Online Audience Research

By gathering some audience research together, it will help us to identify our target audience in the genre, thriller, and what sub-genres of thrillers is most popular. So by doing some research it will help us decide on a sub-genre for our opening, such as a psychological, crime, mystery etc.
I have decided to look into a thriller film which will have a particular sub-genre.

The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest:

When researching 'The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest', I found some interesting websites which can help establish the popularity and people's opinions of this film. One of the websites I found was http://industry.bfi.org.uk/exitpolls  in which I could click on a particular film and it would lead me to a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. In this spreadsheet, I found out that the majority of the surveyed public were female however the percentage of men to women was very close at 49% to 51%. This tells us that this film was popular with both men and female. When looking at the 'Sources of Information', 30% of the public heard about the book beforehand which establishes that most people when going to see films, see the film because they have read the book already. This occurrence has also happened in the Harry Potter sequel, The Help, Mama Mia, Life of Pi, and the film before the The who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I have researched 'The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest' thoroughly and I found on Amazon some personal reviews from the public. From looking at the results, the majority of people said they thought it was a 'great film' which indicates that a crime thriller is a popular sub genre. I think this is because it builds up a lot of suspension throughout the film and the action involved keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.
When focusing on the target audience of this film, the research shows that more people over the age of 35 saw this film rather than people under the age of 35. Perhaps this is because the film is quite complex and not suitable and appealing to the younger ages as the film involves murder and experiences with court cases. This film was cleverly produced as it attracted both males and females. I think the fact that the film included aspects in which females could relate to but also for the males, the film involved a lot of action scenes.

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.

Audience Research- Online

Audience research

When doing my audience research about thriller films i found out that lots of people went to see thriller films  if they were a remake of a novel and the book being such a huge success. this was the case with films such as We Need to Talk About Kevin 39% because it was based on the book and The Girl Who kicked the hornets nest, which is part of The Millennium Trilogy over 51% of people who saw this had read the book.

The demographics of an audience is always key. The gender of the person, what films men and women like is always different. Age is important for a thriller because they need to know what certification to pitch the film at. Other demographics would be
-Ethnicity
-Class
-Region
-Sexuality
-Religion
-Family
Another thing that is important about an audience is their Psychographics these are things that are different with every person that change their views of films. For example one's interests may change the way they look at a film, an example would be somebody who has read the novel may want to go see it when it has become a thriller film. Other psychographics are:
-Ideology
-Beliefs
-Morals
-Values

Another thing found when doping my audience research is that with thrillers its very even in gender when it comes to thrillers for example The Girl Who kicked the hornets nest.

Male	49%
Female	51%

and for We Need to Talk About Kevin it was

Male	46%
Female	54%

i believe it is slightly in favour of females in both these films because of a female main role.

Online Survey

Following on from our previous post about research methods we have now created our online questionnaire. Below is our online survey that will help us expand our research about our target audience. It will help us discover in more depth what our type of audience wants to see in a Thriller film. Our interviews gave us a good amount of detail but our answers were from a limited age and is not representative of the target audience. This online survey will help us to understand what a variety of demographics and psycho-graphics like to watch and give us a real insight of what to include in our Thriller opening.

We made the survey involve both open and closed questions to gather as much information as possible but we didn't make it too long so people will be more likely and willing to complete it. The questionnaire can be accessed here and we have also posted it on our social networking sites to gain more people to complete it.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Thank you for taking part.

Audience Research- Interviews

For our first form of Audience Research we decided to directly speak to people in the form of an interview.We decided to ask questions needed to give us an idea of what people of all ages enjoy in Thriller, and what they expect from them.Opinions were also important as it gives us a closer insight into what they do not enjoy in a thriller so we can not make the same mistakes as some Thrillers made. We have decided to do an Open questionnaire as it is more likely to give us the information we need.

I interviewed a mixture of genders and ages.

My Interview
First person- Age 16, Male
Second Person- Age 27, Female
Third Person- 45, Female

What do you expect from a good Thriller?
First: A twist in the storyline and a mystery
Second: Cliffhangers, jumps
Third: Entertainment, Racing heart

What do you enjoy in a Thriller?
First: Believable character, watching closely to not miss anything, confusion, leading you to believe something else
Second: Different character personalities, big climax in storyline
Third: Good storyline, believable characters

How would you describe a Thriller?
First: Always gets you thinking, your always on the edge of your seat
Second: Scary, Real -life (believable), dark, jumpy, tense, scary music
Third: Tense, Jumpy, Keeps your on the edge of  your seat

What makes a good opening to a Thriller?
First: The start of the Thriller shows the ending of it (creates confusion), mystery
Second: Gets your questioning, tense music
Third: Immediately catches your attention, big beaty music, you question until the end of film (doesn't give anything away)

Your favourite Thriller?
First: Inception because the start of the film shows the ending. The credits of Inception also show the mystery as the title 'Inception' is made out of a map
Second: Taken because of the suspense
Third: Fracture because it is about outwitting a cold hearted murderer and the tension

Audience Research -Interviews

When establishing which methods of audience research to use, I think the best methods to use is an online survey to perhaps attract the teenager's opinions as they tend to use the internet more with social networking, and also do individual interviews to grab the middle aged/older citizen's opinions.

