The document discusses a trailer created for a horror film and the research done to target the ideal audience. The intended audience was determined to be ages 16-21 based on similar successful horror films. Feedback from a focus group matching this demographic was positive, with all saying they would pay to see the full film. While both genders found it scary, female viewers were more likely to jump during tense moments. The trailer was successful in conveying just enough of the storyline to intrigue viewers and leave them wanting more.

1. Evaluation task 4
Who are your audience & what have
you learned from them?

2. Intention of the production
When we planned our trailer we wanted the audience to leave feeling tense and
perhaps also quite scared. However the main aim was to ensure that they
left feeling as though they would want to watch the actual movie, therefore
we did plenty of research beforehand and aimed our trailer at a particular
target audience. This meant that hopefully those who watched our trailer will
feel enthused to watch the real film. Through conducting research we
reached a conclusion to aim our film at an audience of 16-21.
This graph is taken from
our target audience
research. Here you can
clearly see that majority
of those asked that
replied yes to this
question were under
the age of 21.

3. Using genre to appeal to a particular
audience
• Many viewers define themselves through movies genres, for instance they will be
attracted to films of a particular genre. In our case, promoting our film as a horror
movie will instantly appeal to an audience who like to watch horror films and
audiences who do not like the horror genre will not come and watch it.
• For this reason you will usually find the trailer for a horror movie in the cinemas
before the viewing of another horror film. This way the film can be directed to a
particular audience who clearly enjoy horror films. And money is therefore not
wasted on advertising towards a viewer who would not be interested in watching
the film.

4. Using genre to appeal to a particular
audience
• To help us market our film to the correct audience we looked as IMDB
Movie database’s and looked into demographic of our audience based on
similar films and their demographics
• Here is an example of the conclusions we found from looking at The
Woman in Black:
Here we can see that people
aged under 18 rated the
woman in Black the highest,
with 7.2/10 and out of those,
females rated higher than
men

5. Audience Theories
The Hypodermic Needle Theory
• Audience can be grouped into two types, a passive audience who believe what they
see and are somewhat brainwashed and an active audience who take the time to
think about the meaning behind what they see. The Hypodermic Needle Theory
suggests that the mass audience are passive and therefore the media 'injects' ideas
into a passive audience, in particular with horror films
• In this sense, horror films can be dangerous as the audience receive the
information they see, such as violence and crime and make no attempt on their
part to process or challenge it thus them becoming vulnerable and easily
manipulated by the film. This is especially dangerous with children who are known
to be quite gullible and would perhaps watch a movie such as 'Scream' and take it's
ideologies as the norm. Therefore a child would not be suitable watching our film
as they may seek revenge ideas which is why we restricted our film to a viewing
audience over 15.

6. Example of The Hypodermic Needle Theory
An example of this theory is the infamous radio dramatisation of the science fiction
novel, 'The war of the worlds' in 1938 which was performed like a contemporary
news broadcast . However the audience listened to this simulation and began to
believe that it was in fact a genuine account of an alien invasion and began hiding
in homes and preparing weapons as an attempt to defend themselves from the
supposed attack.

7. After the Jamie Bulger case where two young boys
murdered Jamie in a brutal way, suspected to be copying
the acts performed in the movie Childs Play, the BBFC
Brought in new Regulations for home cinema under the
Video Recordings act 1984 this meant that videos had to
be submitted for Classifications, prior to this no
certificates had been introduced and therefore anyone of
any age could watch whichever movie they wanted.
Example of The Hypodermic Needle Theory
in Horror

8. Blulmer and Katz – 1974
In the book ‘The uses of mass communications’ a theory has been produced
containing 4 reasons why audience use media:
1. Diversion; For the idea of escapism and to release oneself from everyday
pressures
2. Personal Relationships; To gain or improve friendships or relationships, the
sociability through discussing media products
3. Personal Identity; The ability to compare ones own life with particular characters
or relate to certain events with a media text
4. Surveillance; To gather information and/or facts
Through researching theories like this we could use them as an advantage for our own
media text. For example, You wouldn’t usually go to see a horror movie by
yourself, therefore the audience will be bigger because if someone wants to watch
our movie they would usually as a friend to see it with them. Another example is
that there are many themes within our narrative in which the audience can relate,
a main one being bullying. A number of people could perhaps sympathise with our
main character Cassandra who gets bullied. (link to the relevant theory)
Audience Theories

9. Representations within our product
• The Audience respond to the representations they see
within a movie, for instance the young women in our trailer
are mainly represented as victims and therefore the
audience would respond with sympathy.
• Another representation that had been made within our
movie is having an innocent child turn evil. Though
conducting research we found this prospect to be quite
scary for viewers and therefore we used this in our own
trailer and it proved to be successful.
• The audience can see a transition of the representation of
our young females in the trailer. For instance our main
character starts off as a vulnerable victim but later on
transitions into the powerful antagonist who victimises
another young female.

