Magazine Questionnaire and Results

I created a questionnaire, which attempted to identify certain features which would make our magazine most appealing to our target audience. We gave the questionnaire to 12 members of our target audience, which gave us an insight into what the reader wants to see. We plan to use these features so that our magazine is successful and representative of the genre and what they want to see.

  

Results  

We chose 4 colour schemes similar to those used by pre existing magazine covers and found that the majority of our participants favoured the black, red and amber colour scheme. Based on these results we have decided to use the black, red and amber colour scheme, as we understand that by doing this we can satisfy the needs and wants of our audience more. With the magazine cover being the first thing a reader sees when choosing which magazine to buy, the colour scheme is a very important as the colours have to draw attention to the readers in order for them to consider buying it. In addition, we chose colour schemes which conformed to the colours associated with the psychological horror genre; which meant regardless of which colour scheme the participants chose, it would look similar to successful horror magazine and allow us to entice the attention of pre existing horror magazine audiences.  

We plan to use a black background, with red text for featured films and amber for the cover story text. 

We gave our participants a wide range of fonts to choose from; with the favourite being named our 'house font'. Our pilot audience favoured 'Kaiti' font, which is the font we plan to use for some of our text. We plan to use this font for the majority of our cover story text, which will give brief information and communicate summaries of the story to our audience. 

The majority of our participants favoured the half face - medium close up of the girl looking up. We want to use this for our magazine cover as we feel this is effective within the genre and is appropriate with the narrative of our trailer. Out of the 12 participants, half of them chose this feature, representing it was a most wanted by members of our target audience. By satisfying their wants we can ensure our magazine cover appeals to our genre's audience, as we are using features that they want and think will work best. 

We plan to use a full face medium close up of our antagonist, wearing her iconic night dress featured in the trailer. She will be looking straight into the camera, with her chin resting on her neck, to make her eyes seem as though she is looking up, towards the protagonist. 

7 of our 12 participants believe the magazine should be called Uncut. Although we originally liked the name Spooks, we plan to use Uncut figuring that if that is what appeals to the target audience, that is what we should use in order to gain a market for our magazine. 

We plan to use the name Uncut, in capital letters, using a 'dafont' font, to make the production as professional as possible with the resources we have access to. The font will be white on a black background. 

Poster Planning

We created a questionnaire, which attempted to identify certain features which would make our poster most appealing to our target audience. We gave the questionnaire to members of our target audience, which gave us an insight into what the reader wants to see. We plan to use these features so that our magazine is successful and representative of the genre and what they want to see.

Questionnaire: Horror Trailer Poster
1. Which shot do you think would look most effective on a horror film trailer poster?

LONG SHOT           ESTABLISHING SHOT                 CLOSE-UP SHOT                           HEAD & SHOULDER SHOT
(full length shot    (Shot that sets the scene         (Close up of the                           (Still a close up shot but
of a person from   can see person in shot              characters head,                        focus includes characters head
head to toe)           but also lots of scenery            and on facial expressions/        and shoulders)
                                 setting)                                       emotions)

 2. Do you think the name of the film should be:

At the top of the page

In the middle of the page

At the bottom of the page

3: Do you think you should be able to see the characters face on the poster?

YES

NO

4: What colours do you think would look effective on a horror film poster?

Black, white, grey

Black, red, white

Black, red, grey


5. Do you think the release date of the film is an important feature that should be included on the poster?

YES

NO

6. Do you think a tag line such as ‘you’re next’ is an effective extra on a horror poster?

7. Do you think using special effects on an Apple IMac to manipulate the image would look effective? (e.g. putting a sepia effect on the image?)

We handed this questionnaire out to 10 people who fell into our target audience- 16-18 year olds, as well as giving it out to both boys and girls. Although research into existing media products helped us to form ideas on what we wanted our poster to look like, we wanted to do this extra bit of research to find our more specifically what our audience likes to see in posters from the horror genre.

Shot type used:

Positioning of film name:

7 people out of 10 put that the name of the film should be at the bottom of the page whilst the other 3 said that it should be at the top of the page. No one thought that it should be placed in the middle of the page.

Do you think you should be able to see the characters face on the poster?:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What colours do you think would look effective on a horror film poster?

Do you think the release date of the film is an important feature that should be included on the poster?

YES- 6/10
NO-  4/10


Do you think a tag line such as ‘you’re next’ is an effective extra on a horror poster?

