evaluation: what have you learnt from your audience feedback?
TRANSCRIPT
How the audience reacts to media
Neale (1990) – Genre is constituted by:“specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema and which
interact with the films themselves during the course of the viewing process.”
This means that the audience already expect certain aspects of the film they are about to see based on the
genre of the film.
Ryall (1998) viewers become ‘generic spectators’ which means they develop generic memory which helps in the anticipation of
events because the genre of horror follows the theme of anticipating scenes, even though the films themselves might play
on certain styles rather than follow a closely clichéd formula. For example, in the attic scene from “The Exorcist” the audience
expect something to jump out on the woman because all the generic conventions are in place, such as the camera shots of
someone's viewpoint watching the woman, the tense music, and the lack of light but in the end, the director deflates the tension,
making the audience relax again.
After the preview of my horror trailer, I handed out two questionnaire styles: a closed questionnaire which constricts what the person can answer with and an
open questionnaire, which allows people to write their own answers.
Open questionnaire Closed questionnaire
The majority of viewers who filled in the questionnaires were 16+, this shows that this type of genre attracts audiences of teenagers who are interested in horror.
I chose an equal amount of boys and girls to see if gender difference makes a difference in the feedback of
my trailer.
What they said
“it was effective and had all the typical
horror trailer conventions”
“The child close ups were very
effective”
“It was effective and
actually managed to
creep me out”
On one question I asked “which part of the trailer did you think was least effective?” The only comment I
received was one member commented
“The ending, the last screaming thing”
However, many others liked this scene because it made them jump in the end.
To conclude the questionnaire I asked if people would see the movie based on the trailer if it was real and why.
These were the answers:
“Yes, it is scary” “Yes, narrative was strong and it looked good”
“Yes because it looked authentic and would be
something to enjoy”