The document discusses research conducted to understand audiences' preferences for horror films. A questionnaire was used to efficiently collect information from a large sample. Questions covered demographics like gender and employment, as well as preferences regarding location, subgenre, ways to watch films, spending on films, consumption of horror films, and aspects that induce fear. The goal was to understand the target audience for a student horror film and incorporate popular elements to appeal to viewers.

1. Task 4: Research
Daniel Finlay, Mustafa Said, Jack Kilminster, Adam El-Gharbaoui

2. Unit 2, 3, 22
King’s Key

3. Purposes and aims of the research?
The reason for doing this research is so that, ultimately, we can find out what type of people like what type of
horror, and helps us find out things such as what type of setting they enjoy, what villains they enjoy, and much
more. This helps us understand what types of things that the public enjoys more than others, and can also help us
understand what we can put within our horror film to interested the audience more than we normally would. It
also helps us understand what they enjoy, such as if they like the film Saw, they’re probably a fan of gore horror,
while if they’re a fan or The Conjuring, they’re more likely to be a fan of supernatural occurrences during movies.
This also helps us find our target audience, as due to the occurrence of supernatural happenings within our short
film, we need to know what type of people like supernatural happenings in films so we can target them as our
audience. Altogether, this helps us, the makers of the horror movie and trailer, understand what the audience
would like to see within the film, and if we do said things, we could gain more of an audience than we usually
would.

4. Why we chose a questionnaire?
We decided to use a questionnaire because it enabled us to collect large amounts of
information from a large number of people in a short period of time and in a relatively
cost effective way. As it is our own primary research the validity and reliability has already
been proven as we did this research ourselves instead of using secondary research which
someone already made which could of been unreliable or out of date.
Can be analysed more 'scientifically' and objectively than other forms of research. When
collecting information on a questionnaire the data that has been quantified, can be used
to compare and contrast other research and may be used to measure change. This was
also a more effective method due to time, as time was very short and we did not have
time for focus groups, so a questionnaire was a effectively method were data that is
collected is validated and reliable as we did the research ourselves.

5. Gender
We went around and asked more males than females in our
questionnaires. This is because stereotypically we believe
males watch more horror films than females. This is because
most females are terrified of horror films as they are scared
easily. Males, however, are mostly interested in horror films as
they enjoy the suspense and tension whether they are
watching it with friends, alone or with family. We also had tried
to approach a younger audience as they have more time to
watch films at home as they don't have many responsibilities
such as a job. Our target audience for this reason is 15+ the
film contains violence (such as blood) and explicit language,
so those type of actions wouldn’t be acceptable for people of a
younger viewing to go ahead and watch.

6. Employment
We had asked our audience members for their job employment as we want to know
who has more availability for watching horror films or any other films in order to set a
fixed and large audience to make our film a success. From our primary research, our
data has shown how we approached full-time students at schools or universities or
full-time workers, due to the fact that, when walking down a high street, you tend to
see mainly workers and students due to the amount of shops that are there and the
fact that there are schools within in the area. Part-time was also a viable option said
by people, as some people may just be working for temporary money or are only just
recently starting work.

7. Location
We had asked our audience what area of borough they live in such as Ilford. This was to see where
our audience members were mostly from and how many people in that area watch horror films. This
was so that if we was to make a horror film, we would release the premier in local cinemas in that
area as the film would be recognised more and watched by a greater audience making the film well
known in other areas by demand of popularity. This also means we would be able to gain more views
for our film which would be then be spread out in many other areas. Our data shows an equal number
of people in Ilford and Barkingside watch horror films the most compared to other areas such as
Clayhall. This shows that if we was to release a horror film first, we would choose between
Barkingside or Ilford.

8. Sub-Genre
In order to make our horror film a success, we had asked our target audience what sub-
genre they enjoyed watching. This was very Important to know and ask because due to
popular demand, we are able to make our horror film with the preferred sub-genre in order
to gain a huge target audience who enjoy watching such films. For example, Zombie was
the most preferred sub genre, in this way we have created a plot for our horror film which
relates to a similar fashion, zombie antagonist.
‘Found footage’ was the least favored by our audience yet we have agreed to make a ‘found
footage’, short horror film. This is mainly because there are very few ‘found footage’ horror
films that have been released. Due to this we aim to make our ‘found footage’ short film a
success yet using conventional elements favoured by our audience, another reason for why
we had chosen to do a questionnaire. We also aim to make ‘found footage’ one of the
public’s favourite sub genres as we also would not have any competition with other ‘found
footage’ films as there aren't many produced.

9. Ways to Watch Horror
50% of our audience had chosen to go watch movies at the cinema because they feel
more comfortable in that area. This is because they are in an area that is surrounded
by more people, making them feel safer than they normally would. Cinemas are also a
quiet place and there's food facilities such as popcorn and drinks, and there are also
options to watch the movies differently, such as 3D, etc. The display screen is massive
so you can have a better view of the film. The second most chosen option was
streaming. People choose streaming as an option as you can watch the latest movies
for free at anytime and anywhere. Some people chose other options but we figured out
that DVD, Pay-Per View and Download are more expensive and harder to get.

10. How much do you spend on film monthly?
We decided that research into how much people spend on films was important as
it will help us decide whether releasing the movie onto DVD would benefit us in
profits, from our research we discovered that many only spend £0-10 a month this
could also be linked with cinema, streaming, pay-per view. So releasing the movie
on DVD and Blu Ray would be a bad idea especially in the UK. As many would not
spend money on paying for it, as there are already other methods which people
prefer to use to watch movies. This is also limited as our movie would be a 15+ so
only this age and above would be able to buy our product, which does not benefit
us as most parents only buy movies nowadays for younger children, and a parent
would definitely not buy a horror movie for 6 year old child.

