Mariam and Mahfuza

1. Mariam, Mahfuza

2. By asking our audience what their age is, we
managed to gather that the majority of
which are middle and late adolescents.
Therefore, helping us make a film which
would be both age appropriate and
entertaining for them, in order to make a
successful horror film. This information also
allowed us to explore the level of ‘blood’ and
‘gore’ (to an extent) in our film as our
audience includes both young teens and
adults. In other words, we became aware of
the explicit content, (blood, mental illnesses
and so on), we were legally authorised to
create due to the variety of audience we
have. To add, it also proves that millennials
will be the main consumers of our film;
people who like to watch (horror) movies
and go on platforms such as YouTube where
creators are free to publish whatever they
wish and receive lots of attention (if shared
or rather marketed correctly). Thus, shows
that our film has the potential to be
successful.

3. The second question we asked was
regarding the gender of our
audience. Due to issues that have
emerged on the topic of gender
fluidity (etc.) We did not restrain
our audience by giving them 2 fixed
options, but allowed them to answer
however they wished to express
themselves or just skip the question-
hence, one answer is absent.
Nevertheless, the evidence shows
that our audience is clearly female
dominated, which although will not
fully control the plot of our film, it
did influence my group and I to
create a product which is relatable to
the majority, in order to make a film
which will be successful with the
audience we have.

4. Q3:
The third question in the survey was: “How often do you watch horror
movies?” The reason we asked this is to find out whether our audience
was fond of the mentioned genre and if so, to what extent (see Q8). The
evidence here shows that most of them watch horror movies quite
frequently and thus our film would be consumed by them kindly. Or
rather, the uses and gratifications theory can apply as our audience can
decide if they want to watch our short film and for what reasons. One
response expressed that they are so fond of horror movies that they go
to the cinema’s “every time a new horror movie is released”. Therefore, I
know our film will be viewed and become successful.

5. The fourth question asked what horror
movie frightened our audience the
most to get an idea of what we could
implement in our film that would both
scare and entertain them in the same
way. For example, some responded
with ‘Psycho’ which includes a man of
the name ‘Norman Bates’ with
Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D)
or Multiple Personality Disorder
(M.P.D). This will be applied to our
film as our main character will also
have D.I.D (split personality). Perhaps,
this will also attract a niche audience
who are interested in films of such a
topic. In addition, almost all of the
replies state films that have some
aspects of gore and blood. Therefore,
we will also include some scenes with
blood, (to an extent in order to
maintain a rating of 15). For example, a
stabbing scene.

6. “Are you more likely to get scared of a realistic or irrational villain?” caused a large
divide in our target audience with 76% voting ‘Human’ leaving 23% for
‘Monster’. We will take this into account by making our ‘villain’ human, thus
also fitting with the D.I.D idea as well. Maybe this will help frighten them
more as it is believed that those with slight differences, (such as a young girl
with a secret, evil identity), tend to make us fearful due to the idea that we
think that they are ‘normal’ when they are the opposite. At first glance, we
think we are in a safe environment but the phrase ‘looks can be deceiving’ . We
can apply this to our horror film by portraying our main actor to be
manipulative to both the audience and other characters within the film.
Nonetheless, although ‘monsters’ are still viewed as scary, some may argue
that having a human as the antagonist is a better idea due to the idea of ‘fear of
the unknown’; (this era’s fear could be those with mental illnesses due to
releases such as ‘American Psycho’ (2000), ‘Identity’ (2003), ‘Black Swan’
(2010), ‘Shutter Island’ (2010) and ‘Split’ (2016).

7. However, we can challenge this as the statement usually refers to movies with a
sub-genre of ‘Supernatural’ such as the ‘Paranormal Activities’ film series and
movies like ‘Poltergeist’ (1982).* In comparison, our horror film will be a
psychological thriller. Nonetheless, as people voted for the other settings too,
we will take them into account as well, for example the ‘woods/forest’ option.
Question 6 is very important as it decided the location in which our film
would be set. ‘House’ received many votes with over half of my audience
voting for it, leaving ‘Other’ in second place- those that chose ‘Other’
simply specified that every location stated was frightening. In our short
horror film, we may use the house as our main location and setting..
Though the setting we will have is now clear, some may think that having
a ‘House’ as the main location would be boring or cliché.

8. We asked our target audience
whether they would prefer the
main character to be a girl or a
boy. To which the majority
evidently answered ‘Girl’.
Despite the technicalities such
as details like good not
defeating evil in our film, this
furthers the idea of have a
‘Final Girl’ in (horror) movies
as it empowers women by
eliminating the stereotypical
perspective of women being
‘weak’, ‘naive’ and ‘pure’- our
main character can be a
vengeful murderer.

9. This question not only tells us
what sub-genre our audience
enjoys, but also shows what
extent our film should
contain certain explicitness
such as the amount of blood
shown on screen during
murder scenes and so on. As
the obvious winner is
‘Psychological’, in our film
we can decide to maintain
the amount of goriness to a
low so it would suit the genre
and meet our audience’s
requests.

10. This next question was to get our target audience to associate three
word with horror movies. By asking them to state three words they
associate with horror, we can shock them with our movie that
doesn’t typically describe horror in a dull way and by shocking them
with something unexpected. For example, some mentioned they
wanted a twist so we can try and include this in our film. This will be
built up through out the movie through some obvious and some
small details that the audience may not notice at first glance, but will
understand at then end.

11. The last question asks “To what extent [the audience] like the ending in horror
movies to be”. The first available option is “Explicit= ending is clear” which
35% chose. Whereas, the other is “Cliff-hanger= ending is unclear as some
information is given but ending is up to you” which 65% voted for. Thus,
leading my group and I to opt for a cliff-hanger or rather an open ending
narrative. We found that through much research and own experiences,
ending narratives tend to be more interesting and enjoyable as the audience
is able to discuss their opinions with others. For example, ‘The Shining’ (1980)
or ‘American Psycho’ (2000), or Christopher Nolan movies such as ‘Shutter
Island’ and ‘Inception’. This will hopefully be the case for our film as if people
talk about it, their discussions will be a form of word of mouth and thus also
make my film more known meaning more people will be aware and further
discuss.

12. As a result of creating a survey (on SurveyMonkey.com),
we are now aware of what our audience desires and it
gave us ideas on how we can portray their interests.
Knowing their dislikes helps our group to create a
successful and unique product that will please them,
and we may come up with a unique selling point for
the film. This was imperative because we needed to
know everything in order to make a film that both our
younger and older audience will enjoy.