Audience Research

As a group we have created a questionnaire that we've distributed to 20 people to gain information of our target demographic, their opinions of Thriller films and aspects of a trailer that encourage them to go and watch an upcoming film. We've asked various questions that we feel will help us when creating a plot for our film and further more creating a trailer for this film. 

Results

Question 1:

The first question we asked was What gender are you? and from the results you can see that we ensured that we had equal responses from both males and females. We felt out results would be more reliable if the the opinions and feedback that we got were from both gender's points of view as someone's gender will influence their ideas and opinions. 

Question 2:

The majority of our respondents are aged 15 to 18 which is helpful as this is the age group that our film is likely to be aimed at. After researching into the Thriller genre, the majority of popular thriller films are rated 15 or 18. Therefore we felt it would be relevant if many of our respondents were this age. We also don't want to just have our film directed at only one age group, although our main demographic is 15 to 18, by having the opinions of others we can hopefully open up our film to a wider range of people.

Question 3: 

Our next question was very straight to the point as we simply asked whether they enjoy watching thrillers and as we can see from these results, the majority voted Yes, they do enjoy watching thriller films which suggests that it is a popular genre. It may not be to everyone's preference as a few voted No. However, it will help us to have both peoples opinions so we can find out about why those who voted Yes like thrillers. and why those who voted No do not, and hopefully we can create a new original trailer for a thriller to encourage those to enjoy our film.

Question 4: 

Our next question is open-ended and asks for their favourite thriller film. We felt it would be helpful to obtain this information and discover what Thriller Films are most popular amongst our target audience as we can then research into some of the trailers for these films and analyse what makes them successful, whether they have used typical conventions of a trailer for a thriller and this will improve our knowledge for what we need to create a successful trailer. The most voted for film was Shutter Island which is a Psychological Thriller. The next most popular films were Secret Window, Se7en, Inception, Black Swan and Panic Room. 

We also asked Why this was their favourite thriller, and the answers the commonly occurred were ...

Question 5:

We want to live up to these expectations and create a trailer that conveys these emotions as if this is what they expect to see and feel then this is what we will try to include.

Question 6:

The next question is purely based on the respondent's opinions of trailers and what they think makes a good trailer. The top answer was it must have a 'fast pace', which is one of the conventions of a thriller trailer which we learned from our deconstructions. Trailers for thriller often pick up the pace nearing the end of the trailer to build up tension and excitement. The next most popular answer was flashing images, which links with the idea previous idea as once the trailer is at a fast pace the images will also be flashing quickly. The next two answers were good music, which we feel is very important to have a good soundtrack as it can also build suspense and make a trailer more thriller. Dark setting also indicates conventions of a thriller. 

Question 7:

This question we asked was to discover how effect trailers are and whether they actually are the reason why many people go to see a new upcoming film. We found that 18 out of our 20 respondents answered Yes, that they do influence them to go and watch a film. Therefore the trailer must be of a good standard and is crucial in promoting the film well. 

Question 8:

We have chosen to create a trailer for a film of the Thriller genre, therefore this closed question is purely to see what sub-genre of thriller our demographic enjoys the most, and as we can see from the graph, psychological thriller is the most popular answer closely followed by supernatural. Which suggests that our audience enjoy elements of the horror genre within a thriller. We have ensured to research into each sub-genre, but Political, Legal, Romantic and Spy Thrillers received zero votes which shows that these are of the least popular and therefore we will not be basing our trailer on any of these sub-genres specifically. 

Question 9:

This question investigates how our target audience normally knows that a new film is being released. We gave the option of trailers which were the main source, but we also asked where they see the trailer whether it is on Television, On the Internet or at the Cinema. The main answer was on Television, but also a large proportion of the remaining respondents answered Online and at the Cinema, proving how much influence trailers have. This is also helpful for us as we now have more knowledge on where to display our trailer. 

Television trailers seem to be the most popular, therefore we need to create a suitable trailer for TV that can be displayed in between programmes in the adverts, therefore we must think about the timing and other such issues. No one voted for Posters or Magazines, showing that they are not the most direct way of discovering about a new film, therefore we feel we must create a magazine cover and poster that changes the opinions of our demographic and ensure that this is a useful way of knowing about a new film. 

Question 10:

From our AS Coursework, we found that displaying the titles of a film needed to be eye catching, stand out and was an important feature of our final product. Therefore we wanted the opinions of our demographic, to know where they prefer to see the titles within a trailer. The End of the trailer was the most popular answer, which in trailer like Shutter Island, they have done exactly this, and seems to have worked to create a memorable and thrilling trailer.

The least popular answer was The Beginning, and we feel this may be because the audience feel they want a build up to the title of the film to add suspense of what this film is. 

Question 11: 

This question was simply asked as we found that cast and directors names are commonly shown in trailers, and from this question we can see why. 75% of our respondents are influenced by who is starring in the film and the director. Therefore we need to take this into consideration and include the names of these people in our trailer as it is obviously of some importance to our audience.