2. Research.pptx

Target Audience Profile
• Age:
My project is aimed at age ranges from around 15 to 25. This is the main age range at which people watch
horror films. This is because younger people below the age of 15 may find horror films quite heavy and therefor
horror films are probably not too suitable for the younger audiences. In addition to this, I feel people older
than the age range I have listed start to lose interest in the idea of horror movies and would much rather watch
something else, however, this isn’t always the case. Also, many younger audiences aren’t put off by the use of
graphic imagery and enjoy the thrills that come with watching a horror film. For example, the last part of the
film: ‘Se7en’ (1995), is known for its graphic imagery and themes which may put off an older audience. I believe
that the age range that I have set out for my target audience will be really accurate and help me to structure
my research around this age group to ensure that my product reflects the interests of the target audience.

• Gender:
The target audience for horror films is mainly male. It has been statistically proven that a males
favourite/preferred film genre is Thriller/Horror and mystery whereas for a female, their favourite film genre as
a whole is Romance. Stereotypically, males seem to enjoy the thrill and violence associated with horror more
than females. Also, linking this to my research on age of my target audience, young males are stereotypically
quite immature and therefor, the guts, gore and blood associated and often found in horror films may make
young males more susceptible to horror films. This is obviously not true for everyone but it gives me a good
idea about my target audience and the gender of people that I need to be making my short film for. Through
knowing my general target audience’s gender, I will be able to share my survey to those of that gender more
than those not of that gender. This way I will be able to get responses for my survey from the gender group that
my project will mostly be viewed by. This way I will be able to identify the things that make my target audience
enjoy horror films and the elements of a horror that I should include in my own project to make it more
enjoyable for the viewer.

• Social Status:
From looking at this data that was recently collected about the social status of people that go to the cinema,
I'm able to identify that a large amount of people that go to the cinema are from the social status classes of A
(Upper Middle Class), B (Middle Class) and C1 (Lower Middle Class). Using this research I may be able to set a
price point for my product as the majority of people who go to the cinema have a higher disposable income
than those who maybe go to the cinema less frequently. Also, within the horror substrata of data, over 50% of
the people who watch horror films within the cinema are in these classes that I listed above. This could
potentially impact my project as it may be beneficial to create a main character that fits within this social status
class to create a character that the audience could connect with more closely.

• Psychographics:
Psychographics can affect the target audience of the horror genre at different points in time throughout
history. For example, at a certain point in time, horror films may be looked on with a negative attitude at a
certain point in time. This can consequently cause the target audience to be significantly smaller and maybe
even cause horror films to become extremely unpopular. However, this could be the opposite of what may
happen in a different point in time, which could then cause horror films to become one of, if not the most
viewed genre of film at a certain point in time.
People's attitudes towards a specific genre of film is a huge influence on the size of a specific target audience
and a significant factor in the successfulness of a film. Noting this research, I know that horror movies have
been pretty successful over the last decade or so, and I therefor believe that societies outlook on horror films is
reasonable positive at the current point in time. This research doesn’t particularly impact my intentions for this
project as I have found out that creating a horror genre of film shouldn't have any negative impacts on the
successfulness of my final project.

Audience Research
• Social Media Usage by Age:
From this website I was able to analyse the amount of people, within an age group, that use social media.
Because of this, I could identify that my target audience of ages from 16-24 are the most active age group on
social media on average. This way, I know that promoting my project on social media would be extremely
useful for getting my project out there as it would be one of, if not the best way to reach a large majority of my
target audience. The research also states that 50% of all internet users are on social media, this further proves
that using social media as a promotion method for my final project ould be an excellent way to reach my target
audience.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/506329
/looking-at-social-media-sites-or-apps-in-
the-united-kingdom-uk-by-age-group/

Audience Research
/penetration-of-social-networks-in-the-
united-kingdom-by-gender/
• Usage of different forms of Social Media by Gender:
From this website I was able to establish that there are slightly more females actively using social media than
there are males. I can use this research to identify which social media platforms are better for promoting to a
specific gender group or which social media platforms are better for promoting to both gender groups. As my
target audience is slightly more male than female, I could use Twitter to promote to males as they're more
active on twitter than females are but horror movies can appeal to both gender so this may not be necessary to
reach my target audience. Using YouTube would still probably be the best form of promotion for this project as
it has a high amount of young users from both gender groups
meaning I can reach my target audience easily. However, this
data was collected in 2018 so it is quite outdated meaning it may
not be the best data to use to represent the gender difference
on social media platforms.

