Planning: Target Audience Feedback

We decided to do some research in order to get an idea as to whether or not our film would appeal to a teenage audience and gathered 50 responses. We did this by creating a survey, consisting of open and closed questions on SurveyMoneky.com, which we then forwarded to every student in years 9 to 13. As a result of this, we gathered a lot of responses, the majority of which were very useful.  

The overall data that we have collected has helped us to really think about what would be a good idea to include in our opening scene because it gave us an insight  into what other teenagers are interested in.

We first asked people what age group they were to gain a better understanding of who our main target audience is. We also wanted compare the results from the follow up questions to see if they varied and if those variations highlighted a pattern linked to their age group.  This would have assisted our decision making on the content for the opening scene of our film.

From the table above, you can see that just over 90% of precipitates were aged between 15-18.

We then thought that it'd be a good idea to find out if they actually enjoyed watching horror films and how often they watched them to see if it's the genre itself that's popular, or if it depends more on whether or not the overall storyline generates interest.

Our results show that the majority of people only watch horror movies if the plot intrigues them. Because of this question, we wanted to know what they like about horror movies and what makes them interesting to see whether or not our film would entice a teenage audience to watch it.  A lot of people said that they don't enjoy watching horror movies at all, which would obviously affect how often they view them. Looking back on the questionnaire, it would have been a good idea to find out what those people don't like about horror movies. This could have given us the opportunity to rethink or slightly adapt our plot to appeal to more people.

For those who do enjoy watching horror films, we asked what it is that they like about them. The question could have possibly been improved when it comes to the wording of it; however we were still able to gather the information that we needed.

We originally decided that the plot for our film would be gory, but considering the fact that the data evidently shows that gore is the least popular subgenre, we thought about including suspense and tension within our opening.  As an option, we added 'other' and asked people to specify what it was. It appears that the responses for this particular question were from those who do not like watching horror films and a few people stating "all of the above".

Since the purpose of the survey was to see how much potential our idea for the opening had, we typed out the plot for the entire film and asked what people's initial thoughts and opinions were and if they would watch it.

Plot: In a small town 40 years ago on the 29th February 1976, a mass murder was committed by a psychotic killer, who skilfully dismembered bodies using a range of different weapons. However, he later committed suicide as he felt that his job had been done. On the 29th February 2016, a group of troubled teens take it upon themselves to recreate the events leading up to and on the day of the original massacre. After years of planning how to creatively kill their victims, they finally decide to go after the remaining relatives of those who escaped the 1976 massacre for what they deemed as "a good laugh". Would anyone survive this time?  

What was your initial response to this synopsis? Would you watch this in your own free time?

Bellow, I have included screenshots of the feedback we received: 

We gained a lot of mixed reviews regarding our idea for the plot, most of which were positive. However, we did come across some constructive criticism, which since then has helped us to improve our ideas. For example, we realised that we had got the dates slightly wrong and therefore, in order for the story line to make since, we had to recalculate them. We also came to realise from these responses that different people have different opinions, meaning that it would be difficult to create something that would impress everyone. Despite this, many of the respondents did in fact say that they would watch it if it was made into an actual film.

The follow up question for this was "Do you think that 'The Leap year' is an appropriate title?” Our reasoning behind this title was that the group of teens wanted to recreate the crime on the exact date as the original murders, which happened to be a leap year. This in turn makes the date have substantial significance to the plot. 

After reading the opinions of those who answered, it appears that the title doesn't give a clear indication as to what the film is about, without an explanation. People have also said that when you think of the words 'leap year', it doesn't make them automatically think of a horror film. Because of this, we thought that it would be best if we were to change the title to 'Day of The Maniac'.

The last thing we wanted to know was what ideas people had for the opening scene, and what they would expect to see within those opening few minutes.

A flash back to the original murders was something that came up in the comment section quite frequently, which is why we have decided to use that idea for our film opening.

Overall, the feedback from our target audience has immensely helped us as it has highlighted the strengths and also the areas in which we could improve on to make our idea appealing to its audience.