In the interviews we need to provide direct, specific questions that relate to our task in order to make our audience research as beneficial as possible. We need to ask questions that involve their likes/dislikes, their favourite thriller films, what they tend to expect, sub-genres and then link to a thriller opening. For an interview, open questions tend to be used to receive answers which include more detail, opinions and feelings. Whereas when a questionnaire is being provided, closed questions tend to be used which involve single answers, short phrases and also yes or no. They usually include tick boxes. They are more convenient and easy for the audience but you don't get as much detail as you would with interviews.

An example of a closed question would be "What sub-genre of a thriller would attract or interest you most out of the following? (please tick the boxes)"
-Action
-Psychological
-Crime
-Historical
-Mystery

An example of an open question would be "What do you dislike the most about thriller films?".

Anna's Interview:

I have decided to interview 3 people, the ages I have included are a male of 19 years (person 1), a female of 45 years (person 2) and another male of 50 years (person 3). This will help give an insight as to whether middle aged people are interested in Thriller films and if they are attracted by them. But it will also give me an idea if teenagers are interested as well.

"What do you expect from a good film? e.g. characters, camera angles, storyline, special effects etc.

Person 1: Good use of actors, something different about it. If British film, it will attract me more as good actors sucha as Colin Firth will be used.

Person 2: Well known actors involved with a good, interesting storyline. A film that engages the brain. If a humorous film, needs to be able to make me laugh. If a Thriller film, I would want to be genuinely scared which includes a good atmosphere within the audience.

Person 3: Has to have a unique style which includes a different storylines to other films.

"What is your favourite Thriller film and what made it enjoyable?"

Person 1: Inception. I think it is a good film as it is mind twisting and captivating as its about a dream inside a dream and so on. It engages the brain because it is a mystery and it keeps the audience like myself interested.

Person 2: My favourite thriller film would be Taken as when I was watching it, I didn't know what would happen next. It kept me captivated with the motivated cuts involved. I felt I could relate to the storyline as I am a mother of the same aged girl.

Person 3: The Silence of the Lambs. I enjoyed this film as it is plausible and well acted. It brought a good, unique storyline out into the world at the time. It was ahead of its time.

"How would you describe a Thriller film?"

Person 1: Camera angles from the antagonist's point of view to give to sense to the protagonist's that someone is watching them. Built up of tension in many parts to excite and build up hype of the audience.

Person 2: Dramatic, spooky feel, mind twisting. The music involved to be pitchy and strong. I would expect there to be occasional silences. Perhaps the music included would be recorded by an orchestra- non-diegetic sound.

Person 3: Weather conditions to be gloomy, dark and foggy or raining. Tracking of the cameras moving stealthily down corridors.

"What attracts you most in a Thriller film?"

Person 1: Good actors, action involved, fast speed and adrenaline pumping. An interesting, different storyline.

Person 2: Adventure, excitement. Usually completely different from normal way of life.

Person 3: Plausible storylines, fast pace, exciting.

"What makes a good Thriller opening in your opinion? E.g. music, camera."

Person 1: Introduction to some characters, clue of location. Motivated cuts included to hype the audience.Built up tension used by different pitches of music.

Person 2: Action sceme, perhaps a preview of what's about to happen- keeps the audience intrigued.

Person 3: Built up of suspense. Powerful imagery which draws attention and creates focus for the rest of the film.

"What sub-genre of a Thriller would interest or attract you the most?"

Person 1: Action, mystery, historical.

Person 2: Adventure and mystery.

Person 3: Historical, Serial Killer, Crime.

"What do you dislike the most about Thriller films?"

Person 1: Too complex, ridiculous, badly acted.

Person 2: Too realistic, if it ends with an anti-climax. -Need to end with Drama.

Person 3: Unrealistic, too long.

From looking at the results of my interview it shows that a wider range of people from different ages and gender is needed to discover what people really like to see in a thriller film. However, the interview does show that most males tend to have the same opinions, for example both the males I asked both said for 'what they thought makes a good thriller opening' that a good thriller opening needs to include a build up of tension and suspense.
I think to gain a real insight into what people may like, dislike or prefer in films, television programmes and in our case, the opening to our thriller film.

