Audience Research- Online

As previously said we have decided to carry out online audience research and find some secondary data that people have found, we have also completed primary research with interviews and questionnaires. In order to discover our target audience we are looking at opinions, figures and reviews to help us establish and guide us to who we need to aim our production at.

I was able to collect data on IMDb with a rank of the Highest Rated Thriller feature films with at least 1,000 votes. I have collected the Top 24 and published them in a excel graph which picks out the main information for them that is needed for my research. The original page is linked here.











With the help of this information I can look into why these films were so successful and how the Thriller was received so well and what an audience likes now. I am going to research into some of the older films and newer ones and try and find some recent information from them both as the audiences are different with each film.

Alfred Hitchcock Psycho
I thought the best place to research a Thriller was to look at the classic Alfred Hitchcock films and look at there reviews and figures. I decided to look at Psycho as it is the most highly rated of his films and it is the most popular meaning it could have some good information about it.
Psycho was rated no.11 in the Top rated Thriller films from IMDb. I decided to start my research on this film by looking at YouTube which gave me statistics from the original Psycho trailer itself and who watched it.
The link to the YouTube clip i got the statistics from is here.

The target audience shown from this film seemed to be Males aged 35+ possibly because it is an older film and wouldn't appeal to the younger generation as much. I could also see where the trailer was mostly viewed which was the U.S, U.K and Slovakia. This information could help us reach our audience once we have established who they are. The YouTube clip of Psycho had only 14,885 views on this particular clip but 0 dislikes showing how popular and good well received it has been.

After using YouTube I decided to find in more detail why the audience liked this film so much, I used the information from Rotten Tomatoes to do this.The information shows that 90% of audiences liked this film. Audience have written reviews on this website and this is a random example of some of them which have all issued 4-5/5 stars. Information from Rotten Tomatoes is also very recent information which makes the information more valid for what audience enjoy now.From this information you can see that the majority of the audience have found that they enjoyed the suspense of this Thriller and the slow build up of  tension that is created. The top review also explains how they enjoyed the twist in the film. Many of the reviews I have read have explained how they believe that it is a Horror which may be an element of our Thriller opening that we would like to incorporate in and possibly attract the audience that prefer this. I have not come across a bad review of this film so far which gives us a good indication of what this audience enjoy in a Thriller.

Inception

I decided to look at a more recent well ranked Thriller. Inception was rated no.3 in the Highest Rated feature Thriller films and was released in 2010.

Inception's main trailer on YouTube has received over 14 million views with only 886 dislikes. Unfortunately the statistics for Inceptions trailer have been disabled so  I decided to look at the audience that have ranked the film on IMDb itself and see who enjoyed it the most.

From this information you can see that both Males and Females enjoyed it just as much but more males have voted giving the impression that more gave watched it. I believe both males and females enjoyed it because it had a male and female lead. Under 18's rated this film the highest and seemed to have viewed it the most, whereas the lowest votes and least came from the over 45's which makes us believe that the target audience were not them and they did not enjoy it as much.

Both US and Non-US users seemed to enjoy the film equally.
From the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes you can see that the film was very well received mostly getting 4 or 5 stars out of 5 and receiving a 93% success rate of likes from the audience. This film is very different to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho as it is described as more of a mystery, or as one of the reviews said a Sci-fi. The audience of Inception seemed to enjoy the 'pulse-pounding and utterly mind blowing edge of your seat thriller.' which I believe is what you want your audience to experience in any type of Thriller so I believe this is a good convention I want to incorporate into our own. It is also clear that storyline and the depth of the story really makes a difference for success and failure for a thriller.



After contemplating what film to look at for a final piece of online target audience I decided to use Rotten Tomatoes list of the top Movies that involve mystery and suspense which I believe is one of the main conventions of a thriller. A film that was rated as a high no.2 on the list was also on at no.9 on IMDb's list, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Although I have already researched up a Hitchcock film I believe that his work is some of the most famous pieces ever and that all his productions are rated so highly that getting information about why the audience enjoyed his films then and now really gives us a good understanding of what an audience want in a thriller.

Alfred Hitchcock Rear Window 
I looked on IMDb again as I believe that it had a good amount of statistics and enough votes for it to be reliable information. On average Rear Window seemed to be well received by both male and females equally and had a wide range of ages liking it. I believe this could be because mostly a male is lead but they have a strong female character present in it also. It seemed like over 45 enjoyed it just as much and under 18 showing that it can appeal to all age ranges. I was also happy to see that Non-US and US users enjoyed the film although US users slightly more. I will continue to research why the film was so well received.

I decided to use Rotten Tomatoes to find the audience reviews as I feel as if the people who use it really enjoy their film and know what they want from them and so I find that this will give me a really good implication of what makes the audience really receive the thriller convention and take pleasure in watching it.

On Rotten Tomatoes the film obtained a 95% like rate from audiences and an average of 4.2/5 stars.
From the reviews I can see that the conventions of a thriller are very present in this Hitchcock film especially the sense of voyeurism which the audience seemed to really enjoy. The audience keeps repeating 'The Master of Suspense' which they are referring to Alfred Hitchcock and I believe that his films are successful because of the classic suspense and mystery of a Thriller. From the reviews and the link between the films I have looked at I believe that suspense and mystery are key for the audience in a film and some of the worst thriller films possibly looked at action and had a different approach to a Thriller.As I was searching further into Rear Window I realised that Alfred Hitchcock's work was not just received well by the audience but was also a inspiration to other Directors.

http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/film/4ce2b6955c6ba is the website which I came across which had information about Hitchcock's films and how Rear Window was 53rd in the Critics poll and 48h in the Directors Poll with 11 directors voting for it. I believe that many Directors have come to Alfred Hitchcock's work to discover their audience and how they would like to have their films received and I have found some very enlightening and helpful information for my own Audience Research.