Results from our Questionnaires

By using Survey Monkey on the internet, we were able to create an account and produce a survey for a range of audiences to complete. In total we managed to get around 15 people to fill it out who were of a variety of ages and gender. Along with the interviews which helped us by giving more of an idea of who to aim our thriller opening at. We collected a range of responses however some areas people chose similar answers which will help us identify our target audience and help us decide what story line our thriller should be. By sharing the our survey monkey questionnaire to social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to select a variety of answers.
To help analyse the results, I have created graphs and collected the data from each question:

By including this question at the beginning of the survey, it helps us identify the age range in which the public are interested in thrillers. The pie chart shows that more teenagers took part in the survey than middle aged citizens. This helps us to establish the targeted age to aim our thriller opening at and what sub-genre to select.

From looking at the pie chart displaying the answers from 'What do you expect from a good film?', we can see that the majority of the people that we asked would watch a film if the storyline/plot interested them and it was a unique style. This indicates that we need to make sure that our thriller storyline needs to be unique and capture a majority of the audiences' eye.

We decided to ask the audience what Thriller would attract them the most as it will give us an idea of what sort of genre is most popular. For example, The Dark Knight which is known as a crime/action thriller, endured to keep the audience watching with the action-packed scenes, giving them an adrenaline rush. The Black Swan and Shutter Island were also popular choices which may establish that the people questioned, enjoy watching recent films rather than 1990's films like The Sixth Sense.




How would you describe a Thriller film?

• A dark twist that happens to either the main character or the supporting role.
• Eerie effects.
• Cliffhanger, mystery.
• Tense, exciting, mysterious characters and good music.
• Dark lighting, eerie effects, motivated cuts
• Eerie, a twist in the storyline, realistic
• Thrilling to watch- on edge of your seat.
• Dark lighting, fast paced storyline
• A story line which may be quite complex with some twists and good acting.

In this question, it seems that a lot of the people asked answered 'Different/unique storyline' which suggests to us that we need to create an original plot which isn't cliché and contrasts with other thrillers. Nobody selected 'Adventure' which shows that not everyone is excited about action and that they want a fast paced film which gets the adrenaline pumping from the start.





What makes a good Thriller opening in your opinion?

• A clear introduction to each main character and an introduction to his/her life. 
• Camera angles and good music.
• Immediate action.
• Fast paced introduction, exciting action scenes and pulsating music/fast music. 
• Introduction to characters, intense scenes and music, different camera angles to identify different/important aspects of the film/scene.
• The music.
• Building of tension.
• Camera angles.
• Starting with an action scene with different camera angles.

The majority of people in this question preferred a Psychological thriller which isn't that surprising as most thrillers involve a mind-twisting plot that captures the audiences' eye. Mystery and Action were also very popular which will help us to decide upon which sub-genre to pick as mystery provides an exciting plot for the audience, which will attract them.

In order to know what our target audience dislike about some current thriller films, we decided to ask them. The most popular answer was films 'ending with an anticlimax' which is very common in thrillers as they are hard to master the ending to compliment with the film. Also everyone would prefer a different ending, some people have different opinions about the film's ending. Another common aspect in thrillers is an unrealistic storyline which also seemed popular with the audience asked. So in our thriller we need to think carefully about the plot, for instance make sure that the storyline hasn't already been used and try not to make it cliché.

From the analysis of these particular questions, we have found that our target audience prefer more recent and popular films like The Dark Knight, Black Swan or Inception.They tend to interpret thrillers as being the majority of the time having unrealistic storylines but more ending with an anticlimax. The majority of people asked tend to enjoy more of a Psychological thriller rather than for example a Medical as the film is more enjoyable when it includes a mind-twisting, tense and mysterious plot.

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.