Task 3 - Audience Research

In the lead up to the producing and filming of our media studies film, we have created a questionaire which will be answered by anonomous people to help feed our group ideas of what we could use in our short film. The questionaires were then done and tallied, to give different opinions and ideas to include in the opening of the thriller film.

1. 70% suggested a serial killer as the best antagonist.

2. 80% suggested that most thrillers are given a 15 certificate.

3. 80% said the editing should be quick and seamless.

4. 90% suggested that incidental should be used in the opening rater than ambient.

5. 80% said the opening of a thriller should be fast paced.

6. 80% said they prefered a murder mystery theme over a gang crime theme.

7. 50% suggested that a thriller should be set in a city.

8. 50% was suggested for both the choice of a male or female protagonist.

9. 70% said that a thriller should be set in a present day time period.

10. 90% said that they like a twist in a thriller film.

With all of the votes tallied, we have a clear vision of how we will create our opening of a thriller film.

We are still in debates of what type of antagonist we are going to have, between a gang leader and a serial killer. We will probably come to a final decision, before we begin the development storyboard. However, in our recent planning, we are leading into the conclusion of choosing a gang leader as our main antagonist, but we may give him some of the properties that a serial killer has, such as some mysterious chaarateristics.

With most people suggesting that a typical thriller has a 15 age certificate, we may include some key characteristics which give a thriller a 15 age certificate such as; violence, guns, greusome images etc. Although, we may have to keep it relatively age appropriate for younger people as some of the above suggestions might be inappropriate to put into our final project.

With relation to the question about editing, we should make the transitions of scenes quick to build up tension within the scenes. This will also create high excitement within the audience. Typical thriller beginnings go straight into the action, so the fast editing will be something similar to this.

Question 4 said that most people would prefer to hear incidental music rather than ambient sounds. This works well for what have intended to do in our film, as we are going to start with a chase scene, so incental music works better than ambient sounds as it can create more tension within the scene.

Most people we surveyed said that our opening should be fast paced. This tells us that we should immediately start the film with an event which makes the audience excited, but also puts them on edge. Maybe something like a chase scene could do this.

Most people said they prefered a murder mystery theme over gang crime. Again we are still in debates with this topic, as this question is linked to the first question of the antagonist we are going to have, so both questions will determine the outcome of what theme and antagonist we will have. Again we will come to a final decision before creating storyboard.

A lot of people also said they wanted to see the thriller set in a city or urban environment, which is ideal to what we have pictured our project to be. However, one result said it should be set in a rural area. This may be a good location aswell, as crime is unexpected in the countryside.

The survey gave equal results on the gender for our protagonist, so we are still discussing the gender of the protagonist, but it is likely that we will choose a male character over a female character. This is because a strong male is typical, but if we did choose a female protagonist, it can be surprising for the audience.

The time period people wanted was a present day period, which is what we originally planned for our film, so we will  stick with that as our time period.

The majority of people said that we should include a twist. We may do this however, a twist is better usually at the end of a film, so it may not be included as it won't give such a surprising effect.

UK Film Council Statistics

We need to find out some key statistics for horrors, thrillers and romantic comedies, before making our production. The UK film box office helps as it allows people to pin point key parts of information.



Below is a table of data regarding thriller, horror and romance films.

From this table you can tell that overall, horror produce the most films making 31 which was 5.6% of all releases. For the horror genre the top performing title was Paranormal Activity 2 .The second most made genre out of the three was thriller making 20 films which was 3.6%. Last was romance making 19 films which was 3.4%. Out of all genres there was 557 releases.

The highest gross at the box office in millions was the romance genre making 58.4. Second was the horror genre making 54.1. Last by a long way opposed to the other two genres was thriller, which made 19.3. There was a total of 1,023.6 million made over all genres.

For each genre, each films has a top performing title. The top preforming title for thriller was Shutter Island. For the horror genre, the top performing title was Paranormal Activity 2. Finally the top performing title for the romance genre was The Twightlight Saga: Eclipse.