EVALUATION: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

How the audience reacts to media

Neale (1990) – Genre is constituted by:“specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema and which

interact with the films themselves during the course of the viewing process.”

This means that the audience already expect certain aspects of the film they are about to see based on the

genre of the film.

Ryall (1998) viewers become ‘generic spectators’ which means they develop generic memory which helps in the anticipation of

events because the genre of horror follows the theme of anticipating scenes, even though the films themselves might play

on certain styles rather than follow a closely clichéd formula. For example, in the attic scene from “The Exorcist” the audience

expect something to jump out on the woman because all the generic conventions are in place, such as the camera shots of

someone's viewpoint watching the woman, the tense music, and the lack of light but in the end, the director deflates the tension,

making the audience relax again.

After the preview of my horror trailer, I handed out two questionnaire styles: a closed questionnaire which constricts what the person can answer with and an

open questionnaire, which allows people to write their own answers.

Open questionnaire Closed questionnaire

The majority of viewers who filled in the questionnaires were 16+, this shows that this type of genre attracts audiences of teenagers who are interested in horror.

I chose an equal amount of boys and girls to see if gender difference makes a difference in the feedback of

my trailer.

What they said

“it was effective and had all the typical

horror trailer conventions”

“The child close ups were very

effective”

“It was effective and

actually managed to

creep me out”

On one question I asked “which part of the trailer did you think was least effective?” The only comment I

received was one member commented

“The ending, the last screaming thing”

However, many others liked this scene because it made them jump in the end.

To conclude the questionnaire I asked if people would see the movie based on the trailer if it was real and why.

These were the answers:

“Yes, it is scary” “Yes, narrative was strong and it looked good”

“Yes because it looked authentic and would be

something to enjoy”

Overall I have learnt that different genres of film can effect an audiences opinion as not everyone might like horror.

From the feedback of my trailer I’ve learnt that most teenagers enjoy the theme of horror and that my trailer lived up to typical horror conventions and expectations.