Audience Research

As part of our audience research we asked a small sample of people questions based on both our storyboard and the horror genre in general. We wanted to learn what other people thought of our ideas and how they relate to the conventions we have studied. For example we discovered that based on our storyboard, the sample group we asked thought our storyboard followed the conventions accurately however noting that we did challenge the conventions in parts. We also interviewed a small group that requested not to be filmed. They stated that the location of apex forest and the open road were well linked to the horror theme as well as fit with the story line.

Audience Theory

The Effects Theory or Hypodermic Theory - The consumption of media has a negative effect on audiences, and they are powerless to stop it due to being passive. It all relies on the message of the text. This text could also be 'injected' into the audience like a powerful drug by the media, which the audience is powerless to resist due to the strong influence of media.

Uses and Gratifications Model - This theory is the opposite of the effects theory, stating that the audience is active and uses text themselves rather than being used by it, for the purpose of bringing themselves gratification and pleasure. This means the audience has the most power, and not the producers.We want the audience to have the power, as we believe if we have the main influence they might not enjoy the film too much.

Reception Theory - When a producer constructs a text he encodes the text. It's up to the audience to decode this and either understand or not understand the message portrayed. Sometimes the audience would correct decode the information, and sometimes they won't. We want the audience to correctly decode the information.

Target Audience

The target audience for our text is young adults, as the theme of the movie would mainly apply to older audiences, but audiences not too old due to the stereotypical horror conventions portrayed in the trailer and movie, which might disinterest older audiences as they would see it as too 'cliche'. These young adults do not have to be completely interested in the horror genre to enjoy this, as this movie actively challenges the conventions portrayed by the generic horror genre.