Questionnaire Analysis

These graphs are based on the number or people who selected particular answers opposed to the percentages of people, there were 25 questionnaires completed in total.

I wanted to know the gender of the people filling out the questionnaire as if the results differed through males and females this shows a how males think differently about horrors to female however this was not the case and there was no link between the answers given and the gender of the persons filling it out.

This question gave me an idea of what teens would like as I was focusing my research mainly on their age range. Although it was also important to get a general overview of people’s opinions and to see whether age had any correlation to what types of horrors they preferred. There was no direct link between age and the opinions expressed however this could be due to the fact that I only surveyed 25 people and these 25 people may be very differing in opinion.

The results of this question enabled me to gain a general opinion of the conventional victim or what people believe the conventional victim to be. As the majority of opinions were that a female victim is better I am going to use a female as the main victim in my horror opening. I did wonder whether the reason that female victims were popular was because of ‘male gaze’ however many females also wanted the victim to be female.

I felt this was an important question as if we were marketing our film the internet is a prime tool which we could use for advertising as all the people I surveyed used the internet.

This again helps us to understand what methods of advertising could be effective, as the majority of people use facebook this would be a great place to advertise. Internet advertising is far more cost effective as you don’t have any hard materials to purchase.

This gave me an insight into what people really enjoyed whilst watching a film, although most people did choose psychological some also picked more than one genre this suggest that although on the whole people do enjoy psychological other factors such as the films composition and acting can influence the opinions of audience members.

Non- linear films are popular with a lot of people however I do feel that as the majority of people I asked were media students they enjoy a more in depth challenging film than people who go to the cinema for something to do although films such as the hangover have a non-linear composition and are mainstream. I personally enjoy non-linear films but linear is also popular, I think other factors also come into play as such as how the film is composed simply having a non-linear film isn’t going to attract an audience. Non-linear and linear opening are important in establishing the rest of the film, if a non-linear opening is produced it brands the film as a challenging film which usually has a bit plot twist whereas a linear opening is much more conventional. We are going to use a linear opening as we want our film to be as generic and mainstream as possible as it will attract the largest audience of mainstreamers.
It is important to establish the tone of the film through the opening, in the opening there needs to be either conflict or a dramatic event which hooks the audience into wanting it watch the rest of the film. If the opening is boring an audience member won’t want to watch the whole film this is why it is vital for the opening to be engaging for the audience.
When asked to draw an image of what the ideal horror victim and villain would be, almost all people drew a large figure over a small figure suggesting dominance through height and also many drew masked or disfigured face which I am going to take on board and use a cloak or mask for our villain.
The main convention of a horror film listed was death this is because in almost every conventional horror there is at least one death even if this is imaginary for the character an image of a killing is in almost every horror movie an audience member has seen. This makes me think that a death must be included in our opening to draw the audience in.
The question which involved predicting the outcome of the female in the picture 100% of people wrote that she would die by some turn of fate, this shows how people are influenced by conventional horrors as they are used to the victims who die being female not male so they automatically think the female in the image will die.
This questionnaire has helped me to understand the opinions of a general section of the public. Some of the ideas expressed have shown me what to include in my horror for example death and the fact that psychological films are most popular leads me to head in this direction of sub genre. The overwhelming response was that a female should be the victim in a horror and this I will defiantly take on board and use as I personally have this opinion too.

Questionnaire

Are you male or female?

How old are you?

Do you watch horror films regularly?

What is your favourite genre of film for example action, horror etc?

Do you have a favourite horror film (please state below)?


Do you own any of the following items? - (please tick next to the items you own)
Mobile
Laptop
I phone
Blackberry
Please state and list here if you have any other technology which is capable of video playback
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Are you an internet user?
Do you visit any of these websites on a daily basis?
Facebook
Bebo
IMBD
Youtube
MSN hotmail
Myspace
Any other websites please list here: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Where do you consume films? (Please circle below)
Internet
Blockbuster
Cinemas like Odeon
Television
Love film
Illegal download (piracy)
Others Please list ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Do you prefer the victim of a horror to be male or female?
Which of these images suggest the genre of horror the best? (Please circle 1)


Which sub-genre of horror do you prefer? (Please circle)
Apocalyptic(zombie) , psychological, supernatural, slasher, monster,
Other please specify …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….........
Do you enjoy films to be linear or non linear?

Identify the main conventions of horror films e.g. blood, death etc

the deluge

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

While constructing my media product, I learnt how to use a variety of things that benefitted my research and media product.

To display the information for my media product I used a blog. Blogs are very useful in which information can be categorised and others can give feedback on my work to help improve my research. They are also useful for sharing links to internet and uploading videos from sites like YouTube. You can also add decorative items to help demonstrate you work. I learnt how to embed videos, personalise my workspace and organise work. This helped towards reviewing my work and making it more convenient for others to read.

YouTube is a website in which anyone, worldwide, can upload videos and share them among everyone. This was a useful piece of technology in which I was able to upload my prelim task and final piece. It was also very helpful in my research because I was able to gain clips from horror films and analyse them as well as show them in my research on my blog. During the construction of my product I learnt how to use YouTube to help improve my work and use the videos I obtained to create examples, emphasising any point I made during my research and planning.