10. Audience Feedback
After watching the trailer we asked our focus group to fill in a questionnaire. First of all
and possibly most importantly we had a very equal focus group in terms of Gender.
Not only is it fair to keep the ratio of male to females equal but also through
previous research we found that neither demographic showed a greater interest in
horror films and therefore the results would not be bias is any way.
It is also worthy of note that all the questionnaires were anonymous and therefore
nobody felt obliged to write an answer just to please us. They could feel
comfortable to answer truthfully.
Male
10Female
11
Gender

11. Audience Feedback
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Male Female
Would you pay to watch the full
film?
Yes
No
0
5
10
15
16-19 20+
Would you pay to watch the full
film?
Yes
No
We are fortunate enough to find that 100% of our focus group said that they would not only
want to see the full film but also that they were willing to pay a price to do so. This is really
pleasing and uplifting news for my production team and I because this is evidence that we
achieved the desired intention of wanting our viewers to watch the trailer feeling enticed to
watch to whole movie and find out what happens to the characters.
Should the results have been different we would have analysed whether it was a gender related
difference or an age related difference. Perhaps we would have found that an older audience
did not enjoy the trailer but fortunately that was not the case.

12. Audience Feedback
Our questionnaire proceeded to ask if our audience had jumped at a particular section.
Results showed that 100% of our female group did jump at some point in the trailer
whereas only 50% of the males jumped at some point in the trailer. Perhaps this is due
to males being stereotypically stronger and less fearful than females.
We then asked those who had jumped to describe when they did so and we categorised
them into 3 moments in the trailer, the door slamming in store cupboard scene was the
most popular moment and perhaps this was due to the slow build up of the monologue
increasing the tension felt by the audience.
A Scene in which we originally assumed would be the most scary was the scream at the end
however on reflection I feel as though it was a bit cliché and although it did come as a
shock to some audience members perhaps because there was no build up the viewers
didn’t feel tense and therefore were less frightened.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Female Male
Did the trailer make you jump at
any point?
Yes
No
0
5
10
15
Store Cupboard Scream Strangle
Moments that people jumped
at
Series2

13. Audience Feedback
0
5
10
15
20
25
Period Horror Thriler
What genre do you think the film is?
Series1
We gave our audience an open question asking what genre they thought the film was. For this
question we did not give options so that we could really see what the audience thought without
being given ideas by ourselves. We were very pleased to see that 100% of the focus group
believed that the trailer was a horror yet also others thought that there were one or two sub-
genres included, one being thriller in which was not correct but I can understand that horror
and thrillers are close genres and also our horror is slightly more to the thriller side than a
slasher for instance.
The other genre spotted was the period genre which is very pleasing to see because we did
show sections of past scenes within our trailer which evidently have been noted.

14. Audience Feedback
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
How much of the storyline was
understood
Series1
Finally, a very important factor was to see if our viewers understood the storyline having not
been told anything about it beforehand so we gave them a couple of lines to write down what
they thought the storyline would be.
My production team and I thought about 6 main points that we hoped the audience would pick
up on and then we looked at the audiences answers. Luckily enough the story was clear enough
that every point was picked up on, some more than others, For example everyone noticed that
the story was about bullying and haunting which we hoped would be quite obvious. To the
viewers who had thought more about what they had seen, they picked up on issues such as the
importance of Cassandra's diary and themes of revenge,
Some of the less obvious aspects was the suicide, only four people picked this up but one or two
did say ‘Something happens to the main character’ which is still good news because we like the
mystery element and maybe these people would want to find out what exactly happens to her.

15. Development in skills
This year we thought a lot more about the audience and how we should market our
trailer in order to get the best possible outcome than we had done in a last
production. I personally feel that this has improved my skills, skills in which I will
carry with me into my future. I didn’t realise until I conducted my research earlier
this year just how important it is to direct your film to a particular demographic.
Through this I believe that our production was somewhat better because not only
could we apply our finding to the actual trailer but it improved our marketing too.
For example, after having reached a conclusion that the target audience would be 16-
25 years we realised that this is the perfect demographic to market our film to over
social networking sites. Therefore we created a twitter page and also introduced a
hashtag for viewers to follow on.

16. A Success?
Personally I believe that our trailer was a
success. All of our original intentions were
reached whether that be on a personal level
to do with editing and producing or how our
audience reacted to it on the first viewing. It is
very uplifting to here that not only did they
find it scary and thrilling but they also felt that
the narrative was strong enough to want to
watch the whole movie.