Audience Research
2/social-media-usage-uk-age/
• Usage of different forms of Social Media by Ages 15-25:
From this website I was able to establish the most popular forms of social media amongst the age range of my
target audience for this project. I now know which social media platforms would be most useful and effective in
reaching my target audience for promotion for my horror story. I can easily Identify that YouTube, Facebook,
WhatsApp and Instagram are all highly used by people of ages 15-25, so these are the social media platforms
that I should focus on if I were to promote my project t the target audience. However, this data is from 2020
meaning it may be slightly outdated as usage of social media platforms changes very frequently so other social
media platforms may be higher than they're listed
on this graph. For example, TikTok in particular has
had huge growth over the last couple of years and I
would imagine that it would place higher on this
graph if the data was collected now.

Audience Research
https://screenrant.com/scary-horror-
movies-reddit/
• Scariest Horror Movies According to
Reddit:
I decided to use Reddit as a source for my research as my target
audience is the vast majority of Reddit users. This means that
the list of ‘Scariest Horror Movies’ listed on this website was
compiled by people within my target audience. This means that
using his research could be very helpful for me to see what
features of a horror film are enjoyed most by m target audience.
This could help to influence and change my project to include
some features that my target audience enjoys within the movies
they have listed, to better suit my target audience to make my
project more of a success.

Market Research
Existing Products

Existing Product
Kane Pixels: The Backrooms

Existing Product
Kane Pixels is an aspiring 16-year-old Visual Effects artist based in America. One of his most recent
projects called ‘The Backrooms’ which is a small series of stories, recently went viral on YouTube gaining
over 20 million views on just one video.
I believe the way that he planned and created his story is really inspiring for me while I research in
preparation for this project. He uses a short sequence at the start of his video, introducing the viewer to
the main character which was filmed near where he lives. After this sequence, everything moves to 3D.
He created a building layout within the 3D modeling software, for where his story would take place,
along with a load of different assets like character models and different pieces of furniture which he
would use throughout the building.
Kane makes use of a post-production effect to make the video seem as if it was filmed on an old VHS
camera. In a recent breakdown of this video that I watched; Corridor Crew on YouTube explained the
logic behind the use of this effect. They suggested that it was used as the video was made on a time
limit or that Kane didn’t want to spend too much time working on this project, so, he decided to add
this VHS effect to add in extra detail to the scene that he otherwise would have had to spend a lot of
time within texturing and sculpting software to get this extra detail in his scene. But, with this effect, it
makes the camera quality poor and grainy meaning these small details wouldn’t have been noticeable,
so, to the human eye, when watching this video, you assume that the detail is there behind the
graininess of the camera, and you think that the walls are not just blank walls with a white colouring.

Existing Product
I think that this is a super smart idea to get around an issue that may have been caused if Kane needed
the level of detail he has in his video to make it feel close enough to real, so that it is not off putting
from the story as he was able to add a higher level of detail to his video with much less effort and time.
This is an idea that I want to take and use within my final project. Because I will be on a 5-week
production time limit, I think this will be extremely valuable during the production stage of my project
as it will allow me more time to focus on the layout of the building, the character rigging and modeling
as I won't need to worry about sculpting small details into every part of my product.
I believe that the use of lighting throughout Kane’s project is extremely effective as he keeps light above
the character so that the viewer is able to see and pay attention to the minor details needed for the
story, but at the same time, there's always a dark area that you can see at any point throughout the
video which always has the viewer on the edge of their seat, wondering what is lurking in the darkness.
Kane’s product appeals to his target audience because he makes use of all the horror/thriller genre
techniques to create an effective and enjoyable story. He was also able to create his product to such a
high standard that once some had watched it, they may have told someone else about the video, which
then caused them to watch it after hearing such great things about the video. This is exactly how I came
across the video as a friend recommended I check it out, as they new I was into 3D work and
throughout I would enjoy watching the video. Because of this effect and the fact that anyone can watch
his videos for free on YouTube, Kane’s work became extremely popular and is mostly the reason as to
why his video has collected over 20 million views on YouTube.

