Audience Research| Concluded Research

talk about what you found out and how we are going to conclude the research in order to write or treatment and start planning out our storyboard and teaser trailer 

Audience Research| Audience Profile Of EMPIRE MAGAZINE

Sub-Genre Audience Research| Psychological Horrors

Psychological horror is a subgenre of the horror fiction. Other than using monsters, ghosts and vampires like splatter and slasher genres, it relies on character fears, sound effects, and eeriness to build suspense to further the plot. This horror genre consists of less physical harm and rather works on affecting the characters mentally. It is made to create discomfort in the viewer by exposing common and universal psychological vulnerabilities and fears.

The horror comes from within and exposes the evil that hides behind normality of the environment around them. Psychological thrillers can be similar to psychological horrors, but the thrillers leave a different impact on the audience and its uses more mystery and theatrical dramatic scenes.

Another aspect of psychological horror is its use of body horror. This is meant by the graphic destruction or degeneration of the way the body is portrayed. This could develop a feeling of unease to the audience exploiting human fears of the abnormal, disease and suffering amongst others.

A prime example of current successful psychological horror is Paranormal Activity released in 2007. This supernatural horror film portrays the genre as they present their film in a style of found footage, a type of genre filmmaking to create even more tension.

Audience Research| Print Media Results

This questionnaire was conducted during my visit to the Tate Britain, and on my journey there. The chart indicates that majority of the public who participated in the questionnaire are 26-34, and I would expect such a result considering the audience research location. 



The chart clearly indicates that an equal amount of male and female participants took part in the questionnaire. The benefit of finding out the gender of my participants allows me to able to draw up conclusions, compare and generalise to the public.

This was asked to find out whether low key or high key lighting to most effective in drawing attention to the horror trailer and which best matches our trailer ideas, in terms of the genre for that psychological. According to the results high key lighting appeals most to audiences and can be used for a sinister and dramatic effect.

This question attempts to discover the perception of participants on the effective use of lighting to create tension within trailers of horror movies to make them more appealing to potential viewers. According to the results, the majority voted yes, meaning that audiences do support the idea that lighting affects the feeling of tension and fear in audiences when watching horror film trailers.

This question, regarding costume, helps me to find out what audiences would perfer to see actors or models wearing on poster and magazine covers. By finding this out, it allows me to understand what costumes appeal to audiences in terms of horror films and can also be applied to the film, for that the costume the main actor wears and the extras around the actor.

I asked participants which prop appeals to them most, so as to find out what prop I can possibly emphasize in the trailer that will draw the attention of audiences. The bloody bag proved most popular. However I am going to chose to go against the highest vote and instead chose to emphasize the voodoo doll as it bares more significance and is more relevant to the trailer rather than the bloody bag. The doll is peculiar and suggests an evil presence, that of whom wishes to contact the spirit of the living and conduct foul wishes.

Participants were asked what horror genre most appeals to them so as to help my group find out what genre audiences are most interested in watching and what we can change in our storyboard to make our trailer draw audiences in. The horror drama genre according to the graph was most popular, is most fitted to our sub-genre which a psychological.

This question in the sense helps us find out what font is most suitable to horror magazine covers; a formal font or informal font. According results, sans serif proved most popular in comparison to serif font.

This question was used to find out how audiences want the actor in the magazine cover or poster to communciate with them, in terms of non-verbal communciation. I chose to explore facial expression as I believe the sheer dominance of a close-up of a face on a magazine cover or poster, best protrays the feelings and emotions of the actor and so give audiences an insight into the possible genre of the film, without giving out too much information about the film trailer itself. According the results, the possesed facial expression recieved the highest results. The chosen facial expression in actual fact supports the genre of the teaser trailer which is pschological/ drama, in which a young girl sells her soul to unidentified man.

Here a photograph of the victim from the trailer proved most popular amongst audiences in comparision to the setting which appears to be less appealing to audiences. The benefit of using the victim for main poster is that it allows the character in the trailer to emotionally communicate with audiences, to make them feel empathy and understand the pain the character maybe feeling.

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The purpose of asking audiences about the photography on magazine covers in terms of what they would prefer to see on the cover, is that it helps me design a horror magazine cover that appeals to the audience. The choices the public were given in the question reflect the ideas my group and I had for the magazine cover, trailer and typical conventions of a horror magazine cover, e.g. a supernatural person on a magazine cover. According to the graph, the 'half a face seen' photography is most popular. This type of photograph will allow the character in the trailer to communicate with the audience. The fact that the photograph for the magazine cover will be captured using an extreme close-up also allows audiences to understand the role of the character, as well their emotions.

Here I asked participants what images they would expect to see on magazine cover, as a feature in the magazine. This was deliberately asked so as to find out what will be most effective in drawing the attention of audiences and what will appeal to the audience. The behind the scenes shots proved most popular; they are sneek peeks into the trailer and shots of the production of the teaser trailer, perhaps even shots that may not necessarily be used in the trailer.

This question, in a sense, is very similiar to the question about horror plots; this was done deliberately. Here I have offered the names of the films and the question below states the possible plots. The Sixth Sense proved most popular amongst audiences, in comparison to the very successful Saw. I asked this question to find out what genre most appeals to the audience rather than asking the audience directly as I am likely to receive a different result.

These questions were based on our ideas for the horror plot for the teaser trailer. This was to find out which horror plots from the selection best appeal to audiences, in terms of what they are most interested in watching. The options are based on horror films that are popular in cinemas and amongst most audiences, e.g the idea of a vampire plot can be linked to the very sucessful Twilight. The statistics indicate that the horror plot idea of selling your soul was very popular, and will tie in well with our psychological subgenre.

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.

Weekly Update

This week we are focusing on uploading our results for the questionnaire and documenting it on blogger, and doing audience research on psychological horror trailers so as to find out and understand the conventions of a psychological horror trailer.