Section 4 - Audience Research

We carried out research into our target audience to ensure that the thriller plot that we had in mind would be something that our target audience would want to watch. We formed a questionnaire in order to gain more information about our target audience and more information about what they expect or prefer to see in a film of the thriller genre.

Thriller Questionnaire:

Please circle answers to multiple choice questions.

1.     Are you male or female?

         male                                       female

2.     How old are you?

                                 ______________

3.     What is your favourite colour?

                                 ______________

4.     What is your favourite genre of film?

                                 ______________

5.     Are you a fan of the thriller genre?

           yes                                         no

6.      What kind of thriller do you prefer?

      psychological            action                 crime              supernatural

7.      What is your favourite thriller from this list?

      Seven        Jaws        The Silence           Saw            Other ____________

                                       of the Lambs

8.     Why did you choose this film?

__________________________________________________________

9.     What scares you?

__________________________________________________________

10.                         What do you expect to see in the opening of a thriller film?

       concealment          action             tension                other ____________

11.                         Do you like to be able to relate to characters in films?

             yes                                       no

12.                         Would you prefer to see younger or older characters in a thriller film?

        younger                           older                                   both

13.                         Do you prefer to see male or female characters in a thriller film?

        male                                female                                 both

14.                         What kind of music do you expect from a thriller film?

       fast-paced            mysterious            scary                other ___________

15.                         Do you prefer realistic or supernatural thrillers?

            realistic                               supernatural

16.                         Would you prefer to see simple or complex text in the credits sequence in a thriller film?

                 simple                           complex                        other __________

17.                         Do you find that the lighting used affects the mood of the film? Eg. dark/dim  lighting

                       yes                                           no

18.                         Do you like to be introduced to the main character in the opening sequence of a thriller?

                       yes                                           no

19.                         Which sound do you find builds the most tension in a thriller?

      a ticking clock       heavy breathing       footsteps     other ___________

20.                         What kind of location do you prefer for a thriller film?

                 claustrophobic                  open                         other __________



After asking 30 people to fill in our questionnaires, we collated the research into tally charts before creating graphs to allow us to view our findings easily. Each question gave us information about either our target audience or what our target audience would expect from our thriller film, which has allowed us to ensure that our thriller will appeal to the audience, and to change any aspects of our thriller to meet the expectations of the audience.

Question 1 - Are you male or female?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 16 were male. This means that any results we gather from these questionnaires will be slightly biased towards males. However as 14 people were female, the results will not be too biased.

Question 2 - How old are you?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 25 were between the ages of 15 and 20. As the majority of our results are from the younger generation of 15-20 year olds, from this we can grasp that our results are bias towards teenagers. Therefore our opening to a thriller will be aimed at a younger audience.

Question 3 - What is your favourite colour?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 11 answered that their favourite colour is green. From these results its clear that green was the most popular colour choice. Therefore we will try and incorporate a green coloured theme into our opening of a thriller, either through mis-en-scene or graphics.  We think that a darker shade of green would look more effective and appropriate for the genre apposed to a brash, bright green.

Question 4 - What is your favourite genre of film?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 11 answered that comedy is their favourite genre. However as this result is bias to the majority of young people who completed our questionnaire, this may be regarded as untrustworthy feedback. The thriller genre resulted as second on the list, implying there is still a large interest in the genre of our film opening.

Question 5 - Are you a fan of the thriller genre?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 26 answered that they are fans of the thriller genre. This shows us that their is a large target audience for a thriller film that we created. It also shows us that the feedback we gain from the rest of the questionnaire will be relevent to the creation of our thriller film.

Question 6 - What kind of thriller do you prefer?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 16 replied that they prefer psychological thrillers above the others. This shows us that our target audience would prefer to watch a psychological thriller, and therefore we should create a thriller from this sub-genre. As we had already choosen to create a psychological thriller, we know we are following what our target audience wants.

Question 7 - What is your favourite thriller from this list?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 8 chose The Silence of the Lambs as their favourite thriller. As The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological thriller, this shows us that we are definately right in choosing to create a psychological thriller for our coursework. However, as 22 people chose other thriller films as their favourite, we need to ensure that we do not isolate these people when we create our thriller. This has shown us that we need to include elements in our thriller which may not necassarily be traditional to the pyschological sub-genre.

Question 8 - Why did you chose this film?

                            

Out of the 30 people we asked, 9 answered that the plot line was the reason they chose their answer to Question 8. This means that the plot line we choose for our thriller film is very important, as it has to attract our target audience. 10 people chose 'other' to answer this question; however as the answers they gave were very specific to the film they had choosen in Question 8, we decided that the more generalised answer 'plot' gave us more information about what our target audience looks for in a thriller film.



Question 9 - What scares you?

                           

Out of the 30 people we asked, 8 replied that what scares them most about thriller films is the killer. This means that in creating our thriller, we need to ensure that we create the character of the killer so it lives up to the expectations of our target audience. Again, 13 people chose 'other' to answer this question, but as their answers were also specific to a particular thriller, we decided that the more generalized answer 'the killer' told us more about what our target audience expect from a thriller film.

