Preliminary Focus Group

I asked a group of four people between the ages 16 and 25, as this is my target audience, to watch several clips and trailers from various horror films and then to answer three questions concerning their thoughts, reactions and feelings.

What did you like about the clip?

What didn't you like about the clip?
Does the clip make you want to watch the film?

The first trailer I used was 'The Strangers', released in 2008 it tells the story of a young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants.





Respondant 1

What did you like about the clip?
The music and throughout the trailer creates tension and builds adrenaline, the building pace of the editing again creates a tense atmosphere.

What didn't you like about the clip?
The beginning seemed irrelevant and slow. The pace could have been built a lot sooner.


Does the clip make you want to watch the film?
Yes

Respondent 2


What did you like about the clip?
The eery music and SFX created a feeling of fear, the costumes of the 'Strangers' were scary and unusual, relatable story line so made it feel more real and the trailer included the fact that the film has been inspired by true events, again reinforcing the idea of reality.

What didn't you like about the clip?
The ending could have been more interesting maybe a cliff hanger, didn't particularly make me wonder about the story line.

Does the clip make you want to watch the film?
No

Respondent 3


What did you like about the clip?
The trailer has several parts which make you jump, creating adrenaline and fear. Also the fast paced editing especially towards the end builds tension.

What didn't you like about the clip?
The story line is unclear and the simple, boring ending doesn't make me wonder what the film is about and want to see it.

Does the clip make you want to watch the film?
No

Analysis 
From my analysis of several responses to the trailer of "The Strangers" I can conclude that an important factor within my trailer will be to create interest in the story line. This could be done by ending the trailer with a cliff hanger or, as it makes the film easy to relate to from the audience's point of view, linking the film to true and real life events. The music seems to be an important factor, within this trailer eery music and SFX have been used to instill fear which from my results I can see is important to the audience of a horror film. The pace of both the music and the editing is typically fast within trailers for horror films and again this seems to be important, I feel that building pace creates tension and adrenaline amongst the audience and would be effective in my trailer. Another element mentioned was the costumes of the 'Strangers' characters, the fact that they were unusual and different, perhaps not been seen before in a horror trailer I will take into account when considering the make up and costume for my trailer.

Audience Research Survey - Analysis

To gain a further insight into the audience at which I am targetting my trailer towards I created a questionnaire and surveyed 10 people. My survey asked several questions aiming to determine what my chosen target audience look for in horror films, their trailers and the promotional movie poster.

90% of the people that took this survey do enjoy watching horror films, the 1 response that does not is most likely to correlate with the 1 response that was from an audience member within the 50+ age bracket as most horror films are aimed at a younger audience.

The vast majority of people that took my survey are within the age bracket (16-25) which I am aiming my trailer towards. This shows that I should take the following results into account when planning and constructing my end piece as the answers are relavant and important in creating a successful trailer under my pitch and plan.

Five people that took my questionnaire are males and four female, this almost even split shows that my target audience contains both males and females as all of them answered my first question (Do you enjoy watching horror films?) with yes. This means that in my production and planning I need to take both genders into consideration and appeal to both with my trailer.

Each person that took this survey watches horror films at least once every 2-3 months with three people watching them once a month and two people every week. As these are fairly regular intervals at which my target audience watch horror films it would suggest that they have seen numerous and that mine should be new, up to date and relevant to keep the audience's interest and to stand out from the others that they have seen previous.

The fifth question I asked was 'What are your hobbies/interests?' this was to gain a further insight into my target audience and how they spend their free time. Watching films and socialisng are common interests among my chosen target audience, the characters withing my trailer should be easily relatable and have qualities or aspects of their lives in common with the audience so the story line feels more real and therefore more frightening.

The most popular answer chosen for this question was story line with actors, characters and violence also being key factors that a looked for by my target audience in horror films. The only one with no votes is humour, I added this choice as spoof horror movies have been popular both in the past and at present, however for my target audience it seems unpopular and so I know not to include this element within my piece. However I will focus on the storyline primarily as this is what is looked for first and grabs the attention of my audience.

The seventh question I asked was 'What do you look for in the trailer?' as I have chosen to create a trailer for my final piece I wanted to find out what attracts my target audience the most and what they look for first. Each of the elements are clearly important as they have at least one vote each however enigma seems to be the key factor. Therefore I will aim for there to be an aspect of mystery in my trailer that entices the viewer into wanting to watch the film in  its entirety. Tension and music coincide as I will use whichever piece of music I chose to create tension, by increasing the volume and pace at which it is heard. The story line as seen previously is an important part and is the basis of my trailer so will require the majority of my attention.

To determine what type of horror film I should create I asked the question 'What is your favourite sub-genre of horror?' this produced some clear results. The most popular are survival and psychological with genre's such as slasher and supernatural also receiving two votes. The genre's survival and psychological can be combined to form my movie's story line, survival is popular within many horror films such as Eden Lake and Insidious. Through this I could make the story relatable to the audience, and therefore more scary, by using characters and actors of similar ages and with similar interest to my target audience so making the film seem like reality.

For my ancillary task I will be creating a promotional movie poster for my trailer. To make it appealing to my audience I asked what attracts you most to a movie poster. The most popular answer was image, this is important as it would be the first element a person would see when just glancing at my poster. The image has to be eye catching and perhaps give an idea of what my film is about. The layout also seems to be important to my target audience, it needs to be clear and easy to understand so to not lose the interest of anyone, it also needs to be eye catching and maybe something unusual so it is memorable. The actors, colours and information about the plot also have some significance. The colours need to connote the ideas of fear and horror in keeping with the genre of my film, information about the plot needs to be brief so to not give anything away but also needs to create a mystery about the film to gain interest.

I asked a similar question as my tenth, but this time about my second ancillary task - a magazine cover. The most popular answer is clear, the images. Again these need to be eye catching and unusual so to create interest and also perhaps give an idea of what the plot is. Articles received two votes, anyone who purchases a magazine wants the content to be interesting and so I need to include relevant and feature articles to attract my audiences attention. The way in which I present these will also matter as they need to be clear and easy to see so they are not missed. 

Overall I feel my questionnaire was successful in gaining several pieces of key information which will help me to create my end pieces and tailor them well to my chosen target audience. 

Audience Research Survey

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