Questionnaire Analysis

From the results of my questionnaire, I have been able to create several pie charts.  I have only included the results of the questions specific to the horror genre; the other more general questions I used to make my audience profile.

 As seen above, 14 out of the 20 people asked (70%) said they would expect to get an establishment of the characters within the first two minutes of a horror film.  This will be fairly easy for me to do, as the main character will be the only person seen in the opening sequence.   The people who answered 'other' said they would expect to see two out of the three established within the first two minutes, however I think this would harder to do, as there is a very limited time.  I also think it would be better to focus on one aspect and do that really well, rather than try and do more but to a lesser quality.

90% of people who were asked this question answered with tension and suspense, something that I was expecting.  You don't want to give too much away in the first two minutes, but making the audience anticipate something is defiantly a great way to start.  Only 10% of people said they would expect to see blood and death or shock and surprise in a opening sequence, a statistic which I think reflects the general conventions of horror films. 

In this question, 75% said they would expect to see the main character in a horror film to be of middle class, again, a statistic that is shown in nearly all horror films.  The next highest scoring answer was upper class, with 15%.  It is easy to see how people can think the characters in horror films are upper class, as in Hollywood films especially, large houses are often used as the characters homes.  I will be trying to portray a middle class setting and character in my opening sequence, so it should hopefully please the audience and make them see what they expect to see. 

This question provided me with the answers I were looking for, as 42.5% said they would expect to see fast-paced music in a horror film, and 45% said they would expect to see orchestral music. The second part of the question asked them an open question of 'why?', to which some of the answers were the following;

'orchestral can be more emotive'

'fits with the theme'

'orchestral builds tension'

This question was crucial, as I had already gotten Holly to be my lead.  Luckily, the answers to this question were exactly what I was looking for and 75% said they would expect the main character to have blonde hair and blue eyes.  As was the same in the previous question, I asked the people I asked to explain their answers;
'blondes look vunerable'
'innocent looking victim'
'she looks like she might be a bit niave'



For this question, 85% said they would expect to titles to be shown during in between footage, which was shown in the three opening sequences for the horror genre.  This follows the conventions of the horror genre, as it is usually only in social realist films the titles appear whilst footage is being shown.

I am really happy with the results of the questionnaire, as they have provided me with answers that I expected.