LULU- Audience Research

Media Studies

Audience Research

During my research I found out that people who watch horror movies are usually aged between 15 and 25 years old. 
Horror movies are most aimed at men are most likely to interact with the characters on screen as most of the time the protagonist is a man.
Also people would rather go watch a scary movie in groups than on their own.

According to statistics on the internet movie db these are the 8 most popular horror movies of all times (not in order):

1. The Exorcist 1973 William Friedkin

2. Shining 1980 Stanley Kubrick

3. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 Tobe Hooper

4. Psycho 1960 Alfred Hitchcock 

5. The Thing 1982 John Carpenter

6. Rosemary’s Baby 1968 Roman Polanski 

7. Halloween 1978 John Carpenter 

8. Suspiria Dario Argento 1976

LILY- Target Audience Questionnaire and Research

The film industry's prime focus is making money. Therefore a key factor in insuring they do this is knowing your target audience.
That way trailers and other ways of advertising are targeted towards that specific audience, to try get them to watch the film.

As a part of audience research I decided to conduct a survey on who would be our target audience.

Here are the questions asked:

1) What gender are you?
2) What is your age?
3) Do you like horror films?
4) What is your favourite horror film?
5) What is it about that one you like?
6) Would you pay to watch horror films regularly?
7) When you watch horror films who do you usually watch them with?
8)  Do you like gore in horror films?

You can fill out the survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZF9K9Q

This questionnaire is short and easy for people to fill out, but will equally tell me a lot of information about our target audience.

Based on research I have collected using the internet and the information gathered from the questionnaires I did, I have discovered that:

• Men: according to research I found on the internet, males tend to prefer action films, and are much more likely to watch a movie containing gory scenes.
• Where as females are less likely to enjoy this, on the whole, but would prefer to watch a romantic-comedy or a 'chick-flick.' However they do prefer horror movies without gore.
• Younger people, aged 14-30 are much more likely to enjoy a horror movie compared to people above this age, who would not enjoy the thrill as much.
• Similarly, young couples also appear to watch horror movies, as women prefer to watch with a male figure.

LILY- Institutions That Make Horror Films and Filming Update

It was important to have a good understanding into the institutions that commonly distribute or make horror films. Therefore I did research into the sort of companies that did so.


20th CENTURY FOX:

• 20 Century Fox is a major American production company
• Films produced by it are mainly family focused, or in the genre of comedy
• However it does have some successful horror movies under its name; Jennifer's body, however it is mainly the distributor of horror films as-suposed to the producers.

WARNER BROTHERS:

• Warner Bros is another major American film institution.
• Warnes Bros. produce films often in a wide range of genres, for example Sex and the City, the Dark Night and Slum Dog Millionaire.
• However In comparison to 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. to have more successful horror films under their belt, for example Friday the 13th, The Orphan, and House of Wax.

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TWISTED PICTURES:

• Despite not being one of the most known film institutions, Twisted Pictures has managed to gross half a billion dollars with horror films
• The most infamous one being the Saw series along with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 
• Twisted Pictures was formed after the success of Saw in 2004, which lead to a nine picture distribution deal with Lionsgate. It then continued to produce 6 sequels to the Saw series as well as other films.

LULU- Film Distribution

Film Distribution

5 stages

Standard release

Standard release is the model of distribution most used of the five.

 This type of distribution consists in:

1. Having the movie’s release first in cinemas 

2. After approx. 16 weeks and a half releasing it on DVD. 

3. After a few months make it available on Pay TV services. 

4. At last after approx. two years after the movie’s theatrical release make it available on free TV.

Simultaneous release

A simultaneous release is when a movie is made available on many different media (cinema, DVD, internet, TV etc.) at the same time or with very little period of time distance one from another.

 This release method has both positive and negative aspects:

POSITIVES

1. The audience can choose the type of media that most suits their needs

2. The production studios only have to run one marketing campaign.

NEGATIVES

1. The product might not get substantial investment or promotion.

Straight-to-video release

A straight to video release is when the distributors don’t consider the “theatrical window” and immediately release it on DVD.

Internet release

This method is still new to the film distribution platform.

Shrinking of the theatrical window

The theatrical window was originally conceived for a six months duration while today been reduced to little more than four months.

This happened in an attempt to make up for the substantial losses in the DVD market they've been suffering from.

Ex. When Disney announced that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland  would have been made available 14 weeks after the movie's release date (instead of the usual 17) in order to avoid competition from the 2010 World Cup. Theatre owners made threats not to show the movie on their screens,[18] but later reconsidered their position before the movie was released.