We have collected the feedback from my audience in a form of a questionnaire.
I was pleased of my results as it game away some positive criticism.
Did the music in our thriller opening build tension? Yes-16 No-4
Do you think we should have used more dialogue? Yes-3 No-17
Did our actors suit their roles? Yes-17 No-3
Did our actors play their roles well? Yes-16 No-4
Did you understand the plot of our opening? Yes-20 No-0
Did our thriller opening have a good plot? Yes-18 No-2
Did you think the range of shots in our thriller opening were sufficient? Yes-15 No-5
Did the credits look good? Yes-16 No-4
Did our thriller opening leave you asking questions? Yes-15 No-5
Should we have used more special effects? Yes-8 No-12
Does our opening make you want to watch the rest of the film? Yes-17 No-3
What draws you towards our film the most? Title-3 Music-5 Plot-12 Other-0
Was the sound in our opening of sufficient quality? Yes-17 No-3
Was the setting of our thriller opening suitable? Yes-19 No-0
What could we have improved the most? Sound-2 Editing-1 Shots-6 Effects-8 Other-3 (Acting, Character, Credits)
Overall, did you enjoy the opening of our thriller? Yes-19 No-1
From my findings i have came to the conclusion that our Thriller opening was a success, there are some issues in our work however that our audience discovered. Everyone in my audience understood the plot of my Thriller opening. However 2 people thought that the plot was not good. This may be because we may have made the plot of the film too simplistic and cliche, so it does not really break the mold. However our film probably would still be a success as the majority said they would like to see the rest of the film, this showed that our film still had potential. I was pleased to realise that the majority thought that the music we used was of sufficient quality as I thought the piece of music used really suited the theme of my Thriller opening. I was also pleased to know that only one person thought the setting for our opening was unsuitable, this is because I thought the transformed city method used in my setting was very effective. The thing that my audience thought should have been improved the most was the effects. I agree with this as I feel that very little effects were used in our opening sequence. The majority enjoyed our opening overall which is good because it shows we reached our target audiencel.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Section 11: Audience Feedback
Section 9: Production Scedule
Film title: A Perfect Forgiveness
Director: Tuesday Povey, Josh Gemmell, Tom Newton, Frances Coyne
Producer: Tuesday Povey, Josh Gemmell, Tom Newton, Frances Coyne
Client: OCR exam board
Production started: 17th November 2008
Production completed:
Treatment started: 30th Novemeber 2008, 19th December 2008
Storyboard started: 27th Novemeber 2008, 28th November 2008
Shooting started: 30th November 2008
Post production started(logging sheets): 10th December, 19th December 2008
Rough cut submitted: 12th December
Final show tape completed: 19th December 2008
Location equipment required: Camera, Tape, Tripod
Transport required: Bus, 3-cars for the crew
Crewing requirements:
Camera people: Tuesday Povey, Josh Gemmell, Tom Newton, Frances Coyne
Sound: Tuesday Povey, Josh Gemmell, Tom Newton, Frances Coyne
Lighting: Tuesday Povey, Josh Gemmell, Tom Newton, Frances Coyne
Post production assistant: Tuesday Povey, Josh Gemmell, Tom Newton, Frances Coyne
Section 7: Reece and Location Sheets
Hazards-The road: We must be careful as cars create this hazard. We can avoid this issue by filming on the pavement at the back.
-Electrical Equipment: We must ensure that cables and wires are away from us so that we do not experience an electric-shock.
Hazards-The oven: We must ensure that the oven is off and untouched so that we do not create a fire or burn ourselves.
Section 6: Character Outlines and Script
Character Outlines:Rachel Howard:
A 18 year old tomboyish brunette. She is optimistic as she has just passed her A-levels. She wears a T-shirt and some casual jeans. She lives with her father, who she has been very close to since her mother passed away when she was ten. She mainly spends her time helping out with chores at home, whilst her dad goes out for work.
Jack Mildew: A 30 year old, blond haired man. He is currently suffering from Schizophrenia. He is the killer in this opening. He wears a T-shirt and a pair of cargo trousers.
