1. Media Studies A2 Audience Research Questionnaire Results

2. Film Trailer Results

3. Audience Research Questionnaire As a preliminary stage of the media coursework, we need to conduct research. Audience research is an important part to these beginning stages as it can help to clearly distinguish what type of media product we will create. Audience research is research that depends on the thoughts and ideas of the target audience, which can help to generate important information. The information that the audience will deliver indicates what genre of trailer they prefer, what they expect to see, what would draw their attention to a film poster, etc… Consequently the results generated will greatly alter the content/style of the trailer altogether. During the initial stages of the trailer’s development, exploratory audience research is used to learn about the potential audience range and the types of incentives and barriers that the audience perceive to exist, which we might have overlooked. The results give by the audience research are then used to create ideas and designs that alter the previous ideas surrounding the media product. Different methods of audience research include; Internet surveys Leaflets Advertisements Radio broadcasting Books Etc…

4. Quantitative & Qualitative Research Quantitative Research: Quantitative research develops and employs mathematical models and theories in order to harness results. Statistics is the most widely used branch of mathematics in quantitative research. These statistics create a collection of data models. For instance, an example of a question found in quantitative research would be: Do you watch film trailers regularly? The participant can either answer: “ Yes” or “No”. Therefore, this type of question will deliver statistical results (64% of people questioned answered “Yes” and 36% of people questioned answered “No”.) Qualitative Research: Qualitative research is more of an inquiry based research. Qualitative research aims to gather a more in-depth understanding of audience behaviour and what governs this behaviour. However, Qualitative research may use different approaches in collecting data. For instance, an example of a question found in qualitative research would be: Explain why you watch film trailers? The participant will give a different answer than other participants questioned. Generally the answers will differ from each other using qualitative research.

5. Questionnaire – Film Trailer

6. Questions That Were Asked Gender? Age? What Film Genre Do You Prefer? What Sub-Genre Do You Prefer? What Do You Expect To See In A Film Trailer What Grabs You Attention In A Film Trailer? What Would Convince You To See That Particular Film? What Is Your Favourite Horror Film? What Is Your Favourite Fairytale? Do You Prefer Voice-overs In A Film Trailer? What Do You Think Adds The Most Tension In A Horror Film Trailer?

7. Age Ranges Age Ranges Gender Genres Sub-Genres Genres

8. Favourite Fairytales Favourite Fairytales Expectations What Adds Tension To A Horror Film? What Adds Tension To A Horror Film? What Adds Tension To A Horror Film? Voice-over Voice-over

9. Analysis Of Results Genres This is a key graph that will help to decide the genre of the film trailer. The results generated by this graph will greatly affect how the trailer will appear, since it is all about what film genres the audience prefer. The results generated indicate that the most popular film genre is a tie between “Horror” and “Comedy”. This is an interesting concept as we can create a film trailer that subverts conventions of a horror film by incorporating comedy into it. The theme of the film poster and magazine front cover will have to be altered depending on the genre of the film trailer, incidentally a spooky, eerie theme will connote the horror genre, whilst an intense theme would connote action. Age Ranges This particular graph is debatable as it only shows the age ranges of the people who answered the questionnaires. Students answered the questionnaire, however, due to the nature of horror films, we think that we will be aiming for a more mature audience than the one that we questioned.

10. This graph actually works in our favour, as we initially intended to create a horror film trailer that subverts the conventions of a traditional fairytale. We decided to go for little red riding hood as it provided a lot of ideas and opportunities for us. The audience research has proved that the audience prefer this type of fairytale than to the others that were provided. Favourite Fairytales This is an interesting graph at it shows that the audience lean more towards a voice-over than without on. Incidentally, this might help our film trailer to create intensity. However, the most problematic concepts about this idea is finding a suitable voice-actor or someone who can pull of speaking a dramatic voice-over effect. However, if we are able to use voice-over successfully and to our advantage, we will be able to create a trailer that appeals to the audience, as it reveals part of the trailers narrative in a linear fashion that will make sense. In a way, voice-overs are more preferable than trailers that don’t contain one, since trailer’s that don’t contain voice-overs might be very vague when it comes to the actual plotline of the trailer, due to all of the non-linear clips that are not placed corresponding to the original order of the film. At least voice-overs allow the narration to make some sort of sense to the audience. However, it must still be noted that the narrative need to be revealed too much, or else it defeats the objective of the trailer altogether. Voice-over

11. What Adds Tension To A Horror Film? It is interesting to see what the audience think adds the most tension to a horror film. It appears that music is the most popular answer, which is not surprising as eerie music reaching a tense crescendo can create the most intense atmosphere in a horror film. On the other hand what is most surprising is that most people didn’t vote for setting or characters, which would supposedly be two elements that define the genre as being horror. For instance, a small percentage of people voted for these aspects, when we look at film’s like “Nightmare on Elm’s Street”, we can see that the film wouldn’t have been half as frightening without Freddy Krueger, or the “Dark Knight” wouldn’t have been as intense without the Joker. Consequently, these types of character add to a horror film making it not just frightening, but memorable. It causes them to standout from the thousands of other horror films. Incidentally, we don’t remember most horror films for their music, but for their amazing characters that have the audience hiding behind pillows every time they appear on screen. It is surprising how little the audience voted for important elements that make horror films scary, such as setting, costumes, characters, performance, etc… Therefore, we will have subvert conventions and go against what the audience don’t expect, for instance we could focus more on character or setting rather than rely heavily on just music. Consequently, even though this graph shows us what the audience expect, it hasn’t worked out to a particularly good advantage for us, as we are trying to enhance the tension within horror films. If we went with what the audience expect, we wouldn’t find ourselves gaining a good audience range, more importantly we would be losing appeal, since we would have created a trailer that ignores other elements that make a horror film terrifying.

