Questionnaire

Audience Research:

The typical age of the audience who we're aiming our film opening at is roughly14-18. Our film plot would most likely fit an age 15 category, therefore the most likely people to watch it would be this age. This means there are certain factors like language and violence which we need to consider that would be appropriate and not offensive for our audience. This age range is similar to our own age, we can benefit from as we will personally be able to understand what they think makes a good thriller film.

            Our questionnaire will be completed by local people from the area who will all share similar backgrounds and possibly similar incomes. Because of this, we have a good idea of what makes a believable plot and setting for our film. With people earning similar incomes means that their interests will be generally similar, for our case locals from Whittlesey area aren't over critical, more-than-average-wage earners giving us an idea of the quality that the filming of our film requires.

            Linking this is the possible location for our film; it will be local therefore realistic for our audience. The more realistic and familiar the setting is, the more believable the overall plot will feel to our audience. Whittlesey is a rural town which will probably reflect in our film, taking in to consideration that there are limited places we could film it is likely that we will involve some rural aspects. To keep our plot realistic and connected to our audience we will keep the plot to our time period, this will stop anyone from being confused too.

            The demographics for our film opening isn't specific, it needs to be appreciated equally by both genders

Question 1.  Are you:       Male       Female

Result:

We intentionally asked 10 females and 10 males to ensure we get a fair result. Opinions and preferences can be determined by the gender of the person because of the different ways in which males and females are treated; males are brought up to be very masculine and females are brought up to be very feminine. Men tend to have bravado; they have to appear brave for the approval of people. Females tend to be more vulnerable and sometimes like to appear slightly weaker than males. These aspects influence opinions.

Question 2. What age range do you fit into?

As previously stated, everyone we asked was between the age of 14 and 18. Our film will be aimed at this age range so we thought it would be best to receive our audience research from the relevant people.

Question 3: What do you think makes a good film?

Peoples opinions:

Ÿ         Strong story

Ÿ         Good actors

Ÿ         Believable

Ÿ         Good directing

Ÿ         Must look high-quality even if it's low budget

Ÿ         Action

Ÿ         Element of humour

Ÿ         Violence

Ÿ         Good vs. bad

Ÿ         Epic parts

Ÿ         Horror

Ÿ         Unpredictability

Ÿ         Good acting

Ÿ         Realism

Ÿ         Imaginative

Ÿ         Interesting

Ÿ         Engaging

Ÿ         Follows conventions of the genre

Ÿ         Something which captivates the audience

Ÿ         Suspense

Ÿ         Questions to be answered

This gives us a lot of elements to consider with our film:

Ÿ         We must have a strong plot and this must show in our opening, the opening initially captivates the audience and depicts whether they keep watching or not. The point of the film is to tell the story, if there is not a good plot, the film will not meet it's purpose. Every media text is created with an intention. The thriller genre is a broad genre which allows us to be imaginative (which has proven to be another important feature) therefore we can make a strong storyline.

Ÿ         The actors play a big part in attracting the audience. This is through the two-step flow - people see an actor they like, they then recommend the actor's films to friends or family. However, for our task we obviously cannot use 'good' actors, but we can do our best to improve the acting from out preliminary task. Instead of improvising, we have a volunteer from the performing arts group therefore the acting should be of the best we can access.

Ÿ         The plot needs to be believable and have a sense of realism. If the plot is too unrealistic it tends to irritate people and it won't keep them interested. It can be imaginative and it is fictional so it doesn't have to be an exact representation of reality, but the interpretation must be believable on some level.

Ÿ         Good directing is key. As a group we have to be in control of the whole production. We have to direct the actor, manage the setting, manage the costumes and manage the camera work. The piece has to reflect confidence, if a film is not well-directed, it shows.

It must look high-quality. We must use what we have to the best of our ability. We are incredibly low budget in that we have to improvise with the setting, the actors and the costumes. We also have to make do with amateur lighting and camera work, but it is possible, with editing, to make the film look higher quality than it is. This will require rehearsing before filming and practising of the camera shots

Question 4: What is your favourite thriller?

  

This chart shows the most favoured films of 20 people aged 14-18. There a 4 obvious favourites, 'The Strangers', 'District 9', 'Panic Room' and 'Saw'. We can now use this information and investigate these films to find out the elements that make our intended audience like these films. The information obtained isn't as useful as hoped as the largest number of people that like a film is only 3, which is 15% however it will give us a better idea than we had before.

Question 5: Why is this your favourite thriller?
The most occurring answer for this question was that the film held the viewer in suspense. This made us consider that if we wanted to make a successful thriller opening, we would need to add suspense for it to appeal to a majority of the audience.

Other elements people considered to make a good thriller film:

Question 6: What do you think is needed to fulfil the criteria of the thriller genre?

For this question many of the respondents answered with suspense and tension. Again, this made us realise that to make a good thriller we must add these components for it to appeal to a wide audience.

Other  factors considered by respondents:

• Character point of view
• Shocking moments
• Realism
• Unexpected scenes
• Scared victim
• A twist in the plot
• Action
• Death or separation
• Scary scenes

Question 7: Do you prefer a realistic plot or a more imaginative plot?

75% of the respondents answered that they preferred a realistic plot over a imaginative one. By them saying this, we decided it was best to base our opening around a realistic story line so it appealed to a wider demographic.

Question 8: What is your preferred sub-genre of the thriller genre?

 10% of respondents enjoyed the crime thriller sub-genre, 15% enjoyed mystery thriller and the remaining 75% preferred psychological thrillers to the other sub-genres. As psychological is the most significantly popular sub-genre, we decided it would make sense for us to base our opening around a psychological thriller.



Question 9: What perspective would you prefer a Thriller film to from?

 Over half of the respondents would prefer the film to be from the victim’s perspective along with the extra 5% saying they’d watch any. It is then followed by 25% preferring it from the villain’s; there is a wide difference between the two answers therefore we can confirm that the majority of our demographic would like our film more if it was from a victim’s perspective. This is helpful for us to know as it will make our film more popular and therefore successful.

Question 10: What sort of atmosphere do you think needs to be created in a Thriller?

There were numerous answers to this question though they all related to each other. The most common answers were suspense, tense and dark, typical features of a Thriller genre. Other answers included:

·        Isolated

·        Shocking

·        Inquisitive

·        Scary

·        Panic

·        On edge

·        Uncertainty

These are all similar answers and therefore give us a clear indication to what our audience consider important to make a Thriller atmosphere. We can now apply our results and consider possible ways to produce the appropriate atmosphere, including the film plot, sound and lighting effects.

Question 11: What do you think would be a good location for a Thriller?

Bearing in mind we have limited access to an appropriate location some of the answers won’t be possible.

The results varied somewhat however there were some which were repeated quite often.

It is clear that there are three dominant answers, an old house, an abandoned place/building or a forest. In a way these three can be linked given that an old house could be an abandoned building and a forest could be an abandoned place too. These locations are also suitable for us to consider as they are all accessible to us.

Conclusion:

Now that we’ve gathered the results and studied each of the question’s responses I feel that we are able to produce a film appropriate for our demographic. The use of the questionnaires has allowed us to see what certain media conventions should be used to make a ‘Thriller’ film.  We are now aware of what our audience favour and expect from a thriller film, therefore we can make a successful opening. There are media elements we are now aware of that should be used to make a ‘Thriller’ film.