Who Is My Audience?

I just had an interesting discussion with a filmmaker whose film I'm producing. The question that came up (kind of over and over) is "Who is my audience?" We are making a comedy that has the distinct flavor of Alexander Payne. What does this means in terms of finance and distribution? It means that we have to keep the budget under $5 million unless we can find a movie star. Movies that are character-driven like ELECTION (as opposed to concept films like JAWS) rely upon communicating to potential audiences that a particular depiction of a particular character is worth them getting out of their homes and forking over their loot. In order to launch a film like this, you need to have strong word of mouth. Word of mouth is generated by folks who have seen the movie. A Catch-22 if there ever was one.