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.