Audience Qualitative Research - Focus Group 1

Myself and a friend together thought we would bring together a focus group and show them posters and get their reactions towards a horror trailer as part of our qualitative research. By this, we would receive their feedback and see what there real opinions and thoughts are towards horror which which benefit me when it comes to making my horror trailer. Also the people we bought together are all teenagers as that is the target audience I am thinking to target my trailer towards and by receiving feedback from teenagers around the age 17, it would be more realistic about what 17 year old's generally think about horror. Here is the first focus group which we recorded of a Mac webcam:

Analysing horror posters
What we asked the group is firstly to compare the horror movie posters from Carrie(2013) and Mama(2013) so they are recent movies that have come out this year. We firstly asked them is what stands out the most in the Carrie poster and summing up what they have said, they think the blood dripping down her face and the blood coming out as tears stands out as it looks like the girl is in pain and it matches with the title on the poster. Also the necklace she is wearing as most horror have religious imagery in them which makes it more interesting. Then we asked them if it is a effective poster and if it looks like it is related to horror and they answered yes to both questions.

Then we went onto the other poster which was Mama(2013) and asked what looks effective about the poster. Summing up what the group has said, they think the child shown on the poster looks depressed and feel sorry for her and that she is in need of her mother. Also they think the lighting on the women and the child holding hands is effective as all the attention is going on that area of the poster and the rest of the poster is dark. They also think the persons hand the child is holding does not look human which makes it more interesting and curious for them to know who it is. Then we asked if they would want to watch that movie by looking at that poster and Nagiba has said that she would not because it does not give away much of the story whereas Carrie does and interests her more.

Overall, they liked the Carrie poster over the Mama poster as the Carrie poster seemed to interest them more and they found it more effective. Also I have found out that my target audience find the Carrie poster more effective due to the close up of the girl and the direct eye contact with the audience as if the girl is looking towards them which can be scary. When creating my poster, I would include these key elements into my poster to make it appealing towards teenagers so that they would want to watch the movie by only looking at the poster.

Reactions towards horror trailer

Then we asked them to watch The Conjuring(2013) movie trailer so we can get film their reactions whilst they are watching it. After they watched it, we asked them firstly what part scared them the most and they replied the face that appears right in the end of the trailer due to the light, soft music and then it suddenly goes loud which made them jump. Also they said that as it mentioned it was based on a true story, that made them more scared as it made it feel more realistic which I should consider whilst making my horror trailer.

From this, I can see that my target audience are more frightened by when sound effects and back ground music starts of slow and calm and then suddenly turns loud with a jumpy scene in it. I would include these elements on to my trailer as I know this is what gets my target audience of their seat! and really excites but scares them at the same time.