Planning: Target Audience Feedback

Within this post we will be looking at and evaluating the feedback we have gathered from the survey that we produced. This will help us to see what most people expect in horror film openings. It is important for us to gather lots of different information about how our opening should be. This can help us to develop more ideas and can help us to make sure we capture the theme of it being a horror.

The picture above shows that everyone who had completed our survey thought that someone should die within the opening of a horror film. This could suggest to us that it would seem like a horror movie opening if someone was to die.

The age group that we have received our feedback off of is 15-18. This means that all of the information we have gathered will be from the same age group and will probably be very similar.

From the feedback we have been able to see that people within the same age group expect the characters in the film to be of a similar age or a couple years older. This will make the film more relatable to the audience.

From what we have received it seems that people find dark woods the most frightening setting for a horror film. In our horror film opening we had already decided to film in the woods anyway. This will make our film more scary and frightening.

Our survey has proved that people prefer it if the film is based on a real life. This means that people need it to be more believable. This means not having anything that is unbelievable and unrealistic.

 We have found out that people expect to find out a little bit about the storyline within the film ,but not a lot at all. This means that we will need to make sure we do not reveal a lot of detailed information as to why things are happening or why they happen at a certain location, and other things like that.

Our survey has shown that people expect to see the villain/killer in the opening. Personally I do not agree with this. I only think that people should know the villain is there but not actually see them until later on within the film when more of the storyline has built up.

Jump scares and Gruesome/bloody scenes within horror film openings are the most popular. This is probably because they excite and make the audience stand on edge a lot more. Also, it may be because they are the most realistic things that could actually happen in real life.

Judging form the results of our survey, we have discovered that the majority of our target audience like films in which people around the age of 16-21 are featured and are out and about in the woods during the night.The surveys have shown that people prefer horror films which are based on real life events that give you a slight insight into the story of the whole film but not too much at all. Our survey shows that a lot of people prefer to see the villain in the opening but we think it is better and adds more suspense if the villain is not shown. We have found out that the most popular type of horror movies include a lot of jump scares and gruesome, bloody murders. Looking at some of the response feedbacks we have received it seems like people like it when characters go missing and are killed.

Planning: Self Assessment

Looking through my blog at the Planning and Researching posts, I feel like I have shown a lot of detail within each individual post. Each post explains what I have researched and planned thoroughly with a variety of different media terms. I have looked into other opening to horror films like Dead Wood, Dead Mary and Wrong Turn to gather and collect more information and knowledge on openings to horror films. Looking at these openings has also widened my knowledge on codes and conventions. This will help me to implement lots of codes and conventions into our own opening.


I have shown clearly that I know and understand how to do things like shot-lists, layouts, drafting and storyboarding. I feel like I need more experience in scripting however as we only wrote a small amount of dialogue for our actors to speak. When it comes to organisation to do with actors, locations, costumes and props, I feel I need more practice as the only bit of filming we did in our preliminary task did not involve any costumes, props or much effort when it came to location and actors.


My time management is very good in my opinion as I always meet my deadlines and follow any type of schedule we have. for example, our filming schedule was followed very well as we gave ourselves 2 hours to get the filming done and got it done with ease and time to spare.


When it comes to skill using digital technology and ICT in presentations, I feel I am good with different technology like computers and cameras. I have shown this when it came to editing my preliminary task and filming the actual task itself.


Communication skills are good as I was able to help pitch our groups idea for our horror film opening. Also communication within our group is good as we all get involved when it comes to putting ideas forward and helping out.


My care and presentation within my blog is good as it is all tidy and organised. For example, all pictures are of a good size; not being too big or small. Also, titles are all clearly shown throughout the blog to help with my organisation. Each post looks good as well as it is neat and has no spelling errors and grammar issues.


At the moment I would give myself around 15/16 marks as I still have things that I can improve on but I have quite a good understanding and knowledge of how things work in media.