Scripting:
-Washing up and phone rings, walks over to phone and picks it up.
-Rachel Howard: ‘Hello’
-No reply
-She puts the phone down and turns to exit the room.
-Phone rings again, Rachel answers ‘Hello? Hello?’
-There is no reply again-She puts the phone down and waits by it.
-The phone rings again she pauses and thinks about whether she should pick up the phone or not.
-Picks up phone ‘Hello who is this?!?’
-hears man breathing down the phone
-Looks out of window, drops the phone and closes the curtains, before running over to the front door to lock it.
Section 5: Synopsis and Treatment
Synopsis/Treatment for Perfect forgiveness (working title)
Production group:Joshua GemmellTom NewtonFransis CoyneTuesday Povey
Synopsis: Five years ago Rachel Howard was brutally murdered by schizophrenic killer, Jack Mildew. Five years later, Rachel’s Father seeks revenge for justice that was never done. How much blood must be lost in order for this grizzly revenge to be fulfilled?
Treatment:
Beginning:A zoom-in is taken of a girl washing dishes (Close-up of the back of her body). There is then a close up of the sink and some knives being washed. There is then a close-up of a phone ringing. Diegetic sound of a phone ringing is played. A close up is shown of the girls expression as she hears the phone ringing. A tracking shot is used when she is walking over to answer the phone. Close-up of the girl picking up the phone. She says on the phone ‘Hello’. There is a second ring and she again says 'Hello?'. On the third ring she says ‘Hello, who is this?’ whilst a man a man is behind her outside at the window. She looks outside, she can barely see the man, and she can’t see the figures face in the darkness. There is then an over shoulder shot of the man looking at the house, looking at the girl on the phone from across the street.The girl then closes the windows and curtains and locks the doors. She goes back to watching television. The girl then realises curtains are flowing in the wind and the window opens. There is a close-up on the girl’s frightened expression on her face. Whilst we see the man coming up behind her. The girl screams and the camera goes black.
Middle:The camera is black at first, we here a boy and a woman screaming and arguing. There is a sound of a heart beating, it starts off slow and then goes fast there is also heavy breathing. A first person vision camera is used when the girl awakens she looks around while the camera has blurred vision. Flash backs of old time memories of people laughing.Whilst the girl is in the flashbacks the mysterious figure is seen or mentioned in her memories. She has flashbacks of her first day of school, Graduating University and of her old job interview. In every flashback she learns about this mysterious figure and what he is like. In the job interview flashback she finds out that the previous worker was a man called ‘Denis Howard’ which resigned because of the death of his daughter ‘Rachel Howard’.
End: The girl awakes from her memories, the killer grabs her and lunges her against a tree. She then discovers that her dad was in the car that made his daughters car crash. She quickly discovers this was all a revenge scheme. The girl makes struggling sounds then all of a sudden it goes quiet. There is a long-shot of the back of the killer walking away casually, the perfect revenge has been committed.
Section 4: Audience Research Feedback Results
We created a questionnaire to help us with our ideas on producing our thriller film. The questionnaire contained 20 opened and closed questions and each person in our group had 10 sets of questionnaires. After we collected them in we tallied up the results and then had to write a conclusion, which we will outline below.The people who participated in this questionnaire were mostly 16-years-old. And the age group which were the least to participate were the 18-year-olds. I think that we should have used the same amount of people in each age group as it would have made it more equal.The majority of people who filled in our questionnaire were 16. We are going to make a 15 rated film as 16 year olds are our target audience.
The people who took part in the questionnaire were female dominated which again, suggests that in order to make it unbiased we should have used an even amount of men and women.
Most people thought that ‘Se7en’ was their favourite thriller film. Maybe this was a popular choice because it had well-known actors such as Brad Pitt in it. However I have watched ‘se7en’ and thought it was a great thriller also. A total of 0 people chose the film ‘Psycho’ as their favourite film and I believe that the reason for this is because it is a very old black and white film, made in 1960. Therefore, students possibly think that newer thrillers are more entertaining because of the high tech and improved plots, music, graphics, and editing. The thriller opening we will be making will be similar to the opening of ‘Se7en’.
