Wednesday, 23 November 2016
Primary Research: Focus Group
To further enhance my primary research, I held a focus group- consisting of my idealised target audience, asking them questions about narrative ideas for my psychological horror. I made a plan for the focus group with the intention of knowing exactly what questions I would be asking and how that would help my final production. I had set the focus group up in advance, making it well organised so I can easily gather my primary research.
How this will help my production:
My focus group members had a mode answer of Session 9 being the most effective poster. The main reason for this being the imagery. They said that the imagery gives you a greater sense of the narrative without giving too much away. It was also stated and agreed that The Blair Witch Project poster having a main dominant feature was effective. The close up of eyes showing the characters fear was said to be effective. This coincides with my questionnaire research, as the eyes were found to be the feature that represents fear the most.
This has informed me to think about what imagery I will include on my print poster. As most people said that having many different images on one poster is effective, I will incorporate that idea into my poster for my final production. I will also think about what characters I have on the poster and what dominant feature I will use to represent their emotions.
How this will help my production:In this discussion, there was a variety of character types that the members stated they would like in a psychological horror. However, they agreed that the hero and villain are the most important characters to them. They said that they create most of the story line and are the characters you either "root for" or "fear". For a psychological horror, my focus group members stated that they like the idea of unpredictable characters as it keeps them on the edge. This is important for a psychological horror as it creates tension and a sense of mystery.
I will use the information from this to create characters in my script production, as it is what the target audience have said that they would like to see. This has allowed me to apprehend which characters my target audience want to see in a psychological horror and how to make my posters and script most effective through the use of characters.
How this will help my production:
It was agreed in my focus group that the narrative idea could be cliche, and that this would put off the audience. I will keep this in mind when creating my final production as the members said that that is something that they dislike about horror films. However, it was also stated that the narrative suggested is good for a psychological horror as it has the element of what is real and what is not- which members said they liked. This was a fairly closed question, narrowing it to only one narrative idea. Reflecting on this question, I could have chosen a more open question about narrative to gain different ideas for a narrative that my target audience would appreciate.
This has made me think about the narrative structure and features I will include in my final production to make it successful.
How this will help my production:
For this question I asked how they felt about ideas for the film title. This is important as their opinion is more valid than mine as to what would work best, and make them want to watch the film the most. Therefore by asking them, as my target audience, what would work best helps me to know the right one for my chosen sub-genre.
The most popular name I had suggested was Insomnia. The focus group members had stated that this being because it was "complicated", "intriguing" and "dark". It was discussed that it these elements made it the best fit for a psychological horror because it has the effect to draw you in and make you want to find out more. They had said that something like "insomnia" was preferred to "sleepless" because it had darker connotations. A further discussion with the focus group members was that the title "consciousness" was too long. This therefore informed me that an effective film title for a horror film would be shorter, and for by sub-genre be a title that is interesting and not stating the obvious.
To make my focus group as effective to my research as possible, I created a powerpoint to aid the questions. I included images and bold questions to make it engaging and give the members an idea of what the questions meant so that they would be easily understood and answered.
During my focus group I used these slides when asking the questions. I think this helped as the members could refer back to the question in their discussion and had something to look at for engagement rather than just talking.
Bellow is the transcript of the focus group that took place on 21/11/16. The focus group allowed me to get a greater aspect of what the target audience wanted to see in my final production. I have asked them questions that relate to my final production including; film posters, narrative, characters (using Propps narrative theory), ideas for film titles and setting. This is important to my research as I can get an idea of whether my target audience like or dislike the ideas of my psychological horror. This allows me to discover the psychographic of my target audience.
Bellow is the transcript of the focus group that took place on 21/11/16. The focus group allowed me to get a greater aspect of what the target audience wanted to see in my final production. I have asked them questions that relate to my final production including; film posters, narrative, characters (using Propps narrative theory), ideas for film titles and setting. This is important to my research as I can get an idea of whether my target audience like or dislike the ideas of my psychological horror. This allows me to discover the psychographic of my target audience.
How this will help my production:
My focus group members had a mode answer of Session 9 being the most effective poster. The main reason for this being the imagery. They said that the imagery gives you a greater sense of the narrative without giving too much away. It was also stated and agreed that The Blair Witch Project poster having a main dominant feature was effective. The close up of eyes showing the characters fear was said to be effective. This coincides with my questionnaire research, as the eyes were found to be the feature that represents fear the most.
This has informed me to think about what imagery I will include on my print poster. As most people said that having many different images on one poster is effective, I will incorporate that idea into my poster for my final production. I will also think about what characters I have on the poster and what dominant feature I will use to represent their emotions.
