Survey

In order to gain outside opinion on aspects that we were considering for our trailer we used Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey is an online site that allows users to create their own surveys that others can then access and complete via the web link-  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DGQN6MR. We asked for opinions on our film title, amount of gore, how much the killer is seen, what characters should be involved, powers the killer should have and the choice of weapon. There was also the option for people to comment ideas if there was not a choice that they felt was appropriate.

The options for our film title were 'Knock Knock', 'The Unexpected' and 'Who's There?' 11/20 (55%) voted for 'Knock Knock', whilst 8 voted for 'The Unexpected' and 1 for 'Who's There?' We included 'Who's there?' as our tagline as a play on the well known knock knock joke. It is common within the horror genre for twists on innocent child-like things such as jokes, as it is more disturbing for the audience. 

We then asked whether the audience would prefer to see a lot of gore, a little gore or no gore at all. 13/24 (54.17%) voted for little gore, whilst 7 voted for a lot of gore and 4 people voted for none at all. As it is within the slasher genre it would be unconventional to include no gore at all however as it is only the trailer we decided to make it minimal as we felt this would be more effective as we felt that showing too much could make it look unrealistic and therefore minimise the effect of our trailer.

When asked how much of the killer the audience would like to be physically visible of the killer 17/24 (70.83%) chose glimpses of the killer, as opposed to 5/24 that chose for a full view of the killer and 2/24 chose an unseen killer. We decided to go for partial view of the killer, as we felt that a full view would diminish the effect of the unknown slightly and the audience wouldn't be able to use their imagination. Having said this the killer is not completely unseen as we wanted to incorporate a mask and weapon of choice etc which is a large part of the slasher genre.

When asked what central characters the trailer should be revolved around, 13/20 (65%) chose for it to be a group of teenagers as opposed to a family or single character. The use of a group of teenagers is a classic convention within the slasher genre, with the group containing certain characters often found in slasher films such as the jock, final girl and her promiscuous friend. This was useful as it encouraged us to conform to this convention.

We asked if the killer should have super-human powers or no powers at all, which 19/24 (79.17%) preferred. Within slasher genre films, the killer is normally invincible, but does not obvious powers like flying etc. This worked well as we were able to perceive him as impossible to destroy, whereas it may have been hard to make him look like he has other powers such as flying without looking unrealistic. Having said this we did include a scene at the end which through the use of editing on final cut pro we made it look like he has just appeared in the mirror, giving the audience the feel of non-human powers.

We also asked for the preferred weapon of choice for our killer, which is a classic convention of the slasher genre. A knife was the most popular with 12/24 (60%) choosing it, instead of an axe, chainsaw or a rope. This worked well for us as we had easy access to a knife, as opposed to something such as a chainsaw. This also gave a more realistic feel to our trailer, with realism working  as a disturbing feature for the audience, conforming to our genre.

Here is a summary of our results. We conformed to almost all of them, as many of the responses also followed the conventions of existing slasher genre films. Although we wondered about subverting some of these conventions, the survey helped us to realise that this is actually what the audience would find most effective and therefore make our trailer more successful.