1. Audience Research for my horror genre

2. Paranormal Activity This is the audience profile found for the film “Paranormal Activity” that I used in my genre research. I found this audience profile on the website “Pearl and Dean”. This website shows up coming films, past films, their ratings etc and compares them to show these results.

3. Paranormal Activity From looking at this audience profile I can see that the main age group that viewed this film was 15-24 (the film itself was rated 15). I can also see that the percentage of men and women who came to see the film also shows that the film was more popular with a male audience (only slightly more popular however). This shows me that the Horror genre (or this film in particular) was popular with adolescent teens through to young adults. I think this is because Horror films give a thrill factor to the audience, this will appeal to a younger audience more so than 30-40 year olds. The narrative of the film itself may also appeal to this age group as the two characters in the film “Paranormal Activity” are in fact a young couple of the older end of this age group. This may give a relatable side to the film and therefore make this age group more attracted to the film. This may also appeal to the younger end of this age group as they will be able to relate to the characters’ life styles in their future life. The marketing techniques for the film itself were also very effective, this added quite a lot of popularity to the film before it was even released. This particular age group would be attracted to this as they are always looking for the “new thing” and appealing towards popularity. Therefore, they would want to watch the film

4. Paranormal Activity to see for themselves if they found the film to be as scary as it was said to have been and see if it deserved it’s popularity. The fact that most of these audience members are male may also show a masculine view of this genre. Maybe men find the horror/fear side of this genre more appealing then women do. This may be because they are meant to be masculine, they want to appear not to be scared by the images shown. I will need to consider this target audience when creating my trailer. By considering this I will make sure my trailer will appeal to them. I can do this by adding references throughout my trailer to topics or phrases I know myself are popular within this audience group, as I am especially knowledgeable in this area for the lower end of this age group. I could also represent issues which effect this age group. There is also a larger male percentage that viewed this film. I will take this into consideration with my narrative planning and teaser trailer. To give the trailer/narrative a more masculine feel I may add a strong, masculine role model style character who either confronts the horror protects others from it. This will appeal to the masculine audience

5. The Last Exorcism This is the audience profile found for the film “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”. When I searched for the film “The Last Exorcism” on the “Pearl and Dean” website, this is what came up as a “Comparable Profile” this means that the website doesn’t have the actual audience profile for my film choice, however, they feel that the audience profile would be very similar, if not the same as the audience profile for “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”.

6. The Last Exorcism From looking at the comparable audience profile that was matched for this film on the “Pearl and Dean” website, I can see that the age group most attracted to this film was 15-24, closely followed by the 25-34 age group. I can also see that it was very close between genders, almost being a 50/50 ratio. However, this film was slightly favored by the female audience. This shows me that this film was especially popular with an adolescent teen to younger adult audience. This film was also popular with younger adults up to the age of 34. This shows that this film was appealing to mainly young adults. I think this is because (as I said for the film “Paranormal Activity”) the younger generation prefer the thrill felt when watching a horror film, more so than a middle aged audience. From looking at this audience profile I can also see that this film was more popular with women then men. This is surprising to me because I personally thought that the horror genre would appeal more to a male audience as the fear factor of the film seems to have more of a masculine theme, instead of attracting women who are stereotypically meant to be more scared by these films and find them unappealing.

7. The Last Exorcism However, the film “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” as made obvious in the title, is based around the exorcism of a young girl. The fact that this film has a female dominance may have been the factor that attracted the female audience to it as it would be easier for them to relate to the character and therefore feel more involved in the film itself. This feel of involvement and relate ability would also have added to the horror factor for them as this horror will have seemed a lot more “close to home” then some others. Considering these results, I feel that I will also have to add a strong female character/characters to my narrative or trailer to create this relatable feel and attract a female audience. However, this will clash with my earlier theory of creating a strong male role to attract them as an audience. I personally think that, as well as the masculine role in a horror film itself attracting the male audience, it is basically the horror theme that attracts them. This is also shown in this audience profile as it is only a very slim percentage that the female audience was higher. Therefore I will not dwell too much on having a masculine character in my horror trailer over adding a female relate ability, as I feel this is more important.

8. Halloween To develop on my audience research I then looked for the audience profile for the film “Halloween”. Although this film is not filmed with the same home made style camera techniques, the narrative of the film itself is quite realistic as it is about a boy who looses his mind and kills people, it is not about a monster etc. This gives it a realistic feel as it makes the audience think this could happen in real life if a man lost his mind.

9. Halloween From looking at the comparable audience profile that was matched for this film on the “Pearl and Dean” website, I can see that the age groups 15-24, 25-34 and 35-44 are all quite close in percentages. However, 15-24 is the one with the slightly higher percentage. It is also the female gender that has a higher percentage of popularity for this film. This shows me that this film was especially popular with an adolescent teen to younger adult audience. However, this film was also popular between quite a wide age range. I think this may be because of the realistic feel to the film that it attracts all ages. This is because, if this situation was to happen, it would effect all kinds of people, of all ages. This film is also surprisingly more popular to a female audience then to a male audience. This challenges the stereotypical ideology that men are more attracted to scary films as they are masculine and therefore less likely to be scared by these films. Either that or they are attracted to the feel of fear and adrenaline given to them by watching these horror films. I have also started to notice that it seems to be more recent horror films that are more attractive to men than women where as horror films that are slightly older (such as the

10. Halloween film “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”) and more recent films (such as “Paranormal Activity”) that appeal more to men. Maybe this is because the stereotype that men are more attracted to horror films than women is quite a new prospect, therefore it is only the most recent films that have seen an effect to this stereotype. Taking this into consideration, I will aim my trailer/ narrative to appeal more to the female audience as I think they will be harder to attract to the simple horror genre side of my trailer because of this ideology of this stereotype as I think that a male audience will be attracted to the horror genre itself, redardless of the narrative. I feel I can do this by giving the narrative a feminine feel, either having mainly female characters or representing a family etc.