Research What I learned from my audience feedback during my research.

During my research into horror film trailers, I created a survey to find who my target audience was, what they enjoyed about the horror genre and why.

The first two questioned I asked where whether they were male or female and hold old they are. The reason why I did this was so I could clearly understand the gender of my target audience and their age. It is important to understand this when making a film trailer because I am able to make it age appropriate and ensure that I create a plot that can relate to both genders. From the feedback I received the majority of people answering were female and between the ages of 16 to 20.

As I was creating a horror film trailer, I had to determine if the people answering actually enjoyed the genre; this way when looking at the rest of the feedback I can clearly see if it is valid because the person enjoys the genre. I am able to see individuals and their answers, therefore if they answer yes to liking horror I am able to look at the rest of their answers and know it is truthful.

This shows that from my survey, the majority of people answering my survey did enjoy watching horror films.

Once I knew whether they enjoyed the horror genre, I wanted to understand either why they did enjoy it or didn’t. This is important because I can include elements in my trailer which the audience enjoy and if possible I might include elements which they don’t enjoy as much. For example, some of the audience don’t like gore; therefore that could be an element that I don’t include in my trailer. This means that I am appealing to a wider audience.

It shows from these responses that a popular choice which the audience enjoy is the suspense side of horror. Therefore, this could be a key element to use in my trailer.

To find out what the audience enjoy doing in their spare time is important because I am finding the demographic. If I understand what they enjoy doing then I am able to understand my target audience further. If there was one hobby that stood out from the rest, I could include it within the trailer to ensure that it was relatable to the target audience.

From looking at this feedback I can see that the two most popular answers where watching films and hanging out with friends. It is important to understand this because if they enjoy watching films, they are likely to watch my trailer. Then as they enjoy hanging out with friends, I can include this element in my trailer. The trailer is then going to appeal to the target audience.

I decided to ask the audience if they enjoyed a film trailer whether they would go and watch the film. I thought this question was important to ask because I had decided to make a film trailer; therefore if the audience enjoyed it I wanted to know if they would go and see the film. From the feedback, I can clearly see that the majority of the audience would go and watch the film if they enjoyed the film trailer.

This is one of the most important questioned that I asked, I wanted to know what they enjoyed most in a horror film trailer. This way I would be able to include the most popular choice. From the screenshot to the right I am ale to see that tense music is one of the most popular elements to include in my trailer. This is important in a horror film trailer because it is supposed to build tension and make the audience sit on the each of their seat. The next most important element is including parts of the story throughout, including the beginning, middle and end (equilibrium, disequilibrium and resolution).

I wanted to understand what the audience’s favourite horror film was so that I could research into them, their storyline and their success. This is important because I would be able to take ideas from their trailers and see what techniques they used to attract the audience in.

To make my trailer I had to keep in mind technical elements such as the camerawork, editing and mise-en-scene. Therefore, I wanted to know from the audience what they found most effective in a film trailer. The most popular choice was sound, this is important for me because I am then able to concentrate on making the sound effective and relatable to the trailer.

Asking the audience how often they watch horror films is important because I am then able to think about when to release my trailer. From the feedback, the most popular answer was monthly, therefore I know to release my trailer during the middle of the month because the audience are more likely to watch it.

What have I learned?From this survey I conducted to research into horror films, I have learnt what the target audience enjoy in the horror genre and this is extremely important when creating a trailer because the main aim is to ensure it appeals and is successful. I have also learned who my target audience is; this is important because when I am creating my trailer and ancillary products I should always have the target audience in mind.