ANALYSING OUR AUDIENCE SURVEYS

Audience Survey

• We conducted 4 surveys assigned to all 4 of our group members

• This was to engage with our target audience and see what they enjoy in horror films so we can get a hint to what to put in our film. Our target audience consist of 17-30 year olds.

• Taslima – what do you prefer in horror films? (1st survey conducted)

• Farheen – Film Poster (2nd survey conducted)

• Tasnim – Film Narrative (3rd survey conducted)

• Nuzhat – Radio Trailer (4th survey conducted)

1st Audience Survey – What do you prefer in a horror film?

• One of the first questions I asked was what sub-genre of horror did our audience prefer, and by the results the vast majority enjoyed supernatural, psychological and comedy.

• This helped us decide our genre for our film and to do a hybrid across both supernatural and psychological for our horror film.

• We also asked what type of props tended to frighten our target audience and the top 3 items they chose were dolls, masks and knives. Thus helping us to choose to have a doll and a knife featured in our film.

1st Audience Survey – What do you prefer in a horror film?

• Another question I asked was what our audiences favourite horror film was and why, and this was because we wanted to know what our audience like so we can make it as good as that film and have some similarities towards it.

• One of our respondents answered back with “One of my favourite horror films is Sinister because it involves young children which is also creepy and it integrates possession and murder as well which is cool”. This helped us identify what type of properties to have in our film to resemble this horror film and know what themes to put in our movie.

• Another important question we asked was if our audience wanted a disequilibrium at the end of a horror film, and the results were very close, as 47% said no and 52% said yes. But the majority won, so it was decided that our film was to have a disequilibrium and the end was to be left to the audiences imagination.

1st Survey – What do you prefer in horror films?• We also asked why our audiences enjoy watching horror films and we found from their answers

that many of them loved the thrill and feeling adrenaline from watching horror films. Moreover, one respondent wrote “Because it helps me deal with fears without putting myself at risk” and with our horror story about FGM we decided it will help some of our fellow audiences, also being such a chilling and horrifying subject it may give them the “adrenaline” they like to feel when watching horror films.

2nd audience survey - What colours do you associate with horror movie posters?

We asked this question to find out what colours our audience associates horror with so we could have an idea when it came to creating our own poster. Everyone who partook in the survey said that they mostly associate black with horror with red coming in as a close second. We can understand why they would generally associate black with horror as it represents darkness and death. The colour pink was never chosen as it is seen as a colour of intimacy and love rather than horror. Red was also a popular choice as many link it with blood and danger. Just over 70%of the audience chose white as it can represent a bright light or even ghosts.

The answers received were based on stereotypes and popular horror posters the audience have seen so when designing our poster we need to think about whether we want to stick to the stereotypical horror film poster or if we want to challenge this convention.

What's your favourite horror film poster? and why? • We asked this question so we could receive a basis of what our target audience watches and

what their eyes are drawn to in this aspect. Many of the posters chosen are from quite popular horror movies such as Sinister and Annabelle as they consist of dark colours and they set an uneasy mood. A few others also mentioned how dolls in posters give them the shivers as its quite ominous and ‘it gives them shivers’. They have also stated that they like it when they can recognise that the poster is portraying a horror movie straight away.

This is helpful to us when we design our poster as we can take ideas from these posters and we can find out what draws in our audience.

Do you prefer the writing or the picture to be dominant on a horror film poster?

This question was asked for the same purpose which was to generate ideas for how to design our own poster. The majority said that they prefer a picture to be dominant on a poster and this may be because a picture can give more of an insight into the plot of the movie instead of the title. Also from previous questions asked we found out that the majority's favourite posters were ones where the image was more dominant than the title or other words, this could also be the reason for their choices. Around 26% chose the option of both which means that they prefer both the title and image to be equal to each other as they both hold importance to the narrative of the film.

Does a horror films poster influence your decision to watch it?• We asked this to see how much of an impact our horror film poster would have on our audience

and whether or not they would base their decision of watching the film off the poster or not.

The majority chose the option of sometimes. This means that a horror film poster does play a role in whether they want to watch the film or not but sometimes it doesn’t play that much of a large role.

Do you prefer horror film posters to be portrait or landscape

Everybody who took the survey said that they prefer a horror film poster to be portrait rather than landscape. This may be because horror films that are generally produced in western countries have horror film posters that are portrait whereas in east Asian countries such as japan some of their posters are landscape. our audience may have chosen portrait as it is familiar to them. This helps us when designing our poster as we need to consider if it should be portrait and landscape. Choosing portrait may be ideal as it is more common in Hollywood.

What do you think the primary/ dominant image on the horror poster should be?

• The majority answered doll for this question. This fits in with previous questions where people have said that their favourite horror poster was for Annabelle which had the doll of Annabelle portrayed on the front. Some others specified included a doll and hands, specifically a hand holding a doll or something similar. We can take this into consideration and think about how our film involves a child and we can have a child's hand and a doll. A hand and knife alone were not popular within our target audience so that’s something we have to take in account.

Do you prefer posters with a lot of writing (includes release dates/ratings etc)?• This question also coincides with the question

abut whether the audience enjoyed the image or words to be dominant on a horror film poster. The majority answered no. This is understandable as many people take quick glances at posters they don’t sit there and read all the words and contemplate what they mean. We will bear this in mind when sketching our poster and make sure not to include too much writing as it is something our target audience does not particularly enjoy.

