Tuesday 22 February 2011

Audience Research Evaluation - Summary of Findings

'Facebook' allowed us to draw in 45 responses for our questionnaire, which was beneficial as we were aiming to collect at least 40 responses. Another advantage of the 'Facebook Survey Master Survey' application was that a majority of the people who responded are young users, so the answers we would gather from them would be very relevant to the task in hand. The responses were crucial in order for us to proceed with the development of our teaser, poster and magazine front cover. 
Overall, we were not surprised at the responses we received.  Generally, they relatively corresponded with the ideas we had in regards to our 3 products and what we were planning to do with our final products. 
Following on from the analysis of the results, short summaries/conclusions for each section are shown below:


Questions 1 - 5
In regards to the opening questions, we asked these to find a structure of our target audience. Age, sex, and ethnicity are all factors that can determine how you enjoy a horror film. We want to cater to everyone within a particular age group, generally 16-24 year olds. Hopefully the content of our final products will appeal to both male and females, no matter what their ethnicity.  We then wanted to find out how much our audience would pay for a film magazine, and how often they would read it. The majority wanted the magazine to be distributed monthly, which is a general convention of movie magazines. Monthly distribution makes the customers wait 4 weeks for the next issue, so to ensure their high expectations are met, we ensure to pack the magazine with lots of exciting content - therefore making the front cover as attractive and appealing as we can. Indicating there is a lot more to read inside that particular issue. Knowing how much our audience is prepared to pay was very important. The average film magazine is priced at approximately £3-£4. However, only 7 people were prepared to pay more than £2 for one. This information is key as it is unconventional for a film magazine to be priced so cheaply, and also makes it harder to make a profit but essentially we still need to meet the demands of our target audience. We will price our magazine at just below £3. This price is more expensive than the price range the majority opted for (£1.50-£2) but it is considerably cheaper than other film magazines which is a feature that our target audience will hopefully take on board.


Questions 6-10
Questions 6, 7 and 8 were asked to help us form an idea of what our audience's expectations are in regards to the Magazine Front Cover. The general impression we gathered from the responses to these questions were that the colours used as well as the main image were the most important and appealing factors of a magazine front cover. This information will assist us in the production and editing of the magazine front cover, ensuring the front cover image is strong and appealing and the colours used on the front cover are bold and eye-catching. Question 8 related to existing film magazines. The majority preferred 'Empire' and 'Total Film'. These magazines often have content that everyone can relate to, and do not have a specific audience profile, just people who enjoy film and entertainment whereas 'Entertainment Weekly' often appears to have an appearance more appealing to an older, less film-specific audience. We will attempt to follow this and produce our magazine front cover ensuring the appearance is as appealing as 'Empire' and 'Total Film'.  Questions 9 and 10 were asked to start off the audiences thoughts regarding teaser trailers. We needed to start developing and idea of what our audience wanted from a teaser trailer in relation to typical teaser trailer features and duration. Based on the response we received, we will pay special attention to keeping our teaser between 30 - 45 seconds, a duration which will effectively tease, as well as putting a considerable amount of effort in the editing and application of special effects.


Questions 11-15
Continuing on questions relating to the teaser trailer preferences, these detailed questions attracted significant response. Questions 11, 12 and 13 will assist us in making specific decisions for our teaser trailer. The response to these questions suggested that the horror teaser should display a dark colour scheme, include a mixture of slow and fast pacing, and the most important noticeable feature should be the special effects. This gives us a specific idea of what to include in our teaser to meet the expectations of audience who based on the response, are viewers of teaser trailers which is important. Question 14 was asked to find out what the most appealing type of killer in a horror film is. The majority, 15 people,  said a female killer would be most appealing. The audience's response to this question supports our decision to challenge conventions and have a female killer, as opposed to the traditional male killer or popular monster killer. This response suggests that the audience want to see a change to the typical conventions of horror films, so we will meet that demand but we will bear in mind that the 15 people who made this choice may be female, as 24 out of 45 of the people who responded to our survey were female. Question 15 related to dialogue in a teaser trailer. This is uncommon but we asked the question to find out whether or not it would be something our audience would want in a teaser. 24 out of 45 said it would not better their understanding of the content, which suggests to us that dialogue isn't essential in grabbing the audience's attention in a teaser trailer so we will avoid using dialogue. 


Questions 16-20
These questions were asked to round up ideas for our teaser, gather some idea into the sub-genre of our product and gain an idea as to what to do with our film poster. Generally the responses to these questions largely suggested that low key lighting, the use of captions, special effects and music will support the effectiveness of the trailer, and the music in particular will help add suspense. The sub-genres 'gore' and 'psychological' closely matched the preferences of the audience, connoting the audiences our wanting more out of horror films. This will assist us in attempting to display a hybrid genre within our products. Lastly, similar to the magazine front cover, the audience voted that the main image is the most important feature on a film poster, this connotes that main images are the most attractive feature on a magazine front cover and poster for cinema audiences. This information suggests to us that we should aim at capturing strong pictures during the production stage of our magazine front cover and film poster. 

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