Audience Research Evaluation

The Survey

We sent out our survey to 20 people via email, all of whose ages fell within our target audience bracket for our movie genre. We did this because it wouldn’t make sense to find out what people would like to see in a horror movie if they weren’t going to be the people who wanted to see a horror movie.
In our survey we used a variety of question structures which would give us the format of results intended. For example, when we asked the question, “What gender are you?” we had our answers as 1) Male or 2) Female. We chose these as our answers because if we had left the answer as an open one, there was a possibility that we may have has some very strange answers. It also helped, if there were people who didn’t know what the word gender meant, because the possible answers were Male, Female, therefore they would be able to work out the answer pretty quickly.
We also used a Semantic Differential, to help gain a better idea of how the audience would like their villain to be perceived. We offered them a list of characteristics, (Psychotic, Tall, Fat, Intelligent, Creepy, Confident, Old, Good looking, Violent) and with each characteristic, we offered them a worded scale (Very, Fairly, Moderately, Not Very, Not At All) to help them decided how much the villain should be like that characteristic. The rest of our survey was complied of short, easy to answer, closed questions.

The Results

How often do you watch horror movies? (Circle One.)

We found that the majority (65%) of the respondents watched horror movies about once a month. This told us we had asked the right people about horror movies as they are the sort of people who watch them regularly. Some of our more attentive respondants told us that this questions was slightly badly worded, Because if u fell in to the bracket of someone who watches horror movies "More than once a Week", then you would also fall into the other two brackets of "More than once a Month" and "More than once a Year". Because we were lucky enough to recieve this feedback, we now know that if we are to do questionnaires in the future, that we should think about our questions and responces more, or we should run pilot questionnaires, so that there aren't any confusions, or are kept to an absolute minimum.

How old are you? (Circle One.)

Because we sent the questionnaires out to school friends and friends outside of school, we found that most of the responses (80%) to this question were the 16-20 brackets. However there were a few responses in the older and younger age groups as to make up the numbers, as some questionnaires failed to return, we asked relatives and younger/older siblings.

What Gender are you? (Circle One.)

The majority (70%) of our responses were male, as I was made in charge of sending out the questionnaires, and most of my friends are male. This just helped us gain better knowledge of the people we sent our questionnaires to, so we could better understand why some or our respondants answered in the way they did.

Do you like male or female villains in a horror Movie? (Circle One.)

We found that most people (75%) wanted to have a male villain in the horror movie. This question was added to help with the casting, so we could know in advance before deciding a story line, which gender our villain should be. A female villain would have a much different feel and effect on the audience to a male one. Also, one of our generic expectations of a horror movie with a villain in it is that the villain is male.

Rank in order your favourite type of villain.

Looking back on it, this was quite a strange question to ask, because of our “budget” and our lack of experience and availability of CGI, would make creating some of the proposed villains be almost impossible to create without them looking silly or cheesy, which wasn’t the effect we would be looking for. Luckily, Most of our respondents (55%) returned Serial Killer as the preferred villain in a horror movie, which is a lot more manageable than a ghost or zombie character.

Where is your favourite horror location? (Circle One)

We found that our respondents (70%) preferred to have the movie shot in a forest. We were very pleased about this response, as filming in some of our other locations would have been quite hard to find and shoot at safely. We also have a forest fairly close to the school, so it is a very convenient response.

What do you look for in a horror movie? (Select one.)

We found that most of respondents (65%) wanted so see Violence and fear. This was a slightly bad question as we didn’t have a great variety of responses available to our respondents. However we do now know that our target audience want to be seeing scared people getting murdered in a savage way.

What should the villain in a horror film be like? (Tick the applicable box.)

We found that our audience would like a very psychotic, fairly tall, not very fat, moderately intelligent, moderately creepy, not very old, fairly good looking, fairly violent serial killer. This question was the semantic differential one, which gave us a great idea of how our audience would like their villain to be. It also gave the respondants the opportunity to fine tune their villain to just how they wanted him.

What is your preferred type of weather in a horror movie? (Circle maximum of two.)

The respondents said they would like to have a cloudy and rainy horror movie.
We used this question to help us with planning our shoots, because we would need to pick days when the weather was either cloudy or rainy or both. Luckily its winter at the moment, and with the typical English climate, we shouldn’t have much trouble finding a day when it is either cloudy or rainy.

What time of day should a horror movie be set? (Circle one.)

Our respondents said they would like to have the movie set at night. This is probably in accordance with the previous question with the weather; our audience would like to see cloudy rainy weather at night. In much the same way as the previous question, we needed to have this question in our survey to help us plan when our shoots would be.

What sort of sound set should be used in a horror movie? (Circle one.)

Our respondents said they would like to have quite mood setting music. We needed this question in our questionnaire because when it came to finding our soundtracks and sound-effects for our movie, we would need to know what our audience would want and expect to hear, otherwise we may waste a lot of time downloading and testing the wrong genres/types of music.

What type of music would you expect to hear in a horror movie?

We found that our audience would like to hear slow music, maybe consisting of a piano, maybe because of the cold sound it gives, linking in with the cold weather in the movie. We used this question for the same reason as the previous, so we didn’t waste time with the wrong genres/types of music. We left this question open, accepting various responses, so that we could gain as much information as possible about how our audience would like their music.

CONCLUSION

I believe that the survey served its purpose, giving us vital information about our audience and their generic expectations of the horror movie genre. It also saved us a lot of time in the editing process when we needed to find an appropriate soundtrack. On the whole, I think it will prove very useful as we progress through the production process of our horror movie, as it gives us a great deal of information about our audience and it helps us tailor and shape the horror movie around the audiences expectations of the horror movie genre; hence increasing the likelihood of our horror movie meeting the expectations and fulfilling the conventions of the horror movie genre.