Existing Product
A Quiet Place

Existing Product
A Quiet Place is a movie written and directed by John Krasinski, who also played a main character in the
film. Whilst I was planning this project, I thought that the minimalistic sound design for this movie
could be a really cool idea to implement into my final project.
A Quiet Place was nominated for the Best Sound Editing award at the Oscars in 2019 due to its unique
sound design. The story makes use of monsters that hunt their prey (the main characters) using only
sound as they’re completely blind. This means that the main characters who are trying to survive after
the monsters arrived on earth and killed off a lot of the human population, are having to live in almost
complete silence all the time. This creates a really unique atmosphere throughout the movie as there is
almost no sound for the vast majority of the film. This is an idea that I would potentially like to
implement into my final project, I think its really effective at creating tension and makes those scary
parts of a horror movie that much scarier. It would also save me a large amount of time as parts of my
project wouldn’t need much sound added to it and it would also save me a lot of time as there would be
little to none voice acting.
A quiet place was filmed in number of locations: Beacon, Little Falls, New Paltz, Pawling and Wallkill
Valley Rail Trail Bridge. These filming locations have a large amount of plant life and where therefor
perfect for the filming of this movie as it created a feeling of abandonment throughout the movie due
to the overgrown grass and plant life. There were also sections filmed with backplates or blue/green
screens and then added to with VFX.
A Quiet Place

Existing Product
Because of the locations that were used while filming, the film has a very light colour scheme to it for
the majority of the film, it doesn’t specifically follow the generic traits of a horror movie like having the
majority of the movie in the night so that it is dark to try build more tension but instead, a large amount
of the movie is in broad daylight and allows the viewer to follow the daily life of someone who is living
the horror we are seeing before us and therefor allows the viewer to connect more with the characters.
The monsters in A Quiet Place are fully 3D modelled assets which had their performances drawn from
director, writer and actor of the film; John Krasinski. John was dressed in a motion capture suit and
acted out distinct movement for the monsters to then be used by the Visual Effects Artists at ILM
(Industrial Light & Magic) to base the 3D modelled monster's movement off of his performance. I’d
imagine that this saved animators a huge amount of time as they had a base performance from john
and just needed to tweak things to make it seem slightly more realistic whilst animating. Although this
would be really cool to implement into my own project, it unfortunately won't be an option for me as
good quality motion capture suits are really expensive so I will just be hand animating the characters in
my project.
I think that this movie appeals to the target audience as it is a unique take on the horror genre with an
incredibly well thought out sound design for the movie. Although it is unique it still makes use of horror
genre conventions to ensure that the target audience can still enjoy the things that they enjoy most
about horror movies, whilst experiencing a completely brand-new take on the genre.
A Quiet Place

Existing Product
Scream is a series of films that focus mainly on using jump scares to build tension and cause horror
throughout the film. Scream stories are based within friendship groups where a couple of friends within
the group turn psychotic and try to murder their friends behind the hidden identity of 'Ghostface'. Eat
film in the series is like a recreation of the same story line, this means fans know what to expect when
going into the films, yet fans remain on the edge of their seat, eager to unmask the killers.
All the scream films are set in the same village in each movie, so a lot of filming for the films takes place
in Tomales, California as that is the location of the town that the original scream film was set in, and the
following films were also set there. A lot of the horror in the scream films takes place during the night to
use the low lighting and visibility to create an uncertain and eerie atmosphere as the viewer knows that
the killers could be lurking at any moment. However, not all of the films are set in the night, a lot of
dialogue between main characters happens during the day and provides the viewer with a bit of time
where they feel more comfortable.
These films don’t use to much visual effects throughout the films as most of the shots are filmed
practically and in camera, most of the visual effects work within the films is done during post-
production with just adding things such as blood splatters and all the gory details that bring the piece
together.
Scream

Existing Product
Environments by Celestia

Existing Product
This is a part of 3D work that really inspire me. I feel the freedom that 3D provides is unmatched. 3D
allows you to create and model anything that you can imagine. The environments I have shown in the
previous slide are examples that I hope to be able to match one day. These products were created fully
inside of blender and photoshop. The artist uses blender for modelling, sculpting, and texturing, this
allows the artist to create any type of scene he wants to create. He then also uses photoshop in addition
to blender to create any 2D assets he may need, such as godrays which are used in many of his scenes.
I think these images appeal to the audience due to the fantasy feeling they hold. I think this is due to
the fact that they're fully 3D scenes and therefore not real. I therefore think that this is what makes the
scenes appeal to the audience, because it's not real it something that the viewer will have never seen
before, making it appeal to them. I think this is something that I will want to incorporate into my own
renders to try and create a better audience appeal. I also think that the shot angles and composition of
the scenes help to add to this audience appeal. All the pieces I have shown in the previous slide have
excellent composition, because of this, I think it makes the shots even more enjoyable to look at and
take in, further adding to the audience appeal.
I'm also a big fan of the colour schemes that Celestia uses in his work, I think he has a really good
understanding of colours and I hope that I can learn this with further research into colours and
eventually have a good understanding of colours as to the point I can implement that knowledge into
my work to create better final shots.

