Research into target audience - Miss Miller

The research was carried out to find out what our target audience expect/want from a thriller so that we could put these ideas into our opening sequence, we asked forty people as we wanted a large sample size to represent our target audience, we can generalise all the answers to the rest of our audience, this will allow us to see what type of things we should include in our opening sequence as from the answers we have been given we know what our audience want/expect.

Questionnaire

1.     How old are you?
…………………………


2.     What gender are you?
Male
Female


3.     What is your favourite thriller and why?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………


4.     What sub genre do you like to be used in thriller?
Romance
Psychological
Horror
Comedy
Other


5.     What conventions do you expect to see in a thriller and why?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………


6.     What type of setting would you expect to see in a thriller?
Abandoned house
Forest
City/Town
Natural setting (house)
Other

7.What sort of iconography would you expect to see in a thriller?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

8.     Would you expect the killers identity to be hidden?
Yes
No


9.What sounds would you expect to hear in a thriller?
Eerie/Dark music
Screams
Panicking

Weapon being used
Other
10. What shots are most effective in a thriller?
POV
Close up
Steadicam
Panning
Other

This pie chart is purley used to show us the ages of the people answering this question, we then know what our target audience will be and what they want in the opening sequence

 This pie chart shows the most popular conventions in a thriller for our audience, the most popular for our target audience is an eerie soundtrack, this is because is is used in some of the best thriller movies, it is used to create suspense and also shock/surprise, it builds up a scene and the audience know something is about to happen but don't know what, we will be putting this in our opening sequence as it is a clear audience favourite and will be very useful for creating an effect on the audience (shock, suspense and suprise, also could be used to create an enigma).





This pie chart shows the preferred shots in a thriller, the most popular is POV, this allows the audience to feel like they're really in the film and makes it much more enjoyable, the least popular is the steadicam, we will try to minimise the use of this as much as possible as it is clearly not a favoured camera shot, POV will be used in the opening sequence to create enigma as to what is about to happen and also suspense due to the same thing, also shock can be created a lot easier in POV.

This pie chart shows the favoured sounds in a thriller, again, the most liked is eerie/dark music, we will make sure that this is used as it is clearly a key part of a successful thriller in the eyes of our target audience, also screams are favoured by our audience, this is due to it being a parralel sound, it is what the audience would expect to hear in a thriller

This shows that the majority of the audience enjoy a masked/hidden antagonist, this makes a much more exciting/shocking/surprising/suspense filled thriller, also the enigma is enjoyed, all of this bonds into one and is one of the reasons for a successful thriller, we will make sure that the opening sequence involves a masked/hidden killer whose identity is unknown, creating an enigma as to who is behind the mask and suspense to find out who it is and finally surprise when you see who the antagonist is

 This pie chart shows preferred iconography, our target clearly prefer the knife due to it giving the antagonist power while holding it, before this the film was balanced and the protagonist had an equal power, the use of the knife shows the transfer of authority and creates fear for the audience as they have usually created a bond with the protagonist in the film, a knife shall be used in our filming, this will portray the dominance of the antagonist, it will also help the audience fear the antagonist as the knife is an everyday item making them realise how dangerous their everyday life is and how easy it is to get a hold of these things, creating shock.

This pie chart shows the preferred setting for our target audience, they have voted for an abandoned house, they feel this is the best place to set a thriller, although I agree it is difficult to find the setting for our opening sequence so we may stick to the forest theme, the forest is easily accessible for filming, it is also an everyday setting, helping the audience engage in the film, the fact that it is an everyday setting helps create shock as to how dangerous it is even though people always go there .

This shows what thrillers our target audience enjoyed the most, from this we can gather what type of storyline they like to be used and possibly take some ideas from the film to make it enjoyable, as scream and silence of the lambs are clearly enjoyed we will take some ideas from them but possibly from the others as well as lots of people voted for them, this will allow us to see which thrillers people enjoyed the most and we can pick popular/unique conventions from each of these to create a successful thriller sequence.

This is showing us what type of sub genre is enjoyed the most by our target audience, the most favoured is horror, this is good as it backs up what sub genre we was going to use and makes us confident of our choice of sub genre, we are definitely using this as our sub genre as it is great for creating suspense, shock and surprise as well as enigma, also it makes it a lot easier to engage the audience.

This is just used to show us the gender of our audience, this doesn't help us out massively but maybe could be used to see what gender we should target our film at. Over half were male so it may be a good idea to aim it at males more than females but not completely cut them out, I feel males would enjoy our thriller more.




The purpose of the vox pops was to provide evidence that we have questioned real people, these have allowed us to see what our target audience enjoy in thrillers and why (for open questions), this is good for us as we can see what we should do and how we should do it, also the fact that they can expand on points allows us to see why we are doing it and what impact it'll have on the audience, we can look back onto these to see which answer people picked in from our questions later on, it also allowed us to record the answers into qualitive data to look back on and evaluate, helping decide key parts of our opening sequence.

This research was useful as we can see what our audience want/who they are, it allows us to see why the audience want certain things and what it does to the film, we will try to incorporate all the results into the film but that may not be possible, some ideas that we have taken from other films we have previously done research on will be kept, if i were to carry out the research again i would try to even it out (eg 50 percent of males and females, around same amount of people from each age group), this would allow us to see what the whole population wants and not just dominated by one audience, this would be much more effective and creates a film that more would enjoy.

Proof of vox pops