YES- 3/10
NO-  7/10

Do you think using special effects on an Apple IMac to manipulate the image would look effective? (e.g. putting a sepia effect on the image?)

YES- 9/10
NO- 1/10


We collated all of the information from the results and put them into practise in conjunction with our own preferences as well.


DRAWINGS
Below are the initial drawings for the layout of our magazine. We have taken into consideration the results from our questionnaire for example when it came to the placement of the title, whether there should be a tag line and what shot type should be used. The Insidious poster was also one that we particularly liked the style of and has therefore influenced us in the process of making our poster.

We preferred the last drawing the most because we found the use of the long shot more effective as you were able to see all of what the girl was wearing as well as being able to see the eerie setting behind her.



IMAGES

We took a series of shots of the main protagonist character so that we had a variety to chose from when it came to picking one for our final poster. We took images using a range of shots, however as the audience as well as our own preferences state that the preference would be the use of a long shot, we tried to take a variety of photos using this shot type.
We then used our creative skills on Microsoft Office Word to manipulate the contrast on our image to give it more of a dusky and eerie effect.

This was our chosen image for our film poster:

COLOURS
Research into existing media products helped us to quickly discover what the main colour schemes were amongst existing horror film posters. The results from our questionnaires were fairly equal, however I avoided using the colour red despite the audience stating that they liked this colour as well as it being widely used in the horror genre. This is because when we see the colour red we often associate it with blood which we would then link to the horror sub-genre of slasher. Therefore as our chosen sub-genre is psychological, we mainly focused on using the colours grey, black and white.


FONTS
We wanted the fonts to look really effective because when looking at the poster, we wanted it to look as realist as possible. We visited websiteson google which had a wide variety of 'horror fonts' that we could download. This included fonts which had a scratched effect on it and ones with blood dripping off it. However, after trying this out we felt as though it was too much to use one of these fonts. Our poster needed to be very simplistic and pleasing on the eye, therefore we though it would be more naturalisic and effective to use a standard font from Microsoft Office Word. Although the title is an important feature on a film poster, we wanted the audiecne to focus on the image more and the release date.

Production Log

Below is our production log which clearly outlines when we will film certain shots form our storyboard, who we need for the filming, where we will film and what equipment and props we will need. This gives us a structure to follow to ensure that we stick to our schedule of filming whilst giving us time to make changes that may occur during the process of filming.

As we move along in the filming process this production log may change, as may our storyboarding meaning that this document will be constantly updated.

Date	Shot Number	Who	Where	Equipment	Props Needed
November 2014 23rd, 24th	1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, 12, 1a,2a,2b, 6a	Fran, Beth, Lydia	Astbury Mere, Giants wood lane, Cross-lands	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, lights	Car, costume, makeup for creepy girl and doll
December 2014 16th, 29th	21,22,23,24,25,26 plus new shots	Fran, Beth, Lydia	Becki’s House, Astbury Mere	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, lights, storyboarding sheets	Boxes with children’s toys in, photo frame
January First week 2nd, 4th, 5th	27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37 plus new shots	Fran, Beth, Lydia	Becki’s House	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, lights, storyboarding sheets	Boxes, Sofa, Cupboard,Beth's nightie and Make Up
January Second week 11th, 14th,15th	38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60 plus new shots	Fran, Beth	Becki’s House	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, lights, storyboarding sheets	TV, Mirror, Beth's nightie and Make up
January Third week 21st, 22nd	61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80 plus new shots	Fran, Beth	Becki’s House	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, lights, storyboarding sheets	Doll, Boxes, Beth's nightie and Make up
January Fourth week 27th	81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92 plus new shots	Fran, Beth	Brereton Heath Country Park	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, storyboarding sheets	Cushion for Fran to fall on, Bushes, One large tree, Beth's nightie and make up
February First week 4th, 5th, 7th	93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100 plus new shots	Fran, Beth	Brereton Heath Country Park	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, storyboarding sheets	One large tree - same as previous shots, Beth's nightie and make up
February Second week 11th	101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108 plus new shots	Fran, Beth	Brereton Heath Country Park	Camera, phone, tripod, phone, lights, storyboarding sheets	One large tree - same as previous shots, Beth's nightie and make up
February Third week 15th, 17th, 20th	Extra Shots  - needed to be added to storyboarding	Fran, Beth, Lydia	Brereton, Becki's house, down the road for Beth's jump shots	Camera, Lights, Tripod, storyboarding sheets and camera	Beth's nightie and make up