Existing Product
With the unfortunate news that I would not be able to use Maya on College's Macs, my only other real option was
to use Blender. Blender is a free 3D open-source software, so it was accessible in college. I decided to research for
some inspiration on things I could create in Blender. That lead me to environment art within Blender and I found a
community of artists on Discord. I eventually found Celestia's work in this Discord server, and I really loved what he
was creating, and I decided to contact him to ask for tips to enhance my own work. I asked him about creating
realistic grass like found in his renders as realistic grass can really help to make a scene look more realistic.

Research Analysis
A lot of the research that I have conducted show me that the existing products like to use the darkness of
the night to create an eerie atmosphere to further develop a sense of uncertainty to add to the horror
the viewer feels. However, it has also shown me that you do not have to use the night to create a scary
atmosphere as seen in A Quiet Place. A Quiet Place takes a new angle on creating a tense atmosphere
through the use of sound which is equally if not more effective than using the darkness of the night like
most horror films. I've also seen that the use of visual effects allows for directors to create the perfect
antagonist for their film as you can create some truly terrifying things in 3D. However, you can still create
a great antagonist for a horror using props and costumes like the scream horror film series have.
I also conducted program specific research and reached out to 3D artists to gather tips and tricks for
making more realistic renders. I hope that I can take these tips into my own work to enhance my project.
This research will be extremely helpful as creating realistic grass can be challenging in 3D, but hopefully
because of this research, I will be able to create grass of a high quality.
I hope to take all that I have discovered from my research and use it within my final project. Using a
minimalistic sound design like A Quiet Place is the most appealing to me as I believe it can create an
incredibly unsettling atmosphere for the viewers , so this is something that I definitely want to try and
take and incorporate into my own final project.

Audience research
• From my collection of data on gender and age, I can see that my survey was successful promoted to the
correct target audience as the data results I got back from the survey reflect the target audience I
appointed during secondary research. This means that the data from my primary data collection survey
will be extremely useful to me in finding out the points of a horror film that my target audience like and
dislike. This way I will be able to alter my project to reflect my target audience's preferences.
• After analyzing my data, I can see that the majority of my target audience is male which reflects the
secondary research I have done prior to analyzing this primary data. Although there are still many females
that watch and enjoy horror, stereotypically, the genre appeals to males more so than females. Because of
this, it may be beneficial to slightly tailor the film to appeal more to a male majority audience.
• I can also see that my target audience is of a younger age. The target audience that I can pick out from my
primary research is those of the age of 16+. In hindsight I think I should have added more categories to
this question as the target audience I gathered from my secondary research was ages 16-24, I believe it
would have been beneficial to be able to identify and separate the ages of the people who were within the
20+ age group that I put down for my survey, so that I can identify who was in the target audience age
range of 16-24.
• Using this data I have collected, I will be able to even more precisely identify my target audience making it
easier to alter my product to appeal to the target audience. After analysis of my data, I believe it will be
beneficial to alter my product to target a largely male audience of a younger age, within the age range of
16-24, though that age range is probably more bottom heavy.

Audience research
• I added this question to my survey to get an idea of the type of villain I wanted to add to my story. Prior to
starting my survey, I was unsure as to what I wanted to do for my villain for the story, so when the
opportunity came round to create a survey with any questions to get some responses, I thought it would
be a perfect opportunity to just identify which type of horror story villain is most popular. I would then use
this data within my final project to create a villain that my target audience would be happy with.
• When I was creating the questionnaire, I needed to make sure that I only provided answers to this
question that would be possible to create given my time frame and small amount of experience within 3D
modelling software. I needed to ensure that I didn’t give the audience an option that would create a heavy
workload for me. I think that I was successful in doing this and still provided the audience with a good list
to chose from including some favourites of the horror genre.
• The results from this question show that my target audience have a wide range of villains that enjoy to
watch within a horror film but, something related to the paranormal is slightly more popular than others.
After receiving the results from my first 2 questions within this questionnaire I thought that slasher/gore
would win this section of the questionnaire as I found out during secondary research that the gore
element of horror films can often be appealing to younger audiences.
• I will use the data collected from this question within my survey to influence my creation of the villain for
my horror story to ensure I create a character that the target audience will be happy with. During planning
in the coming weeks, I will make sure to use this data to influence my initial ideas for the villain of this
story.

