horror research
We have produced a written questionnaire as a reliable source of our research into horror movies, we done this by finding out the opinions of different people. Additionally, we are going to use our questionnaire in order to identify what genres (types) of horror films people enjoy along with their views on certain aspects of what makes a good horror film. This information will help us to gain an understanding of who our target audience should be, along with developing an idea of how to structure and conduct our opening horror sequence to make it appeal to our audiences expectations.
question 1
what is your favourite horror sub-genre?
Investigating which sub genre of horror was the most popular amongst the respondents was important because we needed to be aware of what would make the most money, this would be defined by the popularity of a genre. The sub genre we decided to choose for our OTS was supernatural as our research highlighted this specific genre as the most favoured. The second most popular subgenre according to our results was slasher, therefore we will try and incorporate themes of extreme violence into our OTS
Popular supernatural films include:
Popular supernatural films include:
- The conjuring
- Sinister
- Paranormal Activity.
question 2
Pick your favourite provided horror film. (If you haven't seen any of the movies included then please choose the one you are most likely to watch)
We thought it was important to include this question because it would give us an insight into what types of films people enjoyed the most. We can see from the results provided that The Conjuring was the most common picked answer. Both Scream and Sinister were then second. The fact The Conjuring was the most popular result is good for our audience research as it based on a supernatural genre. Furthermore, this helps support our idea that producing our OTS based on the sub genre of supernatural will be effective because it will appeal highly to our target audience (people aged between 17-25).
question 3
What setting would you find the scariest for a horror film?
This question was important because it allows us to gain an idea of which location people prefer to witness in a horror film. The fact that the two most popular options that were chose were the asylum and house implies that you don't have to go to an extreme location in order to make it effective, scary horror. I was surprised that a house was chosen as the second most popular location. Additionally, the reason behind this could potentially be due to the thrill of having something bad happen in a safe setting. As a result of filming in a safe place, the audience have a sense of realism as they don't expect un-natural events to commence in their own home- therefore they become even more terrified as they can relate to the loction.
question 4
Which weapon would you find the most effective and scacry in a horror?
By simply asking the respondents to choose which weapon they find the most effective in a horror allows us to generate an idea of what to include in our OTS. Results highlighted that the most popular weapon was a hammer or an axe. These particular objects aren't commonly associated with death as they are considered to be used for helpful purposes. Furthermore, including these weapons would differ from other horror films because the most commonly used weapons are knives and guns.
question 5
Which of the following ways to die do you find the scariest?
The purpose of this question was to identify what people were most scared of in terms of dying. Other than revealing what type of death is the most scariest, this question also allows us to gain a further understanding regarding which deaths are most likely to make the audience sympathize with a victim in a horror film. Additionally, the most commonly picked answer was torture. Therefore it is important that we include violent and disturbing torture scenes as it will meet the audience's expectations.
question 6
What is your biggest fear?
For this particular question we thought it would be more effective to make the option open instead of closed, this would enable us to have a better insight into peoples fears. Without forcing the respondents to pick a specific answer it allows them to pick a fear closely related to them instead of our genre. For this answer we expected to get a variety of different answers. Surprisingly, the results revealed that clowns, rats and ghosts were selected, these can be closely related to our genre. However, two individuals put 'small spaces' which we could also potentially try and include depending on available locations. Sadly we won't be able to include all of these fears, but, it was still interesting to develop an idea of what people are scared of.
question 7
What type of music/ sound effects do you find the most effective in terms of creating an intense atmosphere?
The most common answer for this question about music and sound effects, which 9 out of 15 people chose was intense music. A big part of some horror movies is the sudden suspense which is built up which signifies that something bad is going to happen- from theses results we can infer that this is an effective technique as it has a positive impact on the audience's experience. Therefore in our OTS we will build tension by selecting our music carefully. When asking this question we included an 'other' box for those who wanted to add their own option, we asked these people to specify their answer. One of the respondense stated that 'the sound effect of a heart beating is effective as is creates an intense atmosphere'.
QUESTION 8
Do you prefer to watch horror film with a fictional narrative or would you rather it be based on true events?
As shown by the result a large percentage of the respondents preferred to watch a horror film that was based on true events as shown by the statistics of 11 people to 4. Therefore when we make our OTS we will ensure that we research real-life situations regarding our sub genre of Supernatural in order to make it as realistic as possible. If we are unable to find a real life story that relates closely to our genre then we will incorporate some real life situations/ events which will have the same scary effect on our audience.