3rd survey-Film Narrative survey

• We asked 10 females and 10 males to answer these questions as we want our film to appeal to girls and boys .

• This way we can get a insight of what both genders like and want as part of a narrative.

• We distributed these surveys to the age group of 15 and upwards as we aim to target this specific age group.

What is your favourite opening scene of a horror film and why?

From these answers we can see that all of these openings are unique and aren’t typical openings. For example one respondent answered saying they like how the film “don’t breathe” showed a shot of the aftermath of events which happened, then went onto showing how the chaos occurs. They felt this was “clever” and “interesting”. Another person answered saying they like how the conjuring began with a black screen but with a conversation at the background. My group and I want to be able to make a opening which immediately grabs the attention of our target audience like these examples above

Do you prefer when normality is restored at the end of a horror film or it’s left unresolved?

• We asked this question to gain a idea of what our target audience want as a ending of our horror film.

• 40% of people said they would prefer when normality is restored at the end of the film and 60% answered saying they like when it’s left unresolved.

• Since the results were really close we furthered our research and conducted a group interview with a sample from our target audience. From this we felt the majority preferred when equilibrium isn’t resolved. For that reason we’ve decided normality isn’t going to be restored at the end of our horror.

Do you like when horror narrative is based on a conflict in society?

• 80% of people answered saying they like when a horror is based on a conflict in society whereas 20% said they don’t.

• Using this and our pitch feedback we’ve decided to focus on the issue of female genital mutilation (fgm). This is a serious issue and happens in some parts of the world.

• Basing our film on a real life issue makes the film more realistic and appealing to viewers.

What’s the best ending scene you’ve seen in a horror movie and why?

• We want a ending which will shock the audience, something that’s unpredictable. In order to know what kind of endings our target audience like we asked them to tell us the best one they’ve seen.

• One respondent answered saying they liked insidious as the conflict wasn’t resolved, another said the ring and the others as there was a unexpected twist at the end.

• Therefore we decided to end with our protagonist turning into a antagonist and hinting at the fact she’s gong to conduct fgm on her adopted sibling. We’ll hint at this idea rather than showing it as we want to leave it for the audiences interpretation

What is your favourite storyline of horror film and why?

• Getting to know what horror narrative our target audience like enables my group and I to understand how we can adapt our narrative to make it appealing for our audience.

• Many respondent said they liked the film split as it was freaky seeing the character have multiple personalities. For this reason we've decided to have our main character Madeline have a good and bad side. There’ll be a fight between these two different personalities. As well as this one respondent said they also liked the film because it’s based on a real issue in society: mental health. This is another reason why we’ve decided to focus on a real conflict in society

• One question we asked is do you like twists in a horror narrative. As you can see 100% answered yes.

• This clearly illustrates that our target audience like when unpredictable events take place in movies.

• For this reason we don’t want our film to have a stereotypical story line. For example in most horrors good wins. In our horror this won’t be he case. I think most people expect happy ending. Having a ending that’s not happy will be twist for the audience.

Do you like twists in horror narrative?

Name a horror film narrative you dislike and why you dislike it

• To make our horror film interesting we need to know why people dislike some existing narratives of horrors, so we can try to avoid what they dislike about narratives.

• One respondent said they disliked the film “hush because it took too long for something to happen”.

• Therefore we feel its important we don’t build suspense up so much that our audience gets bored waiting for events to unfold.

• Common answers were they didn’t like narratives because they were “boring”. This shows it’s vital for us to make our narrative as exciting as possible for our audience.

Does the narrative of a horror influence your decision of watching it?

• 95% of people said the narrative of a film influences the decision of them watching a film.

• This portrays how important a narrative is for some people. The story that unfolds in the film is what engages and attracts people to a film.

• This survey has helped my group and I adapt our story line to make it more appealing and likable for our target audience.

4th Survey- Radio Trailers

• One of the questions I asked the audience was ‘what sound effects in a horror movie make it movie scary’

• By the outcome I found that majority of people said they find screams the scariest, also laughs.

• A member of our audience also commented that they find silence and lullabies scary. This will help when editing the sound of our film as we will take this into consideration.

4th Survey- Radio Trailers

• Another question I asked was whether they like sound effects in a movie, 88% votes yes and commented “Makes movie much scarier”. Another comment was that it adds to the “horror atmosphere”.

• I also asked the target audience what was their favourite horror movie trailer based on sounds.

• 5 said their favourite was The Conjuring (2013)- this movie is slightly similar as it involves young children to ours so this will help.

4th Survey- Radio Trailers

• My question 6 was asking the audience whether they like music in horror movie trailers.

• The results were very close as 55% said yes and 44% no. From this we will decide as group if we choose to add music.

• I asked the audience if voice is important in a radio advert. Majority said yes.

• When planning our radio trailer we will ensure we add the things that our target audience said they like for example voice.

4th Survey- What do you think a horror movie trailer should include?

• My last question asked the audience what they think a horror movie trailer should definitely include.

• Many said it should include sound effects and sounds that relate to the plot of the movie.

• One said in particular to not give everything away in the trailer as with many trailers now and does not make the movie as interesting.