Target Audience Questionnaire Results - Miss Miller

I carried out research to give my group an idea of who our target audience are as well as what they would expect and prefer to see in a thriller film so we know what conventions would be best to use in order to create enigma and provoke surprise, shock and suspense in the audience. The enigma should keep the audience engaged and make them want to continue watching the whole film as they want to find something out.This research will also help us to follow the guidelines for the BBFC age classification.
I asked forty different people a list of ten questions about the thriller genre. I asked forty people because this gives us a wide range of responses from potential viewers. It will be easier to analyse a large variety of results because we will have a lot of information to help us decide what to include in our sequence. I asked half males and half females so the results were not biased and we gained varied results.
We will make our opening thriller sequence as successful as possible by using this research to find out what was rated the highest answer for each question. This will help us create a suitable and effective narrative because it will tell us what to include in our sequence. Also, by looking at the sub-genre of thriller films that the target audience prefers we can research other thriller films in that sub-genre and refer back to our History of Thrillers post. By finding out what our target audience think is successful and unsuccessful we can understand what and what not to include in our sequence.


In our groups we decided on ten questions we would ask the public; three would be open questions and seven would be closed. The open questions allow the public to elaborate on on their answers and therefore give us more detailed responses. While the closed questions are straightforward and easy to collect and analyse as results. We asked the public questions so we could understand more about what the target audience want and expect in a thriller film.

First we asked questions about the person we were interviewing such as 'How old are you?' and 'Are you male or female?' This allowed us to understand the difference of opinions on the thriller genre in different audiences. This would also help us know what guidlines to follow in the BBFC organisation.                                                                                                                                   Asking the target audience what their favourite thriller film is allowed us to see what previous films of this genre have been successful and popular which would give us ideas for our narrative as well as identifying certain conventions that the audience liked within that film. In a similar way from asking what sub-genre they prefer we can see what themes of a thriller will work best for our opening sequence. To help us decided what iconography the audience would want to see in a thriller film we asked what they would expect to see. This gave us ideas of what iconography we could use and what iconography receives a successful response from the target  audience. We also understand what sound effects receive a successful response from the target audience because we asked them what sound effects they find the most effective. We also asked why, allowing the audience to elaborate on their answers and give us more detail and information in their answers.This will give us an idea of what on-screen, off-screen, diegetic, non-diegetic, parallel or contrapuntal sounds we should use to manipulate the moos of the viewer.
Next we asked a series of closed questions to find out if female and child victims appear more vulnerable, if chase scenes create suspense, if masked antagonists are more threatening and if an isolated setting makes it seem as though the protagonist is in more danger. Asking closed questions allows us to see clear straightforward opinions on these ideas so we can understand what would be more effective in our opening sequence.

Results

                                                                         We asked for the age of the potential viewer so we could see what age group is most likely to watch a film in the thriller genre and what ages prefer what conventions. We mainly asked young adults because that is the general target audience of a thriller film. This pie chart tells me that the majority of the questioned population was aged 18 and above at 40 per cent while the least amount of the questioned populations was aged 12-14 at 25 per cent. I have taken this on board and decide to aim my thriller sequence at the 15 age rating of the BBFC because the guidlines are stricter than they are in the 18 rating so we will have rules to follow and a purpose for our narrative. Also the 15-17 age option was at 35 per cent and higher than the 12-14 age option so we did not want to go as low as that option because the least amount of our questioned population belonged to that category.

                                                                          I then asked what the gender of the person was as our Vox Pops do not show the entire gender distribution of the people we questioned while this pie chart does. It shows us that we questioned an equal amount of both males and females so we know that men or women are not more likely to watch thriller films then the other so we do not need to adapt our content to either gender as both males and females watch thriller films no more than the other. Interviewing both genders gave us a balance of views so the results of the other questions will not be imbalanced due to different preferances within a gender.We will rememeber to make our sequence suitable for both males and females so the target audience will be larger as more people would watch it.

