When conducting my first set of secondary research, I used the internet. The reason that the internet is the best place to research audience's and current trends is because they're constantly changing. If I was to use a book, it is likely that the information would be outdated and inaccurate. Google was a very helpful search engine when I required certain or specific information. The main things that I had to research through google was finding out what current horror films were trending and what some audience's thought of them. I also used it to find image's and existing media to analyse. YouTube was where a great deal of genre research happened as I spent a lot of time watching and analysing existing horror trailers. I watched most of the video on an iMac because it offered the highest screen quality for me focusing on ever detail in the trailers. This was where I discovered the trailers for MAMA and Goodnight Mommy, which later went on to have a massive influence on my trailer. I also used sights like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes to find out what critics and other audience members thought about new films that were being released. It gave me a good level of secondary research to help me to develop my plot further. As well as these review sites, I also found 'top ten horror movies of all time' sites to be quite helpful because they also helped me find out what people truly liked horror films. The final site that I found to be very helpful was the BBFC site which classifies and rates any new films or trailers being released in the UK. They had a lot of advice and information on how to accurately rate your trailers and film.

Social Media was a very useful tool to me when I was completing my research for my products. I set up a poll on twitter asking my followers what their favourtie thing was about horror films and then a few days later I ask what their least favourtie was. The result for the first poll where that they loved a twist in the plot and the other poll told me to stay well away from any cliches. 

Questionnaire's were my main method of receiving primary research from my target audience. My first questionnaire that I created was using Microsoft Word and using excel for my results. However, I found this to be very time consuming and inconvenient as well as looking unprofessional when I presented them both to my target audience. For my next questionnaire, I decided to use the online software called Survey Monkey. This allowed me to create a very professional looking questionnaire and it organised and analysed my results for me. With Survey Monkey I could directly target my audience by emailing them the link to my questionnaire and sharing it on social media. Survey Monkey allowed me to ask a wide variety of questions with different formats as well as allowing me to embed my actual products into the questionnaire itself.

Before I decided on a solid and completed plot line, I thought I was research through watching existing media. I used the application Netflix to watch all of the Paranormal Activity Series as I felt that these films shared similarities with my current idea. I also decided to watch a film called MAMA, which I rented on the Apple Store as again, I felt that this plot line could also influence my own. After watching all of the films, I decided that my main influence would come from MAMA as I didn't want to go down the 'found footage' route as my current research told me that my audience would prefer it if my trailer was filmed with a high quality camera.

I used blogged to present all of the research that I carried out. It allowed me to create personalised and interesting posts with all of the research I did prior to making my production pieces. The layout and theme on my blog was from a royalty free website which enabled me to download the template for my blog. I found it very clean and easy to navigate, especially when I added my labels. The reason I opted for a white background design with grey font is because I felt it was best for making my posts pop out.