Audience Research- Interviews

What is your favourite sub-genre for a thriller and why?

Answer 1 aged 49 (man):
My faviourite sub genre is a crime thriller, due to you not knowing fully whats going to happen until the climax of the film.
Answer 2 aged 19 (man):
I like an action thriller due to the intense fight scenes and there normally being a strong battle between a good character and a bad character
Answer 3 aged 49 (woman)
i like to watch thrillers that i have read a book of because i like to see if the intensity is portrayed in the film

Faviourite thriller film and why?

Answer 1
My faviourite film is probably Harry Brown due to it being very easy to relate to for me and that it has a strong meaningful storyline
Answer 2
My faviourite thriller is deja vu with denzel washington i like this because i like the full on action through out the film and the tension between the two main characters, and denzel washington is my faviourite actor
Answer 3
I like the films of the Millenium trilogy, due to me having read all three books and enjoyed them. i watched the films and they reached my expectations because they had me gripped all film long

What do you not like about thrillers?

Answer 1
I dislike thrillers when the storyline is very obvious and there is a lack of mystery, i like to find out what happens at the very end
Answer 2
I dont like a love story in a thriller, i like it when its all about the storyline
Answer 3
I dont like thrillers when there is too much action and explosions i like it to have me on the edge of my seat, but not to make me jump and be scary

Audience Research Methods

Different audience research methods used can help us as a group to identify what aspects are important at the beginning of a thriller film, the type of audience that watch thrillers and how we can entice the audience at the start. This will help us establish what target audience to aim our thriller opening at.
Different audience research methods include; Questionnaires,Interviews, Focus groups, Online questionnaires and Data Collection.

Questionnaires
A group of closed questions ask to the public, or your audience to extract specific information you want to know for research.
A benefit to a questionnaire is that you receive useful information quick and it is easy. You can also give a questionnaire to a large portion of your audience or the public without wasting time.
A drawback to using a questionnaire is that the public partaking in the questionnaire may not be able to explain their reasons for this as it is a closed question, so you do not receive as much information and it may not be very strong.

Interview
An interview is when the researcher will ask the public or audience open questions, they then extract information on what they want to know and follow up or probe their answers with ones to get more information and detail from them, in a conversational way.
A benefit to an interview is that you gain a better insight into the customers wants, their opinions, their likes and dislikes and there is no set questions meaning you can work your questions around their personal feelings.
A drawback to an interview is that it is time consuming. This is a problem because it is very informative but asking enough people and bringing the information we gathered together from everyone means it is hard to analyse and will take a long time.

Focus Groups
A focus group is a small group of people who have a discussion about a particular product or in this case a topic. It aims on a discussion more than responses to formal questions.
Benefits of a focus group are that the researcher can get information from body language, by seeing a response like this they can tell how they feel about that specific topic, the information is also easy to get, you are able to probe more answers and gain a deeper knowledge of their views and opinions and you can also gain the information quicker than if you interview people individually.
A drawback to a focus group is that focus groups may not be able to stay on topic and you can't gather the information you specifically need, the public may also feel peer pressure to answer like everyone else.

Online questionnaires
An Online questionnaire is a questionnaire that you created set up online for the general public to be able to complete. It can have open and closed questions on it.
Benefits to an online questionnaire is that is it usually free, fast and simple to set up, quick and accurate to gather results as the website that your survey is linked to will gather the information for you. Anyone can access it on the internet  also meaning that it is more valid to the population because you do not have to send out and collect the questionnaires that may not be able to reach the general public but using the internet it is possible.
A drawback to an online questionnaire is that people may feel less obliged to take part because they have not been specifically asked to take the questionnaire, there also may be technical difficulties that could postpone or stop people being able to access it, both giving you a lack of information.

Data Collection
Data Collection is done to gather secondary research online from existing websites to gain an insight into the likes and dislikes, the success and fail and general knowledge of the topics information you need, in this case about a specific genre.
Benefit to online secondary research is  that the data  is already collected meaning it is cheap, easy and quick to gather.
A drawback to this is that the information may not be specific to your topic that you are looking for, so it isn't completely relevant to you. You could also not gather information from reliable sources making your data wrong and you may base your idea or topic on that.

From the benefits and drawbacks we have decided that we will complete the secondary research data collection but make sure it is from reliable websites such as, boxofficemojo, IMDb and independent.bfi. We are also going to do a small interview consisting on 3 people each, all different ages and genders making it informative but not time consuming, we are also going to create an online survey giving people opportunities t fill it in and giving us a large, informative and representative result that we can use to help us find our target audience.

