Audience Research

It was vital that we gained some audience research before starting our main product. For this me and my group devised a survey with a variety of questions on it which we hosted on a website called 'monkey survey' from here we could post it on varies websites, such as Facebook as that is what our demographic use a lot in order gather vital information.

Below is a list of the questions we asked both quantitative and qualitative:

Are you male or female? - 15 boys:15 girls

What sub-genre of horror do you like? - Top answer was Phycological Horror followed by paranormal and zombie type films.

What is your favorite horror film and why? - Top answer was a toss up between the Saw films, Paranormal Activity and The Shining

What is your least favorite horror film and what made it so bad? - Top answer was the Saw films

Are you influenced by actors, directors, franchise or companies? - 21 people said no - 9 people said yes.

What setting do you find most scary? - Old buildings gained the most votes followed by hospitals and rural settings.

What makes you want to see a horror film? - The most popular response to this was a film that made people jump or had shocking moments in it.

What do you like in a horror trailer? - A lot of answers links back to scary and shocking moments as well as some suggestion of a well developed plot.

What have you seen in other horror trailers that make them so bad? - Answers for this included giving away to much of the plot and spoiling the main film by showing the best bits in the trailer.

This set of questions provided us with a good basis of knowledge to apply to our product making. We got 30 responses to the survey 15 of which were girls and 15 boys.

Looking at sub-genre it was clear that it would be advisable to do a film similar to one of the top answers as clearly that is what our demographic wants.

The top films were more a matter of choice but did link to the suggestion of physiological horror such as Paranormal Activity which shows some constancy in data.

Oddly on the next question Saw films were the most popular answer although the appeared as being one of the more positive types of film people tend to watch. This could suggest that even popular films still are at risk of being rejected by audiences, or in Saw's case it could be argued that as there are simply so many of them, people have become bored of them.

There was a majority of 21:9 on influence from directors etc. This is a good thing for horror, as generally people involved in this genre are very unknown and it is the horror people go to see not the actors.

Setting revealed that older places or areas that didn't have a lot of things in were popular. This gives our group great advise as to where we should set our trailer.

It was very clear that what audiences want from our information findings was a film that provided some shock factor and areas that would make them jump.

This was then supported by the next question suggested that they equally wanted this within a trailer which is something we would have to answer to. As well as that they suggested a developed plot to be mentioned without giving away all detail. Something else we would have to include.

The last question once again supported the previous two responses and suggested that what put people off in trailers was seeing all the good bits and having the plot given away. This could suggest a want for mystery, although as suggested by the previous answer it is important to get the balance of plot given and given to much.

Overall our findings provided my group with strong ideas as to where to start. There were clear majorities on certain elements of horror, although there were some that disagreed. This is inevitable in a survey as not everyone is going to agree. However, the majority is enough to want to follow into our product and try to fulfill the criteria set by our demographic.

Link to survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WQR6RQR


(The link above goes to a survey myself and my respective group made to gather information on our demographic. It includes a range of quantitative and qualitative questions to ensure maximum information about horror in relation to target audiences preferences.)