Questionnaire (Planning)

Questionnaire

Horror

Age: _ 0-10  _ 11-15  _ 16-20  _ 21-30  _ 31+

Gender: _ Male  _Female

How often do you watch horror films?

What aspects of horror do you like?
Chase _
Suspense _
Darkness _
Jumpy bits _ 
Blood _
Clowns _
Other _________

What other genres do you like?
-
-
-

Why do you or do you not like horror?
-
-

How much fear do you like from horror
Hiding behind the sofa - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - No fear at all

Horror is the best genre
_ Strongly agree
_ Agree
_ Not sure
_ Disagree
_ Strongly disagree

What's the best setting for horror?
_ City
_ Woodlands
_ Abandoned house

Whats your favorite horror film + Why?
-

Results
0-10 = 9%  16-20 = 72%   30+ = 19%
Male = 28%  Female = 72%

45% of people said they never watch horror films which is interesting as that's almost half, but it's what I expected as personally I don't see the appeal of horror and so never watch them but I was stunned to see almost half of the people questioned felt the same. 

Interestingly it wasn't just the males who said they watched horror the most which subverts from the stereotypes that horror has a mainly male audience as a quarter of females also said they watch lots of horror films. An anomalous result was one male saying he never watched horror films (subverting from stereotypes) but another independent factor that influenced this was his age as he was only 8 and therefore the horror films were probably not age appropriate for him, unlike comedy or children's films.

The two most popular features people look for in horror films were chase and suspense, this is what i expected as they are the cliche parts of a film that make it a horror film. Blood was only said 19% of the time which surprised me as I thought more people would look for that in horror, also tension was only said 9% of the time when I thought it would be more, but it is similar to suspense, which was said 36% of the time, so maybe these two aspects were too similar - therefore for next time I would make the choices more distinguished. Chase was the most common aspect with 63% of people saying they looked for it in a horror film, this is something that we can use to our advantage and include in our film to appeal to a larger audience and make more people want to see our film.

When asked what other genres people liked, so we could include the aspects of other genres people like to create a more appealing film to a larger audience, Comedy was third most popular with 36% of people saying that was another genre they liked - this doesn't really help us as we feel it would be quite hard to incorporate a comedy aspect into our horror film, this is something we will have to consider at a later date but I feel it's something we won't end up incorporating in our film. Action was the most popular with 65% of people saying that was the other genre they liked, interestingly this was most popular with people who also liked horror suggesting they like the physical side of horror, the chase, the murders etc. This will help us when making our film as we now know to attract a larger audience we should include a physical side of things, as previously established people do like a chase scene so to optimise our films attraction to people. Romance was also a common favourite genre with 62% of people saying they also liked this genre, but this may not be relevant to us as people who said they liked romance didn't like horror so it wouldn't actually be combining the two things people love. On the other hand though we could maybe attract an audience of people who are not usually the sort who go see horror by incorporating a romance side - something they like.

Most people like either a 4/5 or 1/5 scare factor - the 1/5 was suggested by people who don't like horror and don't like being scared so probably wouldn't come see our film anyway so their results should be disregarded as we should focus on horror enthusiasts (people who will actually come to watch our film). Therefore we should maybe go for a high scare factor (4/5) to please the horror enthusiasts as although it would be good to attract a larger audience by appealing to people who don't like horror as much and want a 1/5 scare factor, in doing so we would isolate and exclude our pre-built horror enthusiast audience so I think we should entice them in other ways that don't exclude the main part of our audience. 

60% said woodlands was the best setting for horror with 40% which is interesting as we had anticipate to use woodlands as we thought it was most mysterious and, for production purposes, most accessible and easy to acheive a tense atmosphere in. As I thought 0% of people thought a City was the best setting for horror - this is probably because its far too open and too many people so it's hard to be isolated. Also, it's quite bright and open and if you film at night it may be more eerie but you'd have to find a suitable camera and you wouldn't be able to see the beauty of the city your'e in - therefore making it almost pointless to film there.

Overall this questionaire was helpful in identifying what people look for in horror and the aspects/location to include in our film.