To ensure we knew what our audience wanted to see in a horror trailer and what they liked about horror films, we felt that we should carry out a questionnaire and run a focus group for a select few to find out in depth what they liked, what they didn't like and if they had any suggestions for our trailer ideas.
These were the questions from our questionnaire:
1) Do you like/dislike horror films?These were the questions from our questionnaire:
2) What do you like/dislike about horror films?
3) If you watch horror films, how often on a weekly monthly basis do you watch them?
4) What are your fears (eg, what makes you jump) in a horror?
5) What are your favourite aspects of a horror film.
6) What do you like to see in a horror trailer?
7) What do you like to see in a horror trailer?
8) *brief outline of trailer* What do you think of our idea, would you see the film?
We gave our questionnaires to 7 females & 4 males, this was an opportunity sample of people who were in our sixth form common room, it was a mixture of students in year 12 and year 13.
3 of 4 males said they liked horror.
6 out of 7 females said they liked horror.
Male’s favourite aspects of horror were:
- Portrayal of scary scenes
- Gory Stuff
- Sound Effects/Music
- Blood
- Suspense
- Thrill and Rush
- Death scenes.
- Tension
- Fears were:
- Spiders (1)
- Rats (1)
- Silent scenes
- In a trailer they liked..
- Scary stuff
- Parts of a scary scene
- Blood (2)
- Female’s favourite aspects of horror were:
- Jumpy scenes (2)
- Sound Effects/Music
- Action (2)
- Death (2)
- Violence
- Tension
- Fears were:
- Jumpy Scenes (3)
- Scary faces
- Devils and Demons
- Unsuspecting scenes
- Music
- In a trailer they liked..
- Jumpy scenes
- Appropriate music
- Action (2)
- Something that is worth watching in cinema
- Blood
- The general idea of the film
4 out of 7 males, after hearing about, would watch the film.
Focus Group:
We ran a focus group on Wednesday 5th October to gather some research from an exclusive group of year 13 students to research about their ideas on horror films and what they liked/disliked, and what they thought of our initial trailer ideas.
In our focus group we had 4 females and 2 males:
The name "Social Killer" appealed to the group as it was a contemporary issue, social networking and connecting with friends, and the killer part made them know instantly that it was a horror film.
The focus group liked our idea of it also being a social issue as they felt that it was scarier, because it was dealing with a real life issue and would be a pseudo documentary.
We found out that the focus group liked suspense, music, jumpy scenes and cliffhangers to make you want to find out what happens, in film trailers.
The group suggested that we have:
Focus Group:
We ran a focus group on Wednesday 5th October to gather some research from an exclusive group of year 13 students to research about their ideas on horror films and what they liked/disliked, and what they thought of our initial trailer ideas.
In our focus group we had 4 females and 2 males:
The name "Social Killer" appealed to the group as it was a contemporary issue, social networking and connecting with friends, and the killer part made them know instantly that it was a horror film.
The focus group liked our idea of it also being a social issue as they felt that it was scarier, because it was dealing with a real life issue and would be a pseudo documentary.
We found out that the focus group liked suspense, music, jumpy scenes and cliffhangers to make you want to find out what happens, in film trailers.
The group suggested that we have:
- A flashing blue screen in darkness, to add to making it scarier suggesting that the computer is alive?
- Having computer key noises when flashing up facts on screen.
- On our draft film poster created, we could have a pool of blood under the hand on our next one, to make it look really effective and look like that there is a large amount of blood loss, to show the audience that the film will be gory and scary as there is lots of blood.
