Audience Research

In order to understand our audience's needs and wants for film film trailers, we conducted a number of questionnaires and individual interviews, which gave us an insight into what they preferred in terms of genre, effects, etc. We conducted four different questionnaires; a general one about films in general, then once we narrowed down the type of genre our target audience preferred, which was horror/paranormal/thriller, we conducted a more specific questionnaire in order to find out their favourite of the three narrowed down genres. Our third questionnaire consisted of six film posters of the three genres. We gained a lot of feedback on our target audiences likes and dislikes regarding film posters, for example, the types of photos they preferred and the fonts and effects they thought were most fitting to the genre. Finally, after discussing a number of film titles for our magazine, we narrowed down to our final four favourite film titles, and asked our target audience which they preferred through a questionnaire.

Process of conducting our questionnaire:

 General Film Questionnaire

Above is the questionnaire that we handed out to 30 people in our target audience. It was a basic questionnaire about our target audience's needs and wants in general.

What genre of film is your favourite?

This graph shows that the preferred genre of our target audience was horror/thriller, which confirmed our decision to make a film trailer of this genre, as it is the most popular amongst our target audience.

What persuades you to watch/buy films the most?

 This graph shows that our target audience are persuaded by film trailers more than film posters and magazines. Although all aspects of advertisement are important, this showed us that it is vital to make our film trailer as eye-catching as possible so that it attracts our target audience.

What aspects of a film trailer catch your eye the most and why?

Our researched showed us that our target audience are most attracted by the actual clips in a trailer, suggesting that the content of the film trailer is most important to them. This suggests that we must pay close attention to the use of clips and not use to much text on screen, as our target audience prefer to have an insight into what's going to happen in the film. Another highly rated aspect was the music used throughout the film trailer. This suggests that we need to make an effective soundtrack for our trailer as this is one of the main aspects that appeal to our target audience.

Specific Film Questionnaire

After our general film questionnaire, we conducted a more specific questionnaire based on our three possible genres chosen by our target audience: horror, thriller and paranormal.

Out of the following genres, which do you prefer?

This graph shows that the majority of our target audience preferred thriller films out of the three genres. This has persuaded us to base our film trailer on this genre, however, we have also decided to link paranormal into the genre of our trailer too - this was the second preferred genre of our target audience, along with horror. We have decided to join the two as we feel that thriller and paranormal together meet all of our target audience's needs and wants, for example, in our specific questionnaire we discovered that the main aspects that catch our target audience's attention was the use of clips throughout and we felt that the majority of paranormal films use a wide range of clips and footage, for example, Paranormal Activity uses lots of clips throughout it's trailer, which I gathered from my trailer research.

What attracts you to this genre?

The majority of our target audience said that the 'fear factor'of a film trailer was what attracted them to watching it the most, so therefore, this suggests that the editing and effects used throughout our trailer will be vital aspects of making the trailer appealing to our audience. The storyline was the second most important aspect, which suggests that we need to include a wide range of clips showcasing the storyline of the film, as oppose to too much text on screen. Three people said that special effects were the most important thing that attracted them to this genre, which suggests that our use of special effects throughout our trailer is important.

Film title suggestions questionnaire

When researching names for our film, we decided to brainstorm a number of names and words associated with the genre of paranormal and thriller. We used a thesaurus to give us some suggestions:

We then narrowed down our search by picking out four possible names which we felt were the most effective and conducted a small questionnaire to discover which title out of the four our target audience preferred:

Which title appeals to you the most?

From our questionnaire, we discovered that the majority of our target audience preferred the title 'un-hinged' which is the film title we have decided to name our film.

Individual Interview

I interviewed a member of my target audience to find out their needs and wants for a film trailer. I started off by asking them which genre they preferred out of horror, paranormal and thriller. They answered 'paranormal' and 'thriller' as they said that both were particular favourites of theirs and were more realistic than horror films which are typically known for their 'blood' and 'gore'. For example, they mentioned films such as The Orphan and Paranormal Activity, saying that these films were more realistic than gory films such as Saw.  They also mentioned the hand held camera used in Paranormal Activity and said that this effect helped to make it appear more realistic. They also said they preferred these genres as the plots are often more complex and believable, whereas horror films can be predictable. 

I then asked my interviewee to view three film trailers of our chosen genre to find out their favourite aspects of the trailer which will give us an insight into what our target audience requires when it comes to a film trailer. The first trailer he viewed was Insidious, which he said was his favourite of the three he analysed. The superimposition used on the trailer attracted my interviewee as they said that the way it looked 'flickery' and 'out of focus' related to the scary genre. They also liked the use of sound, for example, the non diegetic soundtrack used was said to make them feel the tension of what was happening in the trailer. Another factor which attracted them to the trailer for Insidious was the dim colour used throughout, for example, the film looks dark due to the colour filter used and the interviewee said that this portrayed the genre of the film well. They also analsyed the film trailers for The Strangers and The Sixth Sense. They were attracted to the diegetic sound used in The Strangers trailer for example, when one of the masked people appeared on screen a deep, thudding horror sound was played - they said that this contributed to the fear factor. Their favourite aspect of the film trailer for The Sixth Sense was the plot of the film and the fact that it seemed realistic, which was a factor they mentioned previously about paranormal/thriller genre films. They also stated that the use of child in both Insiduous and in The Sixth Sense was effective as the innocense of the children contrasted with the genre of the films.

This information helped us to decide on our final decisions for our own film trailer. For example, our interviewee stated that they were attracted to the superimposition used in the Insidious trailer which has made us plan and prepare some possible fonts and effects we intend to use for our own film trailer as we know this is an important aspect to our target audience. The interviewee also said that he favored the use of child in both Insidious and The Sixth Sense as it portrayed innocense which completely contrasts with the genre of our film and makes the fear feel more scary as it involves a child. This reaffirmed our decision to use a child in our film trailer because we feel it would be effective because of the reasons stated by our interviewee. Another idea we have taken from our interviewee's opinions of the three trailers was the use of colour we intend to use for our trailer, for example, the interviewee said that he found the use of dim light in Insiduous effective as it portrayed the dark genre of the film, therefore, we hope to use a dark blue tinted filter or similar effect to give the same illusion in our own trailer.