12. Film Poster & Magazine Front Cover Results

13. Questionnaire – Film Poster & Magazine

14. Questions That Were Asked What Draws Your Attention To A Film Poster Or Magazine Front Cover? What Do You Expect To See In A Film Poster Or Magazine? What Do You Prefer To See? (Images or Text) What Type Of Images Do You Prefer? Would You Prefer A Colour Scheme? What Types? Should Film Posters And Magazines Be Consistent To Themes? Should They Contain Symbolism? What Do You Like Most About A Film Poster? What Do You Like Most About A Magazine Front Cover?

15. What Draws Your Attention The Most? Expectations What Draws Your Attention The Most? Expectations Preferences? Preferred Image Types? Preferences?

16. Types Of Colour Schemes Types Of Colour Schemes Should Themes Be Consistent? How Much Information? How Much Information? Colour Scheme? Contain Symbolism?

17. Analysing Results What Draws Your Attention The Most? This graph shows us exactly what we expect the audience to say. We expected that the most popular result would be images as it is what interests us the most as visual images are easier to register and have the greater impact on our mind, as an audience. Also this graph works to our advantage as it shows us what the audience want to see, the elements that we should focus the most on, like images and titles, whilst showing us the elements that –we shouldn’t ignore completely, but not pay attention to quite as much, like anchor and release date. In this graph, people were given the option to write down other prospects that they felt that should have been included but wasn’t included in the questionnaire. However, little decided to write another option, whilst important elements had been left out of the questionnaire, such as parental guidance. Preferences? This graph focuses more towards the design side of the film poster and magazine front cover. Obviously these types of questions will affect how the covers and poster will appear. The results of this particular graph shows that the audience are attracted more to the images than they are to bold headlines and colour schemes. Therefore, after analysing this graph, we will need to include a large focal image or more images than we would content. It is surprising that over half of the people who answered the questionnaire voted for images as you would expect someone to pick up a magazine because of its content and not because of interesting images.

18. Types Of Colour Schemes This graph is all about the colour schemes that the audience prefer. It seems that the majority of people questioned voted for the red and black colour. Personally, we feel that this colour scheme suits the genre of the magazine and film posters. Since it is based on the horror genre we need a colour scheme that connotes danger, which black and red can connote perfectly. The other colours, such as blue and white, would not have worked well since they are colours most suitable for calm effects. Red and black symbolise danger, anger, passion and are very confident and powerful colours, which fits the film’s genre perfectly. Preferred Image Types? This graph merely shows that the audience prefer to see photographs over illustrations and computer graphics. Photographs add a sense of realism, which helps us since horror films rely on a sense of realism in order to make them horrifying and memorable. For instance, to know that a horrifying monster is near enough realistic and humanoid makes it scary since the audience can sort of picture it in the real world. It becomes part of their conscious mind, rather than just a fantasy. An illustration would not have near as much fear factor than a real photograph, since it would have a cartoonish aspect. Expectations This is another graph that merely shows what the audience expect. This isn’t as bad as the one before, therefore we can work with this graph as the audience gave us well rounded results. We can simply use this graph to show what the audience expect, and try to include all of these elements in the film trailer when we come to making it.

19. This graph just shows the amount of information that the audience want to see. This graph isn’t particularly effective in the way that it will significantly alter the way that the poster and magazine will turn out, but it is quite noticeable that a lot of people voted for to have no information at all on the poster and front cover, rather than just a little. How Much Information?

20. How The Results Will Change The Outcome Of The Film Trailer, Poster & Magazine Cover The questionnaire was designed to gather peoples preferences concerning what types of genres like, what they would like to see on a poster, and what interests them the most when they watch a film trailer, in turn making them want to see the film when it is releases. The results that have been harnessed from the graphs that we have collected have to alter the plans concerning the trailer. For instance, we were planning to base the trailer on horror, however, if comedy seems to be the most popular sub-genre then perhaps we could incorporate a little comedic element into the trailer, in order to subvert conventions and go against what the audience expect. However, sometimes the results deviate from our expectations, for instance, we expected people to dislike voice-overs, however they proved to be more popular than we expected, therefore we might have to change the style of the trailer in order to incorporate a voice-over into the trailer. However, this might prove a difficult challenge if we can’t find someone who could provide a dramatic voice over that will intensify the trailer. In fact, we were quite surprised that the audience picked horror and comedy as their favourite genres, since we interviewed both males and females equally. We felt that action or romance would prove to be the most popular genres, however the audience went against our expectations and delivered to us genres that we could most probably combine together to create an interesting, if not creative piece of work that will subvert conventions. In conclusion, the audience research has been useful and necessary and has altered the way in which we will approach the construction of the film trailer, poster and magazine front cover. After completely and analysing this type of research it has given us a better understanding of the behaviour of the audience and what elements of the film trailer will create the most appeal.