IMDb is a popular site used by a lot of movie fans and people who are interest in sharing their opinion of films. I used this site to research films and gain statistics on how people rated films of the horror genre. I learnt how to find information on the website and use it in my research while using user ratings to confirm the evidence I attained. This was a very helpful thing to learn because it improved my research.

During the construction of my product, it was essential to use cameras and to do this I had to learn different techniques and learn how to properly utilize them. Cameras are portable, which makes them adequate for manoeuvrability and easier to make a variety of shots, such as shaky cam, 180 degree pan and a first person view shot. Learning to use these techniques helped improve the performance of my final piece.

Adobe Premiere Elements was a new piece of technological software that I learnt to use when editing my media product. Although I only helped on the editing I learnt how to apply a variety of effects that made our media product successful. I learnt how to dim the light to make it seem dark, to fade in and out between shots and how apply titles and credits.



Question 5

How did you attract/ address your audience?

To attract our target audience we used a variety of different ways to relate to the audience. We did this by researching what teenagers (our target audience) did in their own time and we categorised them into social groups. The social group we particularly aimed for was the ‘stereotypical’ teenager that lives a mundane life of hanging around with friends and doing school work.

In our production we used a teenage cast, which would relate to the audience and attract them. We shot in a teenager’s house to give the audience a sense of familiarity and, using our research to find out of the audiences fear of technologies, we used props to relate to our audience. We chose to use a Blackberry phone because this was a popular and commonly used phone that people between the ages of 18 – 25 used very often. This prop, with a pink cover, was used to attract many females that, shown in my research, are very popular thus attracting them successfully.

The costume of our character was typical teenage clothing and was also used to attract a female audience who could relate to it and a male audience who could admire the female cast. The props, such as the handbag and mascara, were shown clearly to relate to an audience that goes out regularly and uses these props when getting ready to go out. This attracts them because they can feel a connection with the character and is much more effective when the character is killed.

Another way we attracted the audience was to refer to other horror movies. Two movies in particular we used were Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Scream (Wes Craven, 1996). These both used similar techniques, in which they challenged conventions by killing the most popular actor first. We related to Psycho by using a bathroom scene as the place of the murder. This attracted an older audience that remember the famous death of Marion Crane. A younger audience can also relate because Psycho is portrayed in many of today’s T.V shows.

We also attracted a teenage audience by referring to Scream. We did this by using a caped villain, which was also done in Scream as the famed villain known as ‘Ghostface’. From IMDb I learnt that this film was very popular among teenagers of the age 15 – 29 years old:

So by relating to a very popular villain we were certain to be successful in attracting our target audience.

Our media product was shown to our fellow student, who filled out a questionnaire rating our camera work, lighting, etc. They also commented on our overall product and what we could have done better and a lot of people commented on the lighting. Another highly commented problem was the sound effects and how the timing was not synced with the actor’s lips. We read these comments and tried our hardest to fix and perfect them.

I think we were successful in ‘hooking’ the audience with our horror opening because the feedback we attained was very positive and one question asking “Would you watch the rest of the film?” was answered ‘Yes’ by almost everyone. This shows that we were able to attract our audience by using aspects they could relate to such as other films of the horror genre, popular props and a close relationship to the characters.

Question 4

Who would be the audience of you media product?

Initially our aim was to create a teen horror, meaning that the audience need to be the age range of 15-20 years old.

In my research I studied how films target their audience and how successful they are in achieving this. One film I studied was Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and using IMDb, I found out what audience they appealed to and studied from looking at this graph:

From the graph it shows that Males, of any age range, enjoyed this film more than Females. I think they did this by introducing a young, popular female cast. It also shows that a lot of people, who are in my targeted age-range, enjoyed it; I think they did this by following conventions and appealing to the audience.

Another film I researched was Scream (1996) which mocked conventions, as well as following them. This graph shows the ratings given by IMDb users:



This graph also shows that a male audience preferred the film to a female audience.

Using these rating, it shows that the audience for my media product is likely to be a male audience aged between 15 and 29. I think this because from my research I learnt that teenage males watch teen horrors more often and, from the ratings of Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, I feel that my media product has aspects of both these films, such as a young female cast and conventions of horror.

Question 3

What kind of media institute might distribute your product and why?
My product appeals to both mainstream and independent audiences. The low-budget and unknown actors contribute to an independent audience such as ‘Hellbride (Pat Higgins, 2007)’, which also has unrecognisable actors and is a highly unknown film among the mainstream audience.
My media product also contributes to a mainstream audience because the plot is very in-depth and conventional such as many of the popular mainstream films that are shown in renowned cinemas. For example, ‘Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)’ has a psychological and slasher villain, which my media product can relate to because my plot revolves around an insane character that uses a knife to wound it’s victims then drowns them. This film appeals to a mainstream audience and closely relates to my media product, although my product doesn’t contain any famous actors, its plot is well developed and would be highly popular among a mainstream audience.
Using my research of mainstream and independent films, I am positive that my film would be a mainstream film and would benefit by being shown in popular cinemas such as Odeon and Vue.
I would contact Working Title and consider working with them in distributing my media product because they are a highly successful production company and have produced many popular films.

To market my product I would use a viral marketing campaign, in which I would spread little clues and bits of information among the internet and would release a trailer that creates a lot of hype among the mainstream audience. This was most effect with Cloverfield in which the used viral marketing to create a ‘buzz’ resulting in the film being cheaply and successfully publicised.