How this will help my production:In this discussion, there was a variety of character types that the members stated they would like in a psychological horror. However, they agreed that the hero and villain are the most important characters to them. They said that they create most of the story line and are the characters you either "root for" or "fear". For a psychological horror, my focus group members stated that they like the idea of unpredictable characters as it keeps them on the edge. This is important for a psychological horror as it creates tension and a sense of mystery.
I will use the information from this to create characters in my script production, as it is what the target audience have said that they would like to see. This has allowed me to apprehend which characters my target audience want to see in a psychological horror and how to make my posters and script most effective through the use of characters.
How this will help my production:
It was agreed in my focus group that the narrative idea could be cliche, and that this would put off the audience. I will keep this in mind when creating my final production as the members said that that is something that they dislike about horror films. However, it was also stated that the narrative suggested is good for a psychological horror as it has the element of what is real and what is not- which members said they liked. This was a fairly closed question, narrowing it to only one narrative idea. Reflecting on this question, I could have chosen a more open question about narrative to gain different ideas for a narrative that my target audience would appreciate.
This has made me think about the narrative structure and features I will include in my final production to make it successful.
How this will help my production:
For this question I asked how they felt about ideas for the film title. This is important as their opinion is more valid than mine as to what would work best, and make them want to watch the film the most. Therefore by asking them, as my target audience, what would work best helps me to know the right one for my chosen sub-genre.
The most popular name I had suggested was Insomnia. The focus group members had stated that this being because it was "complicated", "intriguing" and "dark". It was discussed that it these elements made it the best fit for a psychological horror because it has the effect to draw you in and make you want to find out more. They had said that something like "insomnia" was preferred to "sleepless" because it had darker connotations. A further discussion with the focus group members was that the title "consciousness" was too long. This therefore informed me that an effective film title for a horror film would be shorter, and for by sub-genre be a title that is interesting and not stating the obvious.
How this will help my production:
The average answer to the question about setting was that a suburban or normal house would be most effective in a psychological horror film. It was discussed that this is because it creates a greater sense of realism. This would be effective for a psychological horror as it relates to the narrative idea that my focus group like; what is real and what is not. It was stated that the idea of the American Dream came to mind when discussing the suburban house setting, this being a common theme of horror films. Another thing said about the setting of a suburban house is that it adds to the fear as your home is where you are supposed to be safest.
I will use this feedback from my focus group in my final production and set it in a home setting. This is because my target group would relate to it most.
Overall this focus group has allowed me to have further understanding of my target audience and what they would find best in terms of narrative, setting and posters for my chosen sub-genre. This, now completing my primary research on my audience, gives me the knowledge to make well informed final products.
The average answer to the question about setting was that a suburban or normal house would be most effective in a psychological horror film. It was discussed that this is because it creates a greater sense of realism. This would be effective for a psychological horror as it relates to the narrative idea that my focus group like; what is real and what is not. It was stated that the idea of the American Dream came to mind when discussing the suburban house setting, this being a common theme of horror films. Another thing said about the setting of a suburban house is that it adds to the fear as your home is where you are supposed to be safest.
I will use this feedback from my focus group in my final production and set it in a home setting. This is because my target group would relate to it most.
Overall this focus group has allowed me to have further understanding of my target audience and what they would find best in terms of narrative, setting and posters for my chosen sub-genre. This, now completing my primary research on my audience, gives me the knowledge to make well informed final products.
Primary Research: Questionnaires
For part of my
primary research, I created the questionnaire to discover the some of the
demographics and psychographics of psychological horror film audiences. I
designed questions to find out what the audience would find effective in
posters and the narrative.
Looking at my questionnaire, I
decided to improve it by adding more questions about the narrative of
psychological horror films and giving more detail in the question so they
are easy to answer. I also added more images and made the questions bold to
stand out. This makes the questionnaire eye-catching and appealing so
the audience answering the questions are more likely to engage with it.
This would help me in
my research as the answers will be reliable and give good detail.
Questionnaire results
Analysis
For my first question, I asked
what age group the person would fit into. This is an important question as it
discovers my main age for the target audience, discovering more about the
demographics of my audience. Asking what age group someone falls into is better
than asking their age because people would feel more comfortable
and likely to give more reliable answers to my questionnaire. From this
question I found that the mode age was 16-18 years old, making up 72%. This
therefore shows me that the main age demographic for my film is around this age
group. I will consider this when writing the script for my psychological horror
and what characters to include in the narrative to make it effective for the
main audience age demographic.
Analysis
I felt that this question was important
in knowing more about the key demographics of my audience. This again allows me
tounderstand what characters to include in my narrative that would relate to
my audience. I found that my results were almost equal between male and female
(however female being 4% more). This being within a close percentile tells me
that there is a both male and female audience of psychological horror films. I
will consider the similarity in the demographic of gender when creating my
final products so that it appeals to both genders. This therefore keeps a wide
target audience for my film.
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