Main task: Audience Research

Audience Research

To be able to understand the preferences of our audience, we went around and got other students to help us fill out our questionnaire. We got at least 30 responses by just going around and asking them to tally their answer choices for each question.

These are the questions we asked the other students. We made sure that we put them into graphs so that we can see the results clearly As shown below;

By looking at this graph, we are told by other peoples opinions that they prefer our film to have claws included rather than any other weapon. Claws bring out the horror in the killers, showing us that they are supernatural like werewolves etc. Or just typical killers who wear costumes, therefore increasing the capacity of danger.

My group and i had many options for a movie title, however they all relate to issues about night time and sleep. By the looks of it, our audiences choice was "Out of the shadows". One option i suggested was paralysis. This also seems appropriate as our movie is going to be more about paralysis than any shadows. 

The names we picked out for our antagonist are names that are usually used by a fair amount of antagonists in other movies that bring out the evil and fear in them. My favourite choice from there is the shadow man, because it reflects the darkness and gives a demonic type of sense. The results tell me that the chosen name was not specific, therefore a name that the group and i have picked out would be more likely to be used. The name that we had come up with is Deuchallion. 

The majority of the people we had asked were female, therefore the answers that they had chosen were the typical 'jump scares' making this answer the one we should use. Jump scares are the heart of horror movies since the beginning which is why they are supported when scaring the audience as to whether it will be through quick shots of the antagonists or the jump scares.

Saying which creature is the scariest was the easiest thing to talk about back in our day when we were all younger. Since we are speaking for todays time, stalking nowadays is really common through social media and in reality, therefore it is something that is feared by civilians and audiences. Due to this we have picked our creature/villain to be a stalker, and not really much of a paranormal demon etc. So that it creates the effect that even the audience understand the actual feeling of the protagonist making it have a more real feeling.

There is a tie between Jason from friday the 13th and Michael myers from halloween. Both these antagonists fit perfectly into the stalking category making it a perfect choice from our fellow students.  Since the students thought it was the worst way of dying, they thought it was appropriate to choose this. They both have the condition of stalking, abducting then murdering or keeping their victims as hostages. To allow our audience to experience the full shock, we could show them a preview of various photos of the deceased and their limbs everywhere and expect reactions of them looking away or tremble.

This question was added to be able to make our film more pure with all the horror, without irresponsible scenes to affect the audiences focus towards the fear and agitated atmosphere that they would be experiencing. The group and i have each chose the scenes we hated from different films, and added further, one based, on the common. Some movies over exaggerate the tripping over nothing making the audience more pressurised when they are expecting the unexpected - sarcastically. This movie cliché makes it so much easier for the antagonist to catch up to the victims, always. One other cliché chosen by the students was the thought of the protagonist opening a door to anything/one and then it ends up being the antagonist.

This answer was consistent and showed us that the most popular movie stereotypes are both The hippie and the Teenage girl who dresses inappropriately. As a group we decided to have one or the other during the opening of our film, but looking at the results, we have chosen the teenage girl to be featured.

The results helped us find a place to film our nightmare scene. The location with most votes was the haunted house and it allows us to film the majority of our movie in a normal house therefore allowing the haunted house to be included during the main scene with the nightmare. The same exact room will be used except we will mess it up by pouring blood everywhere and messing up the walls etc.

Some of the students said they watch horror films monthly or whenever its on. Other students  voted "others". Because "there" wasn't clear enough, we made sure to ask what exactly they had meant; all of them replied with, if they were on a date or trying to make it more romantic with the girl causing her to cuddle him etc. Telling from this information, we as a group need to make a fpm that is suitable for both genders and not cause a sexism debate. Meaning that it must feature each gender equally and appropriately.