Most people thought that the thriller ‘Jaws’ was their least favourite. I think that this question was an injustice one, as people may have not seen some of the films such as ‘Psycho,’ ‘The Sixth Sense’ or ‘Se7en’. I believe this because of the results on the previous question, and the fact that people actually chose every film over ‘Psycho’. The results are unequal when comparing them to the previous question. However the results show that Jaws was the most disliked and that ‘Se7en,’ ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Psycho’ were the most liked.
We will make sure that our opening is not like ‘Jaws’ as it does not appeal to our target audience.
A great amount of people thought that action thrillers were the best. Maybe this is because action thrillers have a lot going on in their films such as fights, shootouts, stunts and car chases. They are also fast paced and have creative plots and that is what creates tension for the audience. The least favoured was techno thrillers. I think this is because there are only a few well-known techno thrillers produced and many teenagers might have not seen them.Action thrillers and supernatural thrillers were the most the most popular amongst the people who filled in our questionnaire. We have decided to make an action thriller because supernatural thrillers are expensive to make.
Most people think that the location being set in an urban environment would be best. A lot of thriller films are set in urban places (to create the transformed city model) so this may be why students chose this. Because of this, we will be setting our thriller in an urban environment.
I think that people chose the plot other than anything else because a plot is more noticeable in a film and has more to it than graphics or the music. We will have to make sure that the plot of our thriller is good, as this is what most people tend to judge a thriller on.
Most people said they preferred violence in a thriller. This could be because violence makes it more shocking and gains tension for the audience. The answers ‘no’ and ‘don’t know’ were equal and the least preferred.In our thriller, we are going to include some elements of violence, although we cannot use too much as out thriller is classified as a 15, and not an 18.
A large percentage of people did not know whether they would prefer to see romance in a thriller. I think teenagers do not always consider thrillers as romantic, because it distracts the audience from the entire ‘thrill’ that is required to create tension. Therefore romance is needed.
Most people believed that dialogue should not be expected. Dialogue in thrillers is rare and when used in a film they are often used as little as possible. Dialogue can become a spoiler for the film is used too much in the beginning. A large number of people did not know how to answer this question, possibly because they do not tend to usually realise the amount of dialogue used in every thriller they have watched. However due to the amount of ‘no’ answers we received, we will not include a lot of dialogue in our thriller.
Most people would like to follow a man as the villain in a thriller. This could be because you see a lot of men playing the villain in thriller films and they might like to follow this. No one wanted to follow an animal or robot, so this could suggest that the stereotypical thriller audience prefer realism.
People expect the main character in a thriller to be an 18-30 year old as this is an average age and is realistic considering most 18-30 year olds are independent. No one thought that under 12’s should be the main character. I think this is because people in that age group are usually dependent and would not have a suitable purpose for a thriller film.
I think that people mostly chose to answer ‘woman’ because they are realistic and are often independent in real life. This question was mostly answered female possibly because males tend to appear in a lot of action thrillers which are a popular genre so maybe they would like to see a change. We are going to be following a female lead character in our thriller film.
I think that people mostly chose to answer ‘woman’ because they are realistic and are often independent in real life. This question was mostly answered female possibly because males tend to appear in a lot of action thrillers which are a popular genre so maybe they would like to see a change. We are going to be following a female lead character in our thriller film.
People expect the villain in a thriller to be an 18-30 year old as this is an average age and is realistic considering most 18-30 year olds are independent. This can make tension build up for the audience as realism enables the feeling that the happenings in the thriller film can happen to anyone. No one thought that under 12’s should be the villain. I think this is because people in that age group are usually dependent and would not have a suitable purpose for a thriller film. Because of our results, we will have to find somebody aged 18-30 to act as our main character. We will have to find a man aged 18-30 to play our villain.
Almost everyone who participated in our questionnaire believed that music builds up tension for them, so we are going to select some music which we will build up tension.
