Audience Research| Horror Teaser Trailer Questionnaire Results

My questionnaire was conducted in and out of College; on students, teachers and the public. My Target audience for the Horror Teaser Trailer is 16-25. My questionnaire indicates that 74% of people aged between 16-25 participated in the study. In many ways my research is biased in the sense that it was carried out in an environment where there are primarily students and adults that fall between this age range, hence the low percentages for people aged 44 and above. I chose to carry out my study in college for the reason that it makes distributing and collecting the questionnaires easier.

Notice the percentage of female participants are almost equal to the percentage of male participants, this therefore makes my data more reliable and perhaps more varied in the sense that the male's and female's perception of horror is likely to be very different and so we have a almost equal amount of participants to be able to generalise my results, e.g. female participants perferred the isolated corner in comparison to the male participants who perferred the janitor's closet location.



The purpose of this question is essentially to find out which setting audiences perferred so that we can decide where one of our main shots will be filmed based on the response from the participants. The benefit of the 'isolated corner' being most popular is that the complexity of lighting the set is reduced, as the lighting is focused in a small area, and can therefore give a feeling of loneliness, isolation which can inturn have an emotional response on audiences. Filming in a stairway, given the limited places my group can film in my school for health and safety reasons, essentially means that any stairway or corridor lights must remain on and exits open. This would disrupt with the filming, in terms of people walking pass the set, not to mention the fluorescent lighting that shows up on the camera as yellow, and will therefore result in there being an excess of lighting, which is unbalanced and in turn creates heavy dark shadows.

In this question, I was very specific about the costume of the main character in the trailer, for the reason that we already have strong ideas about the costume we wanted to use in shots and wanted to see if audiences supported this. We asked participants whether torn, bloody clothes appeal to them and according the graph above it shows that 74% of participants said it did appeal to them. This audience research will be used for a shot to show suffering and create suspense.

The purpose of asking participants this question, to help me find out what colours my group can use in the trailer that supports the conventions of horror films; black proved most popular with audiences. The high response of black can be ultilised by using low key lighting to place emphasis on the main actor.

Allowing audiences to choose what filter 'best represents horror films', enables me to find out what colours are most appealing to them and what they are used to seeing in horror films and so in turn gives me the opportunity to represent dramatic scenes in a way that supports the conventions horror films today. The green filter was most popular amongst participants. The advantage of using a green filter is that it emphasizes 'gory' blood and can a create peculiar and chilling atmosphere. People are often used to associating the colour with 'good' e.g. the environment, plants, labs etc it can in effect be used to portray something negative for that death, for an emotional and dramatic response.

Here I asked participants how long they would expect a teaser trailer to be. Participants were given five options to choose from, for that; 35 seconds, 45 seconds, 55 seconds, 60 seconds and 1 min 10 seconds. The timing choices were taken from the research on trailers for our textual analysis and general research. According to the graph 55 seconds proved most popular. I personally feel that 55 seconds is about the correct length for a teaser trailer, for the reason that, you want to introduce audiences to the main character whilst allowing audiences to understand the genre of the film without giving away too much of the trailer. The trailer also needs to be logical even though it is a teaser trailer and relevant to its target audience as well as its genre. The 55 seconds gives my group and I sufficient time to do all those but almost as blinks as if a person were dreaming, unconscious and it is unreal. In addition, whilst doing my research on teaser trailers I found that most horror trailers were about the same length at that some even longer.

I asked participants this question on editing so as to find out what cuts best supports the conventions of horror teaser trailers and what most appeals to audiences. According to the results quick cuts proved most popular in comparison to long takes that is often used for to have an emotional effect of audiences and introduce the characters on-screen to audiences. The benefit of using quick cuts in our horror trailer is that the cuts will be edited to appear like blinks, a mind trick, hence the genre of the trailer; psychological drama.

This was essential to find out; in order to be able to create tension and suspense in the trailer, which can in turn attract a wider audience. It also helps me decide what sound effect should be exaggerated to have an emotional effect on audiences. According to the results heavy breathing was most popular and well be used in the trailer to symbolise fear and anxiety.

I asked participants this question to find the most beneficial way of distributing the audience research questions and collecting results, using technology today such as; the internet, social networking sites i.e. Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, using social networking sites and devices such as Ninetendo DS, Blackberry messenger and PSP. Technology is heavily used by young audiences today, and so it is a highly appropriate way of contacting mass audiences to retrieve information on horror films from.

I decided to ask whether, audiences use any social networking sites or devices so that participants who do not use any social networking sites or device do not feel pressured to give incorrect answers, and also to find out whether submitting my audience research online will allow me to communciate with my target audience and gain their responses.

The graph indicates Facebook is by far the most used social networking site. By analysing each response, I have also concluded that facebook is heavily used by the audiences between 16-25 in comparison to other age groups e.g. 26-35.