11. How many horror films do you watch in a month?
From our data we can see that our target audiences only watch around 5
horror movies a month this is not bad seeing all the other genres that
could be watched, this shows that horror as a genre is a popular genre in
which our target audiences enjoy to watch. This showed us that not
many horror movies are watched in a month by our audiences. In order
to change that we would have to make our film stand out so many of our
target audience members would want to watch our film. As it includes
many of the conventions which our audiences want to see in a horror
film, this would make our film a success, as we have most of the
elements favoured by our target audience.

12. What do you enjoy the most in horror?
We asked people what aspect of horror they enjoy the most when they go to watch a horror
film, or in other words, what makes them want to go and watch a horror film instead of
watching something else. Apart from a film being ‘creepy’, such as having eerie surroundings
and scary atmosphere, all of the other options seemed to be quite evenly spread apart, give or
take a few percentages. True story seemed to be the winner of the public, with a lot of people
preferring the aspect of the story actually occurring scaring them more, as they know it’s a real
event that may or nay not have happened, and we’ll never know, such as in movies like The
Conjuring 2. Just behind that was jumpscare, with a lot of people finding it the true horror
element to make they come back for more. Jump scares are more or less a convention within
horror now, and are used on multiple occasions to catch the audience out. After that was found
footage and gore, which showed how the audience liked the human-aspect of films, such as
people seeing something live and the audience getting to witness it first hand, such as if it’s a
first viewing of the tapes found, and then gore shows how a lot of the public like bloody horror,
with movies such as Saw being a favourite of people.

13. What scares you the most in Horror?
31% of the our audience chose sound scares them the most during a horror film because sound
is a major antagonist throughout the film, as it adds to so much in the film traumatic scenes,
jump scenes etc. music has always been key in build up and suspense in a movie and is used in
every single movie produced no matter what the genre of the movie. This is helpful for us as we
will take from this what we need to include in our short film, which is intense sounds that add to
the scary and intense scenes into our production. Not only that, but sound information actually
travels faster than the information we receive from sight, which suggests that humans evolved
to use sound (as opposed to sight) as a first defense against predators. So, essentially, it may be
fair to say that sounds are scarier than images and other things in the film. Location was also
considered a very scary part of horror, due to the fact that when you’re in a different setting that
you’re used to, you don’t know where you are, therefore, scaring the audience more. Story line
and special effects were also picked quite a bit, as stuff like CGI helps editors create stuff in the
film that could never be made regularly, while anyone can also appreciate a good story,
especially in horror. Finally, characters tended to be the least scariest thing picked by the public,
maybe due to the fact that everything else is considered scarier above characters, or maybe
because people don’t tend to find characters scary, and are more scared by the shock factor
instead.

14. Which of these is your prefered
setting?
We decided that knowing what are audiences preferred setting was key,
seeing as we are producing a horror movie, so making the movie in the
scariest location possible is useful, as it will help the scenes be more
traumatic and scary for the people watching our production. It also lets us
know if we wanted a selection of different locations what would be the
second or third option to add in so the movie is kept intense the whole way
through and so we keep our audience absorbed in as long as possible, this
will add to production as it will allow us to give our audience the feelings
and emotions we want to portray onto them from our scenes, so when it
comes to jump scenes they can be as scary as possible.

15. How do you watch Horror
films?
To help us in our production, we decided to put our research also into discovering
how most of our audiences prefer to watch horror movies, we discovered that from
the selection of people we asked that most of people's opinions, are that they prefer
to watch horror movies with friends (this can include partners), as this makes it more
enjoyable for audiences when they go to watch a movie as many will jump and
scream, this can be very enjoyable for audiences as watching friends scream or
jump can be extremely funny.
This useful to us, as from the people we asked many were in their teen’s, so this
especially would affect them and shows us that we need to include intense build ups
and jump scares as this is what people around this age group want, when they go to
watch these movies at the cinema or watching the movies at home.

16. Which of these are your favourite Horror
movie?
We wanted to know what horror movies people enjoyed the most, so we
decided to give a different selection of movies in different horror sub genre,
to see what movies in their sub genres the audience enjoyed the most. This
would help us understand what subgenres had the more successful movie,
so we can gain ideas from these movies depending on the sub genre we
plan to base our production on. This also helps us understand what people
are afraid of and what their phobias are, this also shows us what
conventions there are between the audience's point of views.
Like for example many people chose “Saw” as one of their favourite horror
movies but then many did not choose body horror as their favourite sub-
genre. Instead they chose sub-genres such as “zombie” and “paranormal”
Another example was what was your preferred setting many chose an
Asylum, but no one of which we asked chose a horror movie which included
a asylum.

17. Which of these if your favourite
villain?
We decided to find out what the people’s favourite villain was from
some of the chosen movies released beforehand, we did this to see
what our audiences opinion would be, so we could try and base our
production around what would scare the audience the most, which is
what people want when they go to see a horror movie at the cinema,
they expect to scared or made to jump. Which is why in most horror
movies there is a main villain or psycho behi
nd the all the jumps and scares in the movie, for example “Scream”.
This also relates to the image of the movie like the movies “ Saw” when
looking on an advertisement etc, if you were to see the character
Jigsaw, you instantly (if you had seen the movie) would think of all of
the terror which takes in the movie. Audience opinions also helps us
figure out what will our main psycho or villain in our production. Seeing
that our production is 15+ it means that we can have a terrifying
character which will remind people of our movie as long as it does not
cross the barrier of 18+ (which would include things such as explicit
body imaging.