AUDIENCE SURