For my qualitative audience research I used focus groups of 17-19 year olds (my target demographic) and asked them to study three magazine templates and three film poster templates. I questioned them extensively to figure what my audience liked and disliked so that I had a firm grasp on what I needed to create in order to successfully market my film.
In terms of magazine, I chose to use the brand 'Fangoria' as it normally covers independent, low budget films and is a well known name in the horror industry; This meant that the 'Fangoria' masthead had to be used on all templates.
This is the first template I showed my focus group. They all seemed keen on the main image holding a knife as this helped them to understand that the film is a Slasher rather than any other genre of horror. The position and colour of the cover lines were appealing as they found that without them the page looked bare and almost boring. The red colour again indicated blood and violence - tempting them to pick up this issue. The name and typography of my horror film 'Knife, Camera, Action' is the same on all the templates as it was something that my group and I all favoured unanimously. My focus group also felt that the sharp points on letters such as 'K', 'A', 'M' etc. helped to heavily advertise the horror aspect of our film as did the letter 'O' which looks like a camera attempting to focus. The use of the film reel in the design of the page was something I had seen in a lot of previous 'Fangoria' issues and was commonly placed vertically on the left side of the page. I try that on another template but I also wanted to try something different and see if the film reel in any other position was more aesthetically appealing. This was treated with indifference by my focus group so is something I would consider changing. I would use supplementary images as well in order to tempt other readers who are not particularly attracted by the main image to buy this issue too.
This second template differed quite a bit from the first. I had moved the film reel to the left side typical of 'Fangoria' and my whole focus group agreed that it looked better than the previous placement. The one thing they were unsure of was the movement of my cover lines to the left side and the fact that they were now all black. The red had appealed to them a lot so it was decided I would alternate colours by doing the first cover line red, the second black and the third red again. They all felt that there was too much spare space around the main image but after some discussion it was decided that this could be dealt with by having two people as the main image as well as the knife so that the cover seemed busier without looking cluttered. This was the preferred template and the one I will base half of my ancillary task on.
This was the least liked template. Apart from the main image, masthead and film title nothing was received particularly well by my focus group. They felt that the cut up film reel made the page appear too cluttered and it did not make sense to them to have it split into three pieces. Also the yellow colour I had chosen for the cover lines was deemed as eye catching yet was seen as inappropriate for a horror film magazine.
In conclusion the second template was the most preferred by my focus group as they felt it was aesthetically pleasing and portrayed the horror element of my film best.
In regards to film poster I wanted to accurately portray that in my film the use of a camera is highly prevalent and a key aspect of the narrative. Also, I had done something different with the masthead by having a red recording button place inside the 'O' of 'action. This was received well by my focus group who also felt that it looked like the target of a gun trained on its victims alluding to violence.
This is the first template I showed my group. They all liked the positioning of the test and image but felt that even with the main image in colour this would not be a particularly gripping poster. It was also decided that this could not help to identify 'Knife Camera Action' as a Slasher film. In light of this I decided to keep my text positions the same but just alter the main image.
This main image was thought to definitely be more dramatic than the premise for the previous template but my focus group claimed to have found it confusing. The idea I was trying to portray was that this girl (the final girl) was trapped in a camera lens. However, this was not completely understood and even though it seemed to represent the horror genre, this poster was not fully getting across the whole camera element that I was keen for the audience to understand.
This final film poster template was exactly what my focus group were looking for. They loved the use of the camera on the tripod and the violent scene that could be seen through the screen. So it was decided that this was the form my film poster would take.
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