Testing Results

I have completed five different tests of the movie. Two of them have taken place at school, in which I received feedback from my fellow students. I did the three other tests at home. One was with family members, one was with my friends from back in Middletown and their families, and the final test was with my neighbors.
The movie got mixed reviews, ranging from straight 0’s to all 5’s. Some of the reviews were not taken seriously, as was evident in the additional comments section. For example: “This movie belongs in the travesty genre.” It seemed my audiences enjoyed the movie, even if it wasn’t the horror film I thought it would be. To be honest though, many films that set out to be horror end up as comedies or horror/comedy.
While I may not have fulfilled the horror aspect of the design brief, I would say that I fulfilled the entertainment aspect. In light of this, I would say that the movie was at least a partial success.Below you will find charts showing the distribution of the average scores stratified by age group.


There are a few interesting features I would like to point out. The first thing I noticed was that the averages for question four remained almost constant. It seems to me that according to this data my audience seemed to enjoy the music aspect of the film. I also noticed that the opinions on the acting went down with age. It also looks like the ability to follow the storyline went down slightly down with age as well. The opinion on its effectiveness as a horror film remained constant from 11-40, but it dropped sharply at ages 41-56, as can be seen on the third graph. I would also like to point out that on the first short answer question, which was what would you classify this movie as if not horror, about 96% stated it would make a better horror/comedy or just a straight comedy.

Testing Procedures

The final solution will be a thirty minute horror film that makes effective use of filming and editing techniques. For my testing procedures, I am going to have as many people view it as possible. The audience will be from ages 14-45. I’m going to try and represent the ages as evenly as possible, although there will most likely be more in the lower age bracket just because I am in high school. The screenings will take place at my house and at school. I will distribute a survey form that I had previously created for audience member to fill out. I will make a short introduction, and then I will play the movie. After the test I will give the audience time to complete the survey. I will then collect the forms and store them in a folder. I will repeat this test several times for other age groups up to and including the maximum of my target audience. It will also make sense to include a few above the target audience age group as outliers. If necessary, I can repeat this test as many times as needed. Following is a numbered list detailing the testing procedure step by step.




Testing Procedure Steps
1. Distribute the survey form to each person as they arrive.
2. Make a short introduction to the movie.
3. Play the movie for the first audience.
4. Collect all the survey forms.
5. Repeat steps 1-5 for all subsequent audiences.
6. Review all feedback and, if necessary, make changes to the movie.