Target Audience feedback

Question 1:

The majority of people who answered this question were female (70%). This actually came as a surprise to me as - looking back at my research - I found out that it is usually males who watch horrors/short films. This is due to the stereotype that men are more thrill seekers. 













Question 2:

The majority of the age groups of people who answered this question ranged from aged 16 – 26, this getting a mathematical average age of 21. However despite this being the average age, I knew that realistically the people who answered the questions from my questionnaire were actually my peers, so the average age was actually 17/18. To add on that, it also linked to the target audience convention for the horror genre as age 18 (a young audience) is the stereotypical target audience for horrors, therefore my target audience feedback fit this demographic. This is because of many stereotypes associated with young people such as them being thrill seekers and a horror film being a first date. This was effective and helped influencing my text on giving me an idea that I may possibly need to change my age certificate, as initially I was going to make it 15, however after seeing the results I considered changing it an 18. However, after looking through the context and plot of my actual movie it made me come to the realization that my short film wouldn’t fit an 18 certificate requirements and standards, therefore, it remained a 15.

Question 3:

I included this question to see if the short film convention that the majority of the people who watch short films are into media/creative arts or either getting into the industry or already a part of it. And surprisingly enough it was true! When looking at the responses, it was clear that the majority of the people were into hobbies that had a creative aspect (reading/writing) to it or directly involved in media such as photography, film and music! Thus, this proving my target audience research to be correct!

Question 4 & 5:

Response – The responses for specifically question four aimed at horror films mainly consisted of just how the film provided an emotional response for the audience, so this being things such as thrill, drama and excitement. I slightly struggled with this, because I know that when doing a short film it is slightly difficult to create character development/an emotional response.

When looking at the responses for short films, however, they were equally quite similar, with the general attraction being towards the narrative and story provided in the short duration of time. This made me realize I have to really make my media product stand out, try and make the most out of the little time I had.

Question 6:

The majority of my respondents (more than 50%) stated they wanted a cliffhanger. This linked up to conventions of short films regardless, as short films tend to include either a dramatic ending or cliff hanger, leaving the audience wanting more. Despite this being a convention, it motivated more to make sure my short film to not be the stereotypical, standard short film with a predictable ending and plot-line. The way I acted upon this way by going to my synopsis and making some changes to the plot-line, by making it more exciting and adding more jump scares/frightening scenes, I knew I had to do this in order to please my audience. To add on to that,  I also searched up very famous short films that did well in the box office, looking at their plot-line to see what made them different, stand out and be so popular as inspiration and an end goal.

Question 7 & 8:

Likewise, the clear audience favourite for what was the most important feature was the narrative/plot. This was beneficial in the sense it simply offered me the motivation to do exceedingly well within my opening sequence.