Research into target audience - Miss Mller

We carried out this research to develop an idea of our target audience and their views on thriller films. From these questions we are able to uncover the opinions of the people who may be viewing this sequence. And by discovering their answers I can build a rough idea on what aspects of a thriller we should elaborate upon to make our clip as effective as possible. We asked a wide variety of 40 people to cover a large amount of views and opinions so we could get more assessed and reliable answers. We could then use these answers to make a more informed judgment call on the potential elements and ideas that could be included in our opening thriller sequence.

Questionnaire

1.How old are you?

2.what gender are you?

3.Do you enjoy thrillers?

4.What is your favourite element of a thriller?

For instance death, suspense, tension, shock, surprise, chase scenes, weapons and why?

 5. What type of thriller do you like?

Action, murder, stalking, psychological and why?

 6. What type of setting do you like/ prefer?

 7.Do you prefer thrillers which are relatable to your age group?

8. Do you think background music makes a thriller film more effective?

9. What type of weapons do you prefer?

E.g knife, gun, strength of the antagonist, or other.

 10. Do you like the effects of having a hidden identity within a thriller film?

Vox Pops

*Video's needed!

These videos were used to show more detail into the answers of my participants and there reactions to the various questions. It was very useful into showing answers for the more detailed and opinionative, open questions. It also added the reactions of people as they answer, emphasising what the target audience might understand and how deeply people are effected by various conventions of the thriller genre. Mainly ,however, it shows evidence of the interview style questioning used. 

 

Results :  

By asking people their age we can gather an idea of the audience we want to target. For example, if the majority of people who enjoy thrillers were under the age of 18 then we would create a clip attracting this age group. Therefore making the sequence more effective to the audience.

 

 

By finding out the gender of our potential audience we can discover what gender our story appeals to. This would therefore give us a clear view into what target audience we are trying to attract. Much like the question on age it furthermore gives an understanding in the audience we are targeting.   

This gives us a general insight into the type of people who want to watch thriller films and who are keen on experiencing their unique conventions. By looking at the type of people who said 'yes' and their age plus gender we can develop a more straightforward view at who the target audience we are aiming this thriller at.

This is not a question particularly referring to the target audience it is more a general question used to show an overall perception of what are of a thriller people find more effective during a thriller. We can then build upon this element or convention to make the clip more effective. The results show that death is the most excitable and engaging part of a thriller film. We can now develop this part of the film, focusing on it and building up the suspense and tension around it, therefore creating a more effective appealing thriller.

This question also gives us an idea into how we can create a more effective thriller sequence, appealing greatly to the target audience. By asking for peoples preferred setting in a thriller we can see what setting may be best at building up the conventions of a thriller. The majority of people chose an 'isolated' setting as their more preferred setting. Reasons for this could be because an isolated setting shows the victim as being more vulnerable increasing the fear factor and the suspense as we want to see them survive. From this we may now use an isolated setting to present our suicide victim as looking more vulnerable and innocent to the audience. By doing this we can increase the suspense and tension as we see her in danger.

 

 This question was created solely on developing our target audience. By asking this we can build an idea of the age group we are going to target. The majority of people answered 'yes'. This means that we will try to create the clip based on the age group of the target audience. The effect this might have is that it means the audience can build a closer relationship with the characters, especially the victim, it therefore emphasises the effect of the typical conventions such as shock, surprise and suspense.

 

This questions helps greatly with the sound aspect of the film. It shows us how effective off screen music really is. Most people aid they were against background music, stating it has little effect. After looking at these results we may now cut down on the amount of background music used in this thriller. This could include using silence or the emphasis of diegetic sounds to build suspense and tension.

Death is a key convention in a thriller film. The murder weapon can interpret the type of death seen. The majority of people chose a knife as the favoured weapon used. From these results I will include a stabbing as the form of murder when the friendly, helpful protagonist is murdered. The knife used is a form of iconography. This can have a great effect on the audience. The knife results in a gory, painful death. This can exaggerate the hock convention, key to a successful thriller.

 

An idea we have developed for our thriller clip is the use of hidden identity for the antagonist. This was a key question for this research as we were keen on seeing the thoughts of the viewers and the opinion on its effect. The majority of people said that they appreciated the effect of a hidden identity. This will now have a great influence in the use of it in our clip. We will not see the identity of the antagonist throughout the film. This is one of the most effective ways of creating suspense and mystery during the clip, both key to a thriller, keeping the viewers engaged and entertained. It also builds up an enigma, this being atypical convention used in a thriller. Our clip will be based on this use of an enigma as we leave the audience asking questions throughout the sequence.

To conclude, there were various aspects discussed within the questionnaire that could prove to be useful for making my clip. One being the convention of death; the people I asked favoured this as the best part of  a thriller film. Now I know this I can incorporate it within my sequence by focusing more on the deaths that occur such as the death of our protagonist and the potential death of the victim. Furthermore the majority of people said a isolated setting is more effective in a thriller, this could be used by making sure the victim is often alone when vulnerable. I can also include the idea of setting the film on the idea of a relatable age group to the target audience, this was favoured in one of my questions.
In addition to this a knife was said to be the best murder weapon, meaning it is a great way to inflict shock upon the audience. Also we found out that off screen sound effects is not found to be effective when building suspense. This could result in is cutting down on the amount of off screen sound used and applying suspense through the effective use of silence; we may also use a knife as the antagonists murder weapon to create a larger sense of shock for the viewers. Most importantly the use of hidden identity was greatly favoured by the people asked. This element was key to my partners and I as we were keen on the idea and its effect of building a great amount of suspense. The fact that the target audience were also keen on the idea is very pleasing to us as we can now use it to great effect. The hidden identity of our antagonist should build up an enigma which keeps the viewers engaged, this is key to a opening sequence.