Audience research
• These questions were possibly the two most important questions in my survey. I will be able to use the
data that I have collected from these questions to identify which of the horror genre conventions my
target audiences likes and dislikes the most. This way I will be able to tailor my product to be a
representation of this to hopefully create an experience that they will thoroughly enjoy.
• In the first question: ‘What do you like most about Horror Films?’ there is a wide spread of results that I
have received from this question, it appears that my target audience enjoys most of the general horror
conventions used in movies, though strobe lighting and audio did receive the greatest number of votes.
• However, in the second question: ‘What do you dislike most about Horror Films?’ there is a much clearer
separation of feedback. Jump scares and darkness/low visibility received the greatest number of votes in
this question from the survey. This makes it clear to me that I should try to limit the number of times I use
these genre conventions to attempt to make the viewing experience for my target audience more
enjoyable with this project. Audio received no votes in this question so I’m going to try my absolute best
to make an effective sound design for my project as it makes the viewing experience so much better.
• After analyzing my data that I have collected from these questions within my survey, I'm going to make
sure to limit the number of times I use specific genre conventions to make the viewing experience more
enjoyable for my target audience, but to also try to implement some conventions more so, that my target
audience enjoy more than others, as that should further make my project more enjoyable for the viewer
to hopefully appeal to a larger target audience.

Audience research
• Observation:
• What this says about my audience:
• How will your product appeal to this audience:

Interview 1
• Q: What do you enjoy most about Horror Films and why?
• A:
• Q: What do you enjoy least about Horror Films and why?
• A:
• Q: What makes for a good scare in a Horror Film?
• A:
• Q: Do you enjoy a Minimalistic Sound Design in Horror Films?
• A:
• Q: How long should a Short Horror Film be and why?
• A:

Interview 1
• Observation:
• How will your product appeal to this
audience:

Interview 2
• Observation:
• How will your product appeal to this
audience:

Colours in Film
Colour can be an extremely important tool in film and if used correctly can create a huge impact on the feeling
of any scene. Thinking of colour within any scene whilst planning is immensely important as certain colours are
established with certain feelings and emotions. This is why when creating a set for a scene, you should
incorporate colours into the scene within a specific colour scheme, this way you can instantly create a subtle
feeling within the scene for the viewer to establish from first glance. Whilst storyboarding, you should take
each storyboard and assign a colour to the storyboard, relating to the emotions the characters would be feeling
during the scene, even if you don’t end up using the colour.
Within my project I plan to use complimentary colours throughout most scenes where a constant colour will
run throughout the video establishing a subtle tone/emotion for the film (within horror this will most likely be
a desaturated blue colour) and then have another colour (red if I'm using blue as the constant colour) to use to
highlight specific things I want to bring the viewers attention to.
Although I plan to use this colour scheme the most in my final project, its not the only colour scheme I will use
as certain scenes will require certain colours to compliment the emotions within the scene. For example, if a
character within the film dies or is injured in a gory way, I will probably use the opposite to my previous colour
scheme where red would be the main colour in the scene.

Bibliography
1. Evans, Matthew. (2022) Target Audience Research Survey (conducted on 04/04/2022)
2. Richardson, Dan. (2022) Target Audience Interviews (conducted on 05/04/2022)
3. Stevens, Charlie. (2022) Target Audience Interviews (conducted on 05/04/2022)
4. A. ROTHSTEIN. (2020). Color Theory in Film: A Video Producer’s Guide. Available:
https://www.ipr.edu/blogs/digital-video-and-media-production/color-theory-in-film-a-video-producers-
guide/ . Last accessed 30th March 2022.
5. Jon Fusco. (2016). The Psychology of Color in Film (with examples).
Available: https://nofilmschool.com/2016/06/watch-psychology-color-film . Last accessed 30th March
2022.
6. .

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