Most people thought that a villain would use a weapon in a thriller film. However, many people may think that weapons may be used later on in a thriller film, not in the opening.
Most people said that they would expect the villain to use a knife. This could be because a knife can inflict pain on another person in a gory way and is quite scary for an audience. Less people said a bomb as bombs are a quick and simple way to kill. In other words, if a bomb was used in a thriller it would make the pace of the film really quick and boring. If we are to use a weapon in our thriller, we will be using a knife.
There is almost a tie between the answers to this question, however more people preferred a sad ending, possibly because it creates more tension than a happy one and red herrings can be used often to fool the audience.
Most people thought that breathing and footsteps was the scariest thing to hear in a thriller. These can be considered as scary because the audience know there is a presence lurking but do not know who or what it is. /we will be using heavy breathing in our thriller to build up tension and try to scare the audience.
Most people said yes to this question, as partial vision conceals everything from us and keeps us guessing throughout the film. Some people answered no, possibly because they hate things being concealed from them and desperately want to know what happens in the thriller film.
CONCLUSION
As my overall conclusion I believe that people prefer watching thriller films with a strong, well-constructed plot, which contains an action or supernatural genre and set in an urban or rural environment. It should also contain a protagonist woman, a male villain, violence, partial vision, a weapon such as a knife, heavy breathing, footsteps, and should be realistic. The diegetic and non-diegetic music selection is vital for building up tension. My group and I are going to try to include all of these as we believe it will make our beginning sequence appealing to our target audience. If we could change anything in our questionnaire results I think that we could change a few of the questions, and organise the amount of genders and age groups that we could ask.
Section 4: Audience Research
In class we created a questionnaire to find out what society is looking for in a Thriller. The results will help us with our ideas and improve our final product. We are going to hand out this questionnaire to 40 people. To save time each member of the group will hand out ten questionnaire's each.
Media Questionnaire
How old are you? ____________
-Are you male or female? (PleaseCircle)MaleFemale
-Favourite thriller film out of the following?Jaws Se7en The Sixth Sense The Matrix The Butterfly Effect Psycho
-Least favourite thriller film our of the following?Jaws Se7en The Sixth Sense The Matrix The Butterfly Effect Psycho
-What is your favourite type of thriller?Action, Supernatural, Erotic, Techno, Other (Please specify) _____________________
-What kind of location would you expect a thriller to be set in?Urban, Rural, Exotic, Other (Please specify) ___________________
-What do you like best about a thriller?Music, Graphics, The plot, Other (Please Specify) ____________________
-Do you like to see violence in a thriller?Yes/No
-Do you like to see romance in a thriller?Yes/No
-Do you like to see a lot of dialogue in the opening of a thriller?Yes/No
-What type of main character would you like to follow in a thriller?Woman, Man, Teenager, Child, Animal, Robot, Other (Please Specify) __________________
-What age would you like the main character to be?Under 1212-1718-30Over 30
-What type of villain would you like to follow in a thriller?Woman, Man, Teenager, Child, Animal, Robot, Other (Please Specify) __________________
-What age would you like the villain to be?Under 12 12-17 18-30 Over 30
-Do you expect the music to build up tension?Yes?No
-Would you expect the villain to use a weapon? If so, what?Yes,No,Knife,Bomb,Gun,Supernatural powers
-Do you prefer a happy or sad ending?Happy/Sad
-What makes you scared?Ticking clocks, Footsteps, Supernatural noises, Wind, Breathing, Thunder
-Do you like partial vision in the beginning of a thriller?Yes/No
Section 3 : Brainstorm
Brainstorm of content and classification of film
Today in our media class, we were put into the groups which we will be working in on our project. The people I will be working with are Josh Gemmel, Tuesday Povey and Frances Coyne.Together, we started to brain storm basic ideas for our thriller film:
A guy stalking a girl.
Somebody stealing people's souls.
Detective on a mission.
Chef with a bomb hidden in a cake, who turns people into sausages.
Army base.
Theme park.
Woods Church/ graveyard.
House.Cellar.
A computer which corrupts peoples' minds Mental characters.