Our Audience

In Media Studies, audience is the term used to describe those who consume media texts. For instance, films, television programmes, newspapers, magazines etc.  For many obvious reasons, media producers and institutions like to consider audiences in groups. To investigate how large their share of the mass market was, television companies and advertisers came together to perform new techniques of market research. This involved quantitative surveys where they attempted to count how many people they reached. Most commonly used was the system of television ratings which still today, has an enormous effect of the workings of TV stations.

We can divide our audience into two categories; demographic and psycho-graphic.

Demographics involves the audience's:
-Gender
- Ethnicity
- Age (certification)
- Social Class
- Region
- Sexuality
- Religion
- Family
- Education/Occupation

Psycho-graphics involves the audience's:
-Interests
- Likes/dislikes
- Attitudes
- Ideology (your ideas of life)
- Beliefs
- Morals
- Values

Audience Research: I Am Legend

Is a 2007 film starring Will Smith, in which a plague which either kills or transforms the people into monsters has taken over the world and he is the last person left in New York city and maybe even the world. He struggles to find a cure for the plague.

The cast of this film was headed by Will Smith who is famous for his roles in thriller films. A added attraction to this film was the inclusion of Willow Smith, the daughter of Will Smith in her acting debut. This gained alot of publicity for the film even though she had a small part. This was a bonus to the film because it was free advertising and marketing.

The film was marketed by a comic book release which was done by dc and vertigo comics which will then be followed up by online featurettes on the official website. Another way in which the film was marketed online was a virtual video game the largest of its kind in conjunction with a film release the film involved a 60 acre virtual new york where you can either be a survivor or one of the infected.

The films market i think was thriller lovers of all ages because the film was certificated 12a so children could see with parents if under 12 and all other ages can see. Another target market was Will Smith fans because it was a classic Will film with lots of action scenes and jumpy parts with a strong story line. They marketed this by having his name in big bould letters in the film posters.

Audience Research: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight is the second installment of the Batman trilogy which was released in 2008. In the film Batman attempts to stop the mob with the help of Gordan and Harvey Dent, but comes up against The Joker the Batman's most famous comic book villian.

The film had many big name actors in it for example Morgan Freeman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman. Also a major attraction for people to come and see this film was the inclusion of Heath Ledger, this was one of his last films before he died so that was a big draw for the public to come and see the movie.

With this film being the sequal to Batman Begins which had a gross profit of over $370,000,000 the film was guarenteed to have an interest. One part of their target market is the hardcore comic book fans. Those who went to the 2007 comic-con in San diego Where involved in a very interactive chase of clues round the city and at the end of the clues a fan was kidnapped by The Joker and later at the convention a Gotham newspaper (place where film is set) was handed out saying "See you in December" with the fan dead with a jokers card in hand. This got a buzz going about the film. Another big way in which they marketed the film was with the posters of the logo and main characters. One place in which a logo was placed was on the side of an F1 car at the 2008 british grand prix where millions would see it worldwide due to the large audience of the sport. The posters showed the two main characters of Batman and The Joker to build the excitement of the clash between the two

This film was certificated at 12A which ment that people of all ages would be able to come and see this film. This was a positive for the makers due to the film then being able to get out to the biggest audience possible. If rated a 15, this film would of cut out the child audience who all love the character Batman through the comic books, TV animation series and toys. This film gained a massive $1,004,558,444 gross profit due to the size of the audience

Audience Research: The Sixth Sense

The film, 'The Sixth Sense' is a 1999 American psychological thriller film. It is written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear, a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist who tries to help him. The film established Shyamalan as a writer and director, and introduced the cinema public to his traits, most notably for his affinity for his surprise endings. The film was nominated for six academy awards, including  Best Picture.

The Sixth Sense is certificated as a 15 therefore indicating that the film was targeting ages 15+. However, from watching the film myself, I believe that the film could be also targeting the late 20's, early 40's. This is because the film deals with themes such as death but in a sensitive manner and are not all about gore and violence which you would expect people of a younger persuasions to watch. -As violence or gory scenes are not shown throughout 'The Sixth Sense' but are replaced with subtle signs of forthcoming danger. The film targets the working class as they like to watch movies which keep them on the edge and with high levels of excitement as the plot thickens. In 1999, 'The Sixth Sense' attracted a lot of females as the film featured "Star Power". The main character of the film was Bruce Willis, a heartthrob in the 1990's. Females were attracted to the film because he was starring in it and they knew the film would be worth seeing as he is known as a good actor.

The marketing of the film included the release of trailers, radio and posters. Due to the fact that the film was produced in the late 1990's, there wasn't a lot of great technology out but in the year of 1999, Web 2.0 was created which enabled the audience to interact with different social activities online. The audience was able to watch the trailer for the film online and get involved with the cast and crew.