Research into target audiences for existing texts and for your own product

• Primary Research - Target Audience, Mood Board + Interviews.

TARGET AUDIENCE:

As a group we have researched into target audiences for horror films. From this information we have chosen for our target audience to be people over the age of 15, slightly more aimed at people under the age of 18 but also trying to attract the older audiences. This is so that the certificate of our film can be classed as a 15. Our product is going to be hopefully just slightly more directed at males as some of our secondary research has proved that more males tend to watch horror films as apposed to females.

MOOD BOARD:

For our primary research into target audiences for existing texts and for our own product we as a group have created a mood board that is split into three sections, one for each product (Trailer, Poster, Magazine cover). Each section has different bits of information included in it and we have collected peoples own opinions for each section by using a tally chart. From this mood board we have asked different age groups of people there opinions. This will help us to collect information together to help us to create our own products. The mood board that we created is shown bellow:

We have collected information from our mood board by collecting tally results shown on the mood board above. We asked ten people there thoughts on each section of our mood board so that we can get direct information from our target audience so that we can later on apply it to our own production work. We used the method of tallying so that it was a simple way of collecting information. For example it is clear and simple to see that two people liked the first setting, three people liked the second and five liked the third. This is an easy way to help us decide what sort of settings we are going to include in our own horror trailer.


INTERVIEW:

Also for our primary research we have created a questionnaire for our interview that we have filmed. This will also help us to collect together more information from our target audience to help us to create our own products. The questions and video for our interview are shown bellow:

1. Describe why you like horrors.
2. What is your favourite horror film and why?
3. What aspects would your expect to find in a horror film?
4. What emotions do you feel whilst watching a horror film?
5. Name three horror films that you have seen.
6. What words do you associate with horror films?
7. What do you expect from a horror trailer and why does this make you want to watch the film?
8. What makes a good horror poster? (eg. colour scheme, text, images etc.)
9. How would you expect the front cover of a horror magazine to look?
10. Overall, what is the most important factor of a good horror film?

For our interviews we asked eight people the series of questions. We filmed the interview on an iPhone 3GS. This is because the video did not have to be high quality because it is to help work towards our production rather than our final trailer which will be filmed on a high quality camera. The video was then put together and edited at home. The results that we received are shown in the video which is shown above. From doing this we found information directly from our target audience. This gave us more specific ideas to help us when creating our own production work. Most of the answers that we received from our questions were very similar and this has given us exact things to focus on when creating our teaser trailer. Different films such as 'The grudge' and 'Saw' were mentioned giving us films to look at that people have been interested in watching.

SHORT QUESTION:

For our primary research we also went around and asked roughly 25 people what things they liked about a typical horror film. I have decided to put these result into a graph. This is so I can have a clear view of my results so that I can easily pick out specific information. This was a very successful piece of research and the results also helped us to decide more information about our own horror teaser trailer.

• Secondary Research - Statistics of existing horror films + overall statistics for the horror genre.

For my secondary research i have be looking at the statistics of existing horror films as well as the overall statistics for the horror genre. I have been finding this information on http://www.imdb.com/ This will help me to gather information to apply to my own production work allowing me to choose my target audience.

I started off my secondary research by looking into an existing horror film (Wolf Creek) released in 2005. I then looked into the statistics of the film to find out more information about the people that watched the film. This has given me more information to help me decide who my target audience is going to be which is shown at the top of this post.

This shows that the highest number of IMDB users that have voted for this film are of the age of under 18 and above. This suggests that our target audience should be over the age of 15 so that we can still make our trailer for our film gory if needed, but also trying to attract all ages over the age of 15.

I continued my secondary research by looking at the statistics from a different film. I chose to look at 'The Ring' released in 2002 because it is one of my favourite horror films. I found my information from the IMDB website and a poster for the film and statistics are shown below:

These statistics show roughly the same results as from the other film that i looked at (Wolf Creek). This concludes that my target audience will be both males and female from the ages of 15 and above so that we can have the certificate of our film a 15. We will also be concentrating on attracting all age groups of people.

The statistics from both of the films that i have looked at show that both females and males enjoy to watch horror films. However, other members of my group found information that stated that more males are watching horror films to females. This concludes that our target audience may be just slightly more directed towards males but also trying our best to attract females to our film.