Ben Brown conducted research on various online horror fan groups and interviewed local students to learn about audience preferences. He discovered that both groups appreciate original stories and the use of practical effects over CGI. Based on this research, Brown plans to include practical effects in his own horror project and create an original story without sequels. To complete his research, Brown needs to conduct additional audience interviews and compile bibliographies of his sources. The weakest part of Brown's research was the student questionnaire, so he would improve on gathering more detailed local audience responses.

1. Second Reflection
By Ben Brown

2. • What research have you done this week? I learned about different audience groups on the internet e.g.: Dead Meat,
Creepy Pasta, Saw, Final Destination, Dexter and the Belko Experiment, I also learned more about the local audience
by asking four people what they thought of horror movies. I used my own knowledge and did learned about the
audience groups that made up the majority of my research, I learned about their; creative stories, always wanting
originality, always wanting the use of practical effects in kills and that they’ve all been around for along time. I sent
out an email questionnaire to the students: Hannah Stockill, Brody Gibson, Lily Howes and Ethan Colman to learn
more about local audiences, they all had their own opinions on practical effects and originality even horror movies in
general, but I eventually learned that they all liked horror movies.
• What have you learned that will help you in your project? I have learned the two most important parts of audience
research: practical effects and originality, I learned this from the students I interviewed and the sources I researched,
they both had the similar interests of those two points. Practical effects are the use of make up instead of CGI and
they’re most commonly used for blood and gore when a character dies, the audience groups are long time fans of
horror and they like it when practical effects are used because CGI looks fake to them, the students like practical
effects more than CGI but they don’t care if either are used as long as they’re convincing, I’ve learned their opinions
and will use practical effects in my kills to satisfy the audience. Both groups are also sequel haters, the research
groups like it when there’s always a new idea or planned out series instead of corporations making money about
movies we’ve already scene and the local group also doesn't like sequels but they’re not so extreme as the others,
even though I’m taking inspiration from something, I’ll make an original story with no sequels needed.
• What else do you need to research next week? I only have two other things to do: audience interviews and
bibliographies, I will be able to get both done (and by proxy the research power point) at the end of next week. I will
have to interview the students that gave me the best responses and document what they said by following the
instructions on the power point. I will also have to write bibliographies about all the things that I researched and I will
also have to look up how to write a bibliography.
• If you could make one improvement to the research, what would it be and why? I felt like the weak point of my
research was the questionnaire sent to my selected students and their responses, that would be what I would want to
improve upon in my research. Because I made the research on the horror groups more detail it went against the next
batch of slides so I sent a questionnaire to four students but all of their responses were to short or not properly
thought out so I tried to put that info to the slides best I could.