Group: Audience Research and Questionnaire Feedback

Purpose: (F.L)

The main reason we performed our research was to discover:

• What our core audience want? Their preferences? Expectations? Likes/dislikes?
• Test our concept – does it fit with our sub-genre? What are the main ideas to be expanded on? What could be changed/improved?

Overall, we wanted to put ideas about our concept, and sub-genre, to our key target audience (teenagers) and see what their initial thoughts are. We need to test how our concept matches with existing films within the psychological sub-genre, we also need to evaluate the success and ideas behind our antagonists and protagonists, and also the general location/set. The participant's feedback is key to the success and relevance of our film, and is essential to create an opening that satisfies our intended audience.

Methodology: (R.D)

We handed our questionnaire out to 20 candidates our age as that is our target audience, we tried to hand them out to a mixture of male and female because it is not targeted to one particular gender. All 20 of our questionnaires were filled in and handed back to us. This was very good because it meant we got a whole range of peoples responses and there was variation in the reply.

We used all different types of questions including:

• Scaled questions
• Ranked responses
• Semantic differential
• Circle/ Tick Box
• Open questions

We tried to use a range of open and closed questions so that we received quantitative and qualitative results because we think that, while harder to analyse, qualitative results can give you more in depth information about audience opinions and how to improve.

We also tried to avoid using leading questions as we wanted the audiences honest opinion we didn't want them to say what they think we want them to say. We also tried to make the instructions as clear as possible so candidates knew what they were being asked.

Questionnaire & Results: (F.OC)

Q1. 

A #1 scored 4 points, #2 - 3 points, #3 - 2 points & #4 - 1 point

1. Psychopath - 66 points
2. Zombie - 49 points
3. Poltergeist - 23 points
4. Evil doctor - 22 points

Q2. The average score of how gory an opening sequence should be was 6.8 out of 10.

Q3. 

When asked what an effective location would be for victims to be held in a horror the results were as follows:

1. Basement - 12
2. Garage - 2
3. A room in a house - 1
4. Shed - 0

Q4.

The respondents said this was what they thought the characteristics of an antagonist in our sub-genre should be: (average)

• 1= neat 5=chaotic - 2.1
• 1= calm 5=angry - 2.9
• 1= solitary 5= integrated - 3.5

Q5.

These are the ages that the respondents thought were most effective for victims:

1. 11-18 - 75 points
2. 0-10 - 60 points
3. 19-30 - 44 points
4. 50+ - 37 points
5. 31-50 - 24 points

Q6. Favourite psychological film:

• Seven - 3
• Shutter island - 5
• The shining - 2
• The Lovely Bones - 3
• Insidious - 1
• The Ring - 1
• May - 1

Q7. The respondents, when asked where their initial expectations of a cannibal to reside, replied as follows:

1. Farmland - 5
2. Woods - 5
3. Suburbs - 3
4. City - 2
5. Desert - 1
6. Train Station - 0

Q8. 87.5% of respondents said that cannibals were effective and scary antagonists in the horror genre 'if' they were portrayed in the right, specific way. 2 people didn't find them scary or threatening villains.
 

Evaluation: (J.P)

After evaluating the results from our audience research, some of our ideas have been reinforced by what we have found out and some have also been challenged:

• Both question 1, 3 and 5 reinforced our ideas for our plot which was that the main antagonist was going to be a psychopath, the basement as the main location and the victims being teenagers. 
• Some results contradicted what we had initially thought; Question 2 was asking how gory an opener should be and the average answer was 6.8 out of 10, our opening was planning to mostly be psychological and not to include much, if any gore so we are currently thinking of ways that we can alter/improve the plot to change this.
• Question 4 is making us thinking about our chosen antagonist since we had initially planned for him to be very calm and neat but on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being calm and 5 being angry, our results showed the average of 2.9 which shows our target audience prefer angry antagonist. Although we have seen that an angry antagonist is preferred, we are still going to keep him calm since our whole plot is based on how they try to be normal.
• When asked what your favourite psychological horror the most popular was shutter island, shutter island is a similar concept to our plot in my opinion since their is a big plot twist which no one expected, similarly to how the wife is in on the plan
• The results from question 7 show that the preferred location for a cannibal is farmland/woods but our original idea was to be in a town/village to show normality so we are thinking about a farmland as a possible location since our target audience preferred it.

Completing the audience research showed us that we have to broaden our opinions as what we think may not necessarily be what our target audience thinks, we will be making some changes the plot to satisfy what our audience will like and want. The audience research has also filled us with some confidence as many of ideas were accepted and reinforced.