the industry to work more systematically and thoroughly with their audiences early on.
Experiences from the 35 films and series that have received support show such positive results that the scheme is now made permanent, with an annual budget of 2 million kroner (269,000 euros).
Strategic manager Sanne Juncker Pedersen says:
"It is a great pleasure to see how the scheme has attracted such diverse films as, for example, Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Oscar-nominated documentary 'Flee', Katrine Brocks' feature debut 'The Great Silence', which world premiered at San Sebastian Film Festival, and Malou Reymann's historical drama 'Unruly', premiering at Toronto Film Festival. These are films with very different director's intentions and target audiences, but where the filmmakers have nonetheless all been able to see the value in audience involvement. This confirms that we are on the right track with this new funding option."
In the coming years, the fund will intensify its focus on films in development, as well as on projects that work with children, young people and young adults as a primary or secondary audience.
Positive feedback
As the evaluation of the first two years of the funding scheme shows, filmmakers have many different motives for wanting to research their audiences in the early stages of their film or series.
Many respond that it's about getting a deeper insight into the audience's expectations of a theme or genre – or getting concrete reactions to a film's narrative and characters.
Quite a few are interested in exploring whether and how their audience find the film relevant and of immediate interest. The evaluation also shows that the filmmakers often desire a deeper understanding of audience group that they don't necessarily belong to themselves.
The majority of the grant recipients state that researching their audiences early on has heightened their awareness of how to talk about their films, and that the results of the researches made a difference int subsequent decisions relating to their films.
"The fund was established and has been developed in close collaboration with the industry, so it's great to get feedback that shows that the studies actually stimulate conversations about the audience in the film's early stages and that they create value for the individual film," says Sanne Juncker Pedersen.