                                                    

The third question I asked was 'What is your favorite thriller film?' Asking this allowed us together our target audiences preference of narrative so we know what examples to follow for our own. From this pie chart I can see that most of our target population would list the thriller film 'The Conjuring' as their favorite. The Conjuring is a paranormal-psychological thriller film so I know that for my opening sequence I should focus on those sub-genres instead of others such as horror or gory. My History of Thriller films post also concluded that psychological thrillers are most successful so my group have decided to focus our sequence on psychological themes.

                                                   Making the previous question an open question and asking the public why allows them to elaborate on their answer and tell us what it was about their favorite film that made them enjoy it. The highest rated reason for enjoying their favorite film was the fact that it was 'jumpy'. This tells us that our target audience liked to be shocked and made jump when watching a thriller film so we will aim to do this by shaping our narrative in a certain way. building suspense for a while before suddenly revealing something using jump cuts has a shocking effect on the viewer as it is unexpected and therefore frightening.

                                                                         We asked what sub-genre of thriller film they prefered so we knew what type of narratives and themes were most popular. This pie chart tells us that psychological thriller films are most popular which, along with my History of Thriller films post and the results to question three, prove that psychological narratives are the most successful and popular. Because of this we have decided to base our narrative on psychological themes. 

                                                                      Despite having vague of idea of the iconography we would use in our sequence from previous research, we still asked what iconography our target audience would expect to find in a thriller film. We did this to see if the results would back up our results and also to see if any other popular iconography was identified. We discovered that murder weapons were expected most in a thriller film so we will use iconography such as knives in our sequence.

When asked what sounds they find most effective in a thriller film, the majority of the public responded with the sound of stabbing. This also proves that a knife would be suitable piece of iconography to use as it creates a sound that the target audience finds effective. However the responses were not largely different and so the results we got back were quite varied. This tells us many different sounds are required to create different effects like building suspense or manipulating the audiences mood.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Finding out why the target audience find certain sounds effective allows us to understand what it is that a viewer would want from a films sound. Most people agreed that sound is the most effective when it is conventional to a thriller film. This teaches us that to make our sound effective in our sequence we must refer back to other films in the thriller genre and relate it to what you would usually expect in a thriller film.

Next we asked a series of closed questions to get straight forward answers, starting with 'Do you find women and child victims more vulnerable?' Asking this questions allowed us to see what age and gender would be most successful for the protagonist in our sequence. The majority of the population agreed that women and child victims appear more vulnerable than adult and male victims. This tells us it would be less threatening to feature a man as a protagonist because he would appear less vulnerable. So we could feature a male as an antagonist as he would appear more dominant over a female or child victim.

I have shaped my narrative around a chase scene so to test whether or not this will be perceived as a popular way to create suspense among my target audience. Most thought that chase scenes do create suspense in a thriller sequence so I know to focus on a chase scene between the antagonist and the victim where the antagonist walks slowly and the victim runs frantically. This will increase suspense further and make the audience feel empathetic for the victim.

The next question we asked aimed to find out whether a masked antagonist is more threatening and effective compared to an antagonist who is not masked. We asked this question so we would know whether or not to mask our antagonist and the results suggest that we do as 80 per cent of the populations believed it is more threatening. 

                                                                       We wanted to see what setting would create the most effect and make it appear as though the protagonist is in the most danger.  So using an example of a possible setting we could use and asking the target audience about it allowed us to see how they would respond if we used it in our sequence. From this pie chart we can see that the majority believed an isolated setting is more effective as it makes you believe the protagonist is in more danger. Because of this we have decided to film our sequence in an isolated setting such as a forest.

Asking this question allowed us to see what makes a setting appear isolated and therefore remind us what we could include in our sequence to have the same effect. 55 per cent of the population believe that having one else around and no one else to help makes the isolated setting puts the protagonist in danger. i will take this into consideration when creating my sequence so will have only the antagonist and protagonist as the only characters, making the main focus of the film on them and making the protagonist appear more isolated.