1) A questionnaire was conducted to understand the target audience for a horror film trailer. The majority of respondents were between 14-19 years old and female.
2) Most respondents reported going to the cinema 1-3 times per month and preferred psychological and supernatural horror subgenres.
3) Common elements like knives, murder, isolated houses, and playground settings tested well and will be incorporated into the horror trailer.
2. Our first question was ‘how old are you?’ the majority of respondents
answered they were aged between 17-19 as the percentage was 47% and
the second highest age group was 14-16 year olds as the percentage was
36%. By asking respondents their ages we were able to identify our target
audience, this made it easier for us to know that this specific age group
wanted in a horror film.
3. Our second question in our questionnaire asked ‘what is your gender?’ by
asking this question we were able to get a better understanding of what
our target audience wanted to see in our horror film. The results showed
that there were more women to men as the percentage was 53% to 47%;
this meant that our main target market was women.
4. ‘On average how many times do you go to the cinema in a month?’ this
was the third question asked in our questionnaire, a significant 77% of the
people answered on average they went to the cinema 1-3 times in a
month. By asking this question we were able to identify if our target market
were socially active and to find out if they used cinema as the main
method of film consumption.
5. Our fourth question was ‘what is the most common paradigm?’ by asking this
question we were able to recognise the most common and popular paradigm used in
a horror trailer we were able use this information and include the paradigms in our
horror trailer. The results showed that respondents thought that ‘Knifes’ and ‘murder’
were the most common paradigms of a horror movie trailer this helped us recognise
what our target market wanted to see in our horror movie trailer and also helped us to
use certain iconography to help make our genre clearer to the audience.
6. Our next question was ‘what is the best setting for a horror movie trailer?’
the two most popular answers from our questionnaire were ‘a playground’
and ‘isolated house’ by asking this question it allowed us to distinguish
what our target market wanted to see in a good horror movie trailer. In
addition we are going to use these answers in our horror movie trailer to
make it meet the audience’s wants.
7. ‘What is your favourite type of villain?’ this was also another question we
asked people, our reason for asking this question was to find out what
type of villain in order to get an idea of what kind of a negative character
people wanted to see in our horror movie trailer.
8. ‘Do you believe the male gaze is necessary in a horror movie?’ A large
proportion of respondents answered ‘no’ with a percentage of 70% and
30% replying ‘yes’, it was important to ask this question to find if the
male gaze was necessary in a horror film as most horror film consisted
of the male gaze, as most of our respondents were mainly women they
answered ‘no’ as they didn’t like the idea of women being seen as sexual
objects.
9. Next question we asked was ‘how do you consume films?’ this question
was asked to find out the main ways the target market consumed films, the
most popular answer was ‘TV’ this showed us that the target market liked
to watch films from the comfort of their own home. Further to this the
second most popular answer was ‘online’ this was because it was
convenient, easy and cheap as they were mainly students and was a cost
effect method.
10. ‘What type of sub-genre do you prefer?’ this question was asked to find
out the most favoured sub-genre amongst our target market so we could
incorporate the sub-genre into our horror movie trailer. The two most
popular sub-genres were psychological and super-natural.
11. ‘What trailer did you find most effective?’ the most effective trailer
people thought was ‘The ring’ this was because they thought the trailer
used good paradigms such as isolated house, darkness and screams
which perfectly fit into the super-natural sub-genre. The use of setting
also helped the trailer to be successful and effective amongst the
audience.
