Through audience research, the document's author identified that their target audience for a horror film trailer wanted elements like tension, character relationships, fast pacing, cliffhangers, and information about the director and release date. Feedback from the audience helped the author improve elements like adding more variety to the plotline and background on characters. Overall, the audience responded positively to concepts, scripts, pitches, shots, editing, posters, and magazine covers but provided minor suggestions that the author implemented to strengthen the appeal and understanding for the target audience.

2. Audience Profile
 Through audience research I was able to create an
audience profile and what they want to see in a horror
film trailer.

3. Audience Expectations
 I asked my audience what appeals to them in horror
film trailers, this was so that I could then include
these aspects in my horror trailer.

4. What did I find from my
audience research?
 I could see clearly what my audience wanted from
my trailer
 Such examples as:
“Tension
from the
antagonist”
“Show the
character
relationships
clearly”
“Fast paced
editing is
key”
“ Leave the
trailer on a
cliff-hanger”
“Release date
and other
information”
“Reviews”
“Include who
the director
is”
“Don’t reveal
too much”

5. How did this help me?
After my Audience research I had a clearer
understanding of my audiences hobbies, gender and
age aswell as their psychographic.
What my audience wanted to see from the trailer.
This gave me a better chance of creating an effective
and conventional film trailer, poster and magazine
cover.

6. Audience Research through the
planning stages
 Throughout my planning I consistently asked my
target audience what they thought of my latest ideas
whether it was a plot outline or drafts for my ancillary
products.

7. Production Concepts
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my
production concepts to see if they felt the concepts
had potential. I received a lot of positive feedback,
therefore I knew my ideas would appeal to my target
audience. Here are a few responses I received:
“Characters are stereotypical and will create a strong horror atmosphere”
“The storyline has great potential and has conventional elements to it”
“The ideas seem well thought through and show a lot of creativity”
“There is definitely potential for the plot line”
“The settings are very realistic and conventional to the horror genre”

8. Production Concepts
 There was one idea mentioned throughout my
audience was the lack of variety to my plotline.
Therefore I decided to include scenes from a
graveyard as I knew from my product research this is
a conventional setting for a horror film.

9. Conventions
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my
conventions to see if they felt the conventions had
potential. I received a lot of positive feedback,
therefore I knew my ideas would appeal to my target
audience. Here are a few responses I received:
“ The conventions
were common ones
within the horror
genre”
“ The presentation
was easy to
understand”
“ The conventions
are ones I would
want to see in a
horror film trailer”
“There was lots of
links to other
horror films”
“There was a lot of
creativity related to
the conventions”

10. Conventions
 There was a few suggestions from my target
audience in relation to conventions such as for my
trailer to have unique aspects not just stick to
conventions.
 So when I created my film trailer I made sure to add
my own ideas such as the antagonist being
physically smaller than the protagonist therefore the
protagonist didn’t have the underdog convention, but
due to the antagonist being dead and coming back
to life it still had conventionality to it.

11. Detailed Written Plot Outline
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my plot
outline to see if they felt the plot had potential. I
received a lot of positive feedback, therefore I knew
my ideas would appeal to my target audience. Here
are a few responses I received:

12. Detailed Written Plot Outline
 One of the only improvements raised about my plot
outline was the audience wanting to know more
about the suspense and how the scenes leading up
to the point where Charlie and Tom finally meet. At
the time I wasn’t completely decided where the
location would be so I couldn’t give too much detail
on the action scenes. But in the final trailer I was
able to create strong tension leading up to the action
scenes as I knew the audience wanted this.

13. Script
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my script
to see if they felt the script had potential. I received a
lot of positive feedback, therefore I knew my ideas
would appeal to my target audience. Here are a few
responses I received:
“The script has a strong
narrative”
“It looks very
professional”
“This is a very
conventional script”
“This has great potential
for a horror trailer”

14. Script
 The main improvement my audience felt that the
script could use is more background narrative to the
plot, this is so that the audience could create a
clearer relationship with the characters.
 I used this advice in my trailer by adding in
voiceovers therefore not taking effect away from the
camerawork but adding to the narrative background.

15. Pitch
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my pitch
to see if they felt the pitch had potential. I received a
lot of positive feedback, therefore I knew my ideas
would appeal to my target audience. Here are a few
responses I received:
“Very well
presented”
“This would
be a successful
pitch”
“Detailed”
“Very
informative”
“Well thought
through”

16. Pitch
 My audience liked my pitch as they felt it was well
presented but some felt I needed to put more
emphasis on selling it to ‘Warner Bros Pictures’ I
understand this point as it is very broad but I did this
so my target audience wasn’t narrow.
 In my trailer and ancillary products I took inspiration
from the companies previous products, therefore
linking it to ‘Warner Bros Pictures’.

17. Shot list
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my shot
list to see if they felt the shots had potential. I
received a lot of positive feedback, therefore I knew
my ideas would appeal to my target audience. Here
are a few responses I received:

18. Shot list
 My audience were impressed by my shot list but
some were concerned about how the shots would
flow through the trailer, I understood this concern but
the only way to test these shots was to create an
animatic and then develop them further in the actual
editing of the trailer.
 In my trailer I made sure the shots linked well
together and added a flow to the trailer after taking
this feedback into consideration.

19. Animatic Video
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my
animatic video to see if they felt the editing had
potential. I received a lot of positive feedback,
therefore I knew my ideas would appeal to my target
audience. Here are a few responses I received:
“Potential in
the editing”
“Fast paced
editing”
“Conventional
editing for the
horror genre”
“Good flow”

20. Animatic Video
 The editing in the animatic impressed my target
audience but the lack of sound worried some of
them, I took this criticism into consideration as sound
is an important part of how well the film trailer is
edited.
 Therefore when I created my trailer I edited then
included the sound then edited the trailer again to
make sure the visual aspects of the trailer linked with
the audio. Meaning that I created a conventional flow
to the trailer.

21. Ancillary Film Poster
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my film
poster drafts to see if they felt the drafts had
potential. I received a lot of positive feedback,
therefore I knew my ideas would appeal to my target
audience. Here are a few responses I received:
“It has conventional aspects”
“The colours
signify the
horror genre”
“I would buy this poster”
“The structure
is
conventional”

22. Ancillary Film Poster
 The feedback I received was positive for my film poster
drafts. One improvement I received was the colouring of
the background behind the slogans red font. The
audience felt it was quite hard to see this, I took the
improvement on board so that I could produce an easy to
read film poster. I did this by changing the font colour and
positioning of the slogan.

23. Ancillary Magazine Cover
 I asked my target audience for feedback on my
magazine cover drafts to see if they felt the drafts
had potential. I received a lot of positive feedback,
therefore I knew my ideas would appeal to my target
audience. Here are a few responses I received:
1.
“I would buy
this
magazine”
2.
“It has very
intriguing
language”
3.
“The fonts are
very
conventional”

24. Ancillary Magazine Cover
 My audience liked my magazine cover as they felt
the structure was well presented. One criticism they
had was the image on the front, it wasn’t very
relatable and a bit dull. I changed this image to a
picture of the actor as this was more relatable and it
gave a more insightful look into the film, meaning the
audience become intrigued into buying the
magazine.