Target Audience

Target Audience Profiling

The audience of my horror movie under the sub genre of supernatural, will consist of both males and females aged between 15 and 35. I have chosen to aim towards both genders, the audience will be predominantly female due to the female protagonist but also the emotional attachment and fear that is entwined into it. It is said that the supernatural horrors will intrigue her more, however, there will be a small section of males who will choose to watch the film as well. Finally a female will be more open-minded about the concept of spiritual objects (implied by previous research) and the idea possession and may even be fascinated by the supernatural.

Questionnaire:

This was the questionnaire I designed in order to find out what my target audience like and what really scares them! I added a mixture of open ended and closed ended questions so that the audience wont feel like the questionnaire is a burden to fill out. The questionnaire was handed out twenty three people ranging from the ages of 15-35 and consisted of both males and females. 

Questionnaire Analysis:

This was the first question that I asked; it’s important to ask the age of the target audience so that I know how to address the audience better when thinking about how to make my trailer appeal to them. The youngest people that i asked were 15 as many horror movies are not age certified for 12 or 12A. After seeing this result I decided to make my horror trailer age certified 15 instead or 18, as many teenagers watch horror movies and it widens the amount of people which my trailer can appeal too.

When I was first thinking about my movie narrative and the target audience, I was unsure to whether the audience will be primarily male or female and so this question was extremely helpful to me in my research. it is now clear that the target audience for my trailer are dominantly female. This could be because females tend to be more open minded on supernatural and spiritual topics.

I feel like this is an important question to ask because it allows me to understand how much free time the target audiences spends watch horror movies. My aimed audience will like other movie genres such as comedies and romance and so this is why the majority only was horror movies 'sometimes'. The fact that my target audience are not necessarily horror 'crazy' tells me that my horror movie should include an emotional element and a more sophisticated narrative to intrigue them. 

I chose to ask this question, because it confirmed the fact that most of the target audience prefer the supernatural genre. If the results came back that more respondents preferred, for example, gore, then I would have had to re-think my narrative ideas This question was followed by a open ended question stating 'briefly state why' I felt like this is important to know because it will allow me to incorporate their answer into my work. Many respondents stated that they like the supernatural genre because it explores the unknown and so therefore scares them more. Another popular response was that the idea of ghosts terrify the audience, one person stated 'ghosts completely terrify me'.

The results from this question will help me to decide which features to put into my horror trailer; by knowing which features they find most effective, I can include them into my trailer so it will successfully frighten them. The most popular answer was the eerie music, which is interesting. I personally find eerie music effective and I now know it is popular amongst my target audience. Fast-paced editing was in close second place with 21%, this could be because as the fast montage of images happens it causes the target audiences adrenaline to pump and it is the part of the trailer which excites them most.

Aside from these 5 questions, I also decided to ask 2 open ended questions because it will allow me to draw out more information from my target audience. Below are the questions and the analysis of the results:

'What is your favourite horror movie? Please state why?'

I chose to ask this question as it would be interesting to see if one movie was favoured the most, or if there is a wide variety; if there was a favoured movie I thought I could use it for inspiration. The results showed that there was a huge variety of movies, however 3 respondents chose 'Silence of the Lambs' saying that the psychological narrative kept them interested and that it was a 'Classic' but also 'The grudge' was also chosen by 3 people who claimed that the use of sound was effective and it had 'disturbing scenes'. As 'The Grudge' is supernatural I will watch the movie again and see if I can gain inspiration from any of the scenes so that my trailer will appeal to my target audience. The other movies which were chosen were mainly in the supernatural sub-genre.

'Which horror film trailer have you seen that was the most effective in making you want to watch the film/frightening you? Briefly state why.'

By knowing which trailers my target audience find effective, I will be able to look onto them for inspiration so that my trailer is just as good. Out of 23 people, 4 people stated that 'paranormal activity' was the most effective in frightening them and pushed them to go see the movie. The second popular movie was 'Women in Black'. Below are the trailers for both 'Paranormal Activity' and 'Women in black'.

As you can see both trailers are extremely different, and when asked why they enjoyed the 'paranormal activity' trailer all of the four people said it because it was made in unique style. This trailer breaks the traditional codes and conventions and that is why it is so popular. This has made me realise that my trailer will also have to be unique and possibly invert some conventions so that it will successfully frighten by target audience. 

The people who chose 'the woman in black' trailer said that the trailer successfully told the narrative of the movie without revealing too much.

I did film the findings of this research however, due to an error on the part of youtube, it was not successful.