Q3: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

When creating our media package, we aimed to create a product that adhered to the apocalyptic horror sub-genre, with a modern approach that would work as a unique selling point. This would have to be clear in all three of our products. To discover to what extent this was true and how successful we were in appealing to our target demographic we created a survey on surveymonkey.com. This allowed us to catalogue a wide response and collect data from beyond just our target audience, making sure it was not age/gender biased. We also used social media to get more developed answers from our viewers making our feedback more accurate. 50 people participated giving us a wide range of data and responses to ‘The Aftermath’.

We were successful in our creation of a trailer that adhered to the horror genre as evidenced by our feedback, 62% of people said that our trailer was reflective of this genre. This is further backed up by all of our audience agreeing our product was somewhat or very relevant to the horror apocalypse sub-genre. This data has shown us that not only have we successfully conformed to our chosen genre, but our more niche genre is also highly evident in our trailer as

59.18% said it was very relevant in our trailer for ‘The Aftermath’. When further questioned people said that the prevalence of our genre came primarily from the music and building of fear

in the trailer as evidenced by the characters. Many agreed that the inclusion of typical conventions of the horror genre such as blood, shadows and lighting, and ambiguity of the pursuers made the genre clear and evident from the beginning. The same can be said for the evidence of the apocalypse sub-genre. Many noted that the use of news clips and editing at the beginning was effective in outlining the plot and indicating genre.

While all viewers were aware of the apocalypse sub-genre to some extent, 32% saw ‘The Aftermath’ as a thriller, which indicates to us that less typical conventions of horror were used in our production. However this can also be chalked up to the reputation of the apocalypse sub-genre which can be seen as both as a thriller (i.e Book of Eli, The Maze Runner) or a horror (i.e 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead) due to the two very different markets for adults and teens leading to a predominance of thriller films also within this genre. In our own production we may have also adhered to the thriller genre due to the use of editing to build tension, and lack of typical horror ‘gore’ which we chose not to include as it didn’t fit into our parameters for a trailer, which doesn’t often give away aspects such as body horror.

The fact 32% of people saw our film as a thriller, and 6% interpreted it as a drama can also be seen in a positive light, as it shows that narrative is layers and has features from different genres, not just horror. Therefore our trailer

appeals to a wider audience, as evidenced by the 84% who said that based on the trailer they would want to see the film. This is important as not all the people we surveyed would statistically be fans of the horror genre, and therefore the use of the hybrid genre in our product makes for a more interesting and diverse film which doesn’t totally adhere to what the genre expect, such as the focus on human relationships in ‘The Aftermath’, and appeals to a wider demographic.

Our product was successful in appeal to it’s target demographic, young people are conventionally fans of the horror genre and thrills it provides. This was reflective in our survey by the overwhelming 92% that said that the 15-25 age group was the audience the trailer would appeal to the most. This question was one that could have multiple answers, ie. people may believe ‘The Aftermath’ was best suited foteenagers as well as young adults. This also effectively shows the size of our potential audience, and therefore the film’s potential success as it reaches more people without deviating from the genre, as shown in the previous questions .

Our trailer was successful not only in adhering to the typical horror demographic but varied in than 22% said that it appealed to an older audience, and 12% said it appealed to a younger audience. From this it’s clear that our trailer offered something new to the horror genre, as it was constructed with a focus on the characters and their interactions such as Sam and Adrian's relationship. This is not typical to most films within the horror genre which often discard their characters and have them picked off one by one, as this is what works within the narrative of the film. Comparatively , our narrative adhered to some aspect of the drama genre in that the growing emotions of the characters were shown. When asked to develop on how they thought this was shown our viewers claimed this was most acutely felt through the use of narrative and voice. Our data shows that 13 people chose more than a single age group for this question, indicating that the use of variety within genre and the modern aspects that appeal to the most young movie-goers led to a wider potential demographic, as something new is being introduced to an already popular genre.

96% of viewers said our choice of locations and setting was effective. We predominantly used rural settings and open spaces to encapsulate the vulnerability and isolation of the characters. Moving from the busy streets of London and urban settings such as the train station, to the open spaces on Farthing Downs complemented our climactic build up and conveyed a sense of movement in the narrative, as well as using typical tropes from the horror apocalypse sub-genre. The rural areas in films such as 28 Weeks Later create the solitude necessary to communicate the desperation of the characters through setting in juxtaposition to the movement and rapid editing the trailer began with..

Clarity of narrative was a crucial aspect we kept in mind while constructing our trailer, due to the amount of footage recorded we wanted to convey the initial outline of the plot without meaning being lost or the apocalypse sub-genre not being conveyed as we had to create a separate narrative communicating how the film’s world was different to our own. 87.76% said that through the trailer narrative was made clear. We used the three act structure as a base for our trailer, this allowed us to adhere to the typical trailer and convey the basis of our plot without giving away the whole story. Viewers noted that the trailer’s exposition and use of news clips effectively conveyed the narrative and apocalypse sub-genre by building up the fictious world our film is set in.In the end we edited a lot of footage from our first act making it concise and therefore clearer to the majority of our audience, as only 12.24% felt we were unsuccessful in providing clarity of the film’s plot.

96% of people agreed that our music was effective and complemented our trailer’s growing tension and climactic build up. We used four separate tracks to construct the trailer’s escalation to montage, this worked with the narrative’s multiple crescendos that are common in the horror genre, leading up to the fast track final act wherein the soundtrack comes to a climax. We used cinematic trailer sounds to accompany the trailer’s music and shots,

such as the drumming in time with the film’s institutional information. This helped draw the visual and auditory aspects of of our trailer together into one cohesive project. We succeeded in this

endeavour as evidenced by the large percentage of people who agreed that our music was effectively used in the creation of our product.

We decided that one of product’s unique selling points was the use of modern conventions in the horror genre. 59.18% people agreed this was evident in our trailer. We used a wide spaced white font over footage to create a contemporary looking style as well as an often bright vibrant shot choice and binary colours, such as the bright sky in juxtaposition to the darker foreground. This complemented our apocalypse sub-genre as the narrative presumably takes place in the future therefore the use of modern conventions helps construct this genre and construct a varied take on an already popular genre. 34.69% of viewers believed that there was evidence of conventions from both classic and modern horror films as we used typical conventions of horror in our product also so the viewer could recognize the genre and identify with the characters. For example the typical dim lighting, enclosed setting of the garage and close up of the rattling door knob are all to an extent stereotypes of the horror genre. However only 6.12% of our audience

thought that our film utilized conventions only from classic horror and it’s stereotypes. The balance between the repetition and variation of genre allowed us to create something new in our product, as a clean contemporary style helped construct genre and a USP for our film.

Our inspiration for our title came from our apocalypse themed mood board and the aftermath of an ‘end of the world’ scenario. This would help establish genre from the title alone and create a sense of hopelessness as the film is set after an apocalyptic event. 94% of people agreed that this title was relevant to our trailer and conformed to what they expected from genre and narrative. This may have contributed to 62% of viewers who agreed our film belonged to the horror genre and the 100% that said our film was very or somewhat relevant to the apocalypse sub-genre.

96% of people said that the trailer, poster and magazine cover complement one another. From this it’s evident we were successful in creating a cohesive branding image for our film which conveys the apocalypse sub-genre. Across the main and ancillary tasks we used monochrome colours and minimalist typography to conform to our contemporary style of horror, subverting the often overt use of conventions and horror iconography. Similarly the poster and trailer utilize the naturalistic setting and typical conventions of genre, such as the colour red and darkened shadows to evoke feelings of foreboding and terror, making the genre immediately recognizable to the audience.