Question 10 - What do you expect to see in the opening of a thriller?

                          

Out of the 30 people we asked, 12 answered that they expect to see tension in the opening of a thriller film. This shows us that when creating our thriller, we need to ensure that we create tension in the opening sequence, as this is what our target audience expect. We are going to create tension the a range of camera angles and the music we play over the sequence.

Question 11 – Do you like to be able to relate to characters in a thriller film?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 28 answered ‘yes’ that they do like to be able to relate to characters in a thriller film. This showed us that when we create our characters, we need to create a character who the audience can relate to. We decided that the protagonist in our thriller will be a regular person who becomes a victim, as this will help the audience to be able to imagine themselves in the same position.

Question 12 – Would you prefer to see younger or older characters in a thriller film?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 18 people answered that they prefer to see ‘both’ younger and older characters in a thriller film. This showed us that we should use characters with a range of ages in our thriller film. We decided that we would use three characters in the opening of our thriller; one younger character and two older characters.

Question 13 – Do you prefer to see male or female characters in a thriller films?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 16 people answered that they would prefer to see ‘both’ male and female characters in a thriller film. This showed us that when we make our thriller, we should use characters from both genders. We decided that out of the three characters we will use, the younger character will be female and the two older characters will be male.

Question 14 – What kind of music do you expect from a thriller film?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 14 people answered that they would most expect to hear ‘fast-paced’ music in a thriller film. This showed us the kind of music we should be using when we make our own thriller. We decided that we will definitely use fast-paced music in our thriller, as this also fits with our plot as we were planning to have our protagonist running to a location, so fast-paced music will work well.

Question 15 – Do you prefer realistic or supernatural thrillers?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 21 people answered that they preferred ‘realistic’ thrillers. This showed us that our target audience would prefer to watch a realistic thriller than a supernatural thriller. We decided originally that we would make a realistic thriller, so we know that we are definitely right in making this decision.

Question 16 - Which style of font would you prefer to see in the opening of a thriller film?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 10 answered that they would prefer to see font two and 10 replied that they would prefer to see font four in the opening of a thriller film. This showed us the type of font that people expect from thriller films, and we know to use either font two or four in the opening of our thriller, or a similar font.

Question 17 - Do you find that the lighting used creates tension in the film? eg. dark/dim lighting

Out of the 30 people we asked, 30 answered that they do find that the lighting in a thriller film creates tension. This shows us that this is something we can explore within our own film in order to create suspence or tension. It also showed us that it is important to use the lighting in our thriller in order to create the right effect throughout.

Question 18 - Do you like to be introduced to the main character in the opening sequence of a thriller?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 21 answered that they do like to be introduced to the main character in the opening sequence of a thriller film. This shows us that we need to ensure that we create a strong focus on the main character during the opening of our thriller, as this will enable the audience to understand that that is the main character of the film.

Question 19 - Which sound do you find builds the most tension in a thriller?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 12 answered that they found the sound of a ticking clock builds the most tension in a thriller film. This showed us that if we can incorporate the sound of a ticking clock into our thriller film, we should be able to build the tension we need for an effective opening. Therefore we are going to include the sound of a ticking clock into our film in some way.

Question 20 - What kind of location do you prefer for a thriller film?

Out of the 30 people we asked, 17 answered that they prefered a claustrophobic location in a thriller film. This showed us that for our thriller, it would be more fitting to our target audience to chose a claustraphobic location as the setting, such as a small room. We decided to use a room as one of the locations for our thriller film.

Section 3 - Brainstorm of Content and Classification of Film

(Click the image to enlarge)

We decided to call our film Justice. We incorporated as many of our original ideas as we could, choosing two main locations (a room and the streets/corridors the man runs through) and we tried to include elements of psychological and crime thrillers to create tension within our thriller.

The plot line we decided on for our thriller is: an ex-police officer decides to take revenge on the man who was his partner on the police force. During their time on the police force as partners, one became involved in a drugs scandal, and when the scandal came to light, he blamed it on his partner. This led to the partner being investigated, convicted and sentanced for a drugs crime which he had no part in. He was thrown out of the police force and sent to prison, leading him to resent his former partner and leads him to decide to take revenge.

As the ex-police officer did not have a family, he considered his career to be what was most important to him; he believes that he should take revenge on his ex-partner by taking away what is most important to him, which is his sister. The ex-police officer kidnaps the sister, and holds her hostage, leaving clues for his ex-partner to follow and find his sister, as he believes this to be his version of justice, as justice failed him.

We have chosen certificate 15 for our thriller film. We chose this certificate as it will allow us the largest possible audience without having to compromise the narrative of our thriller. Considering that our film involves a hostage-style situation, and that later in the narrative there will be police involvement and the involvement of the killer, we decided that certificate 15 would be most appropriate for our film. The British Board of Film Classification states that no person under the age of 15 may watch, buy or rent a film which has been classified with a 15 certifcate.