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Conducting a general survey
I conducted a survey asking a target audience ranging from 17-22 year olds of things that come to mind when thinking of horror movies, elements that are important to them and one element that makes a successful horror film. From this research I learnt that this target audience had a good idea of the horror conventions and enjoyed horror films that most when dark atmospheres were created, which we have done through our trailer being filmed mostly in dark settings, with little light. -
Focus group: 17 - 18 year olds
Click here to watch focus groupI conducted a focus group to gain a more informal approach to an audience of 17-18 year olds, to understand their views of horror films. By presenting to them the trailer of 'Paranormal Activity' (2007) and having a discussion about it after, I learnt a lot from valuable comments that were, one of the most important one was; "...Big loud noise and you didn't expect it!". From this I learnt how sound being effetely used can create a jumping reaction by the audience. -
Experimentation booth - The Exorcist (1973)
From showing the target audience of 19-30 year a picture of 'Regan' from the movie The Exorcist, I gained valuble comments such as "... uncomfortable because of her eyes". From this I learnt that when the "evil" character is looking directly at the audience, it makes them feel uncomfortable, and is provoking for them. I took this on board during the production of the poster and made the eyes of Annabelle stand out in red, to show her demonic side. -
Experimentation booth - sound
The experimentation booth was carried out with an audience ranging between 19-30 year olds. This consisted of playing music from different horror films, asking for views on a conventional horror character (the exorcist) and listening to opinions of a premade horror trailer. The resulted showed how sounds and moving images create a better impact. From this, I learnt that both elements are as equally important and both need to be considered deeply. -
Second questionaire
Later on in my course, I decided to look at 2 different target audience groups, first one ranging from: '17-18 year olds' (teenagers) and the second: '19-30 year olds' (adults). From comparing both sets of results, I learnt that in some aspects horror was most favoured by the adult audience. E.g. 19-30 year old's, 8/10 said yes to being a fan of horror compared to only 5/10 teenagers who said yes. This was suprising and so demonstated that there is a older audience that are fans of horror. -
Combing my audience research -Based on true events
After getting into my group an during the stage of coming up with a narrative, we exchanged results gained from our audience research. My other group member's found that the audience ranging from 17-25 years old were most interested in horror films if they were based on a true story. From this I learnt horror films are intensified and becoming more fearful when it is based off of a true event. My group took this on board, and decided to base our narrative on a true suicide event. -
Changes in our location - The house
Journey we have change the location of our house twice because of audience feedback we gained. The first house was in school, and our audience said they didn’t like it, the second house had a lively mise-en-scene and was newly built, which our audience said wasn’t appropriate enough and the last house was more successful as our audience liked the isolation around it. From this I have learnt that mise-en-scene is imporant to audiences to make something believable. -
Making changes on the fake article
The fake article features on our trailer to add to the narrative. Through asking our teacher to look through it, she picked up on how the article was named "Olden Times", and said how it doesn't make sense to label something in the past as "olden" because it would of been the present at that time. From this I leant that it was imporant to understand how presenting something conveyed another meaning, and it is it important to keep things in the same time periods. -
Changing text - trailer
One of the issues that we needed to change was the text and front that was on our trailer which we did through feedback from our media teacher. From this, we changed it from a normal type of fornt to the same font as the magazine front cover has, and what the poster has too. I learnt the importance of keep the same text and font together, so that our audience knows our products link together. -
Poster - changing the colour
Whilst experimenting with whether we should keep the colour on our poster or if we should change it to a black and white scale, we decided to get audience feedback, and go with what are audience though worked best. The result we got was to keep it in a black and white scale which we have done. I learnt that it's important to get audience feedback frequently throughout production as it should appeal to them most. -
Trailer premiere feedback
By handing out questionnaires the day we carried out our trailer premiere we gained lots of positive feedback. One in particle states “...you could have it slightly darker instead of having an alternating dark scene and light...” This was something that hasn’t come across to me and I learnt through doing audience feedbacks, they pick up things that you wouldn’t have thought of and it become really valuable as it helps you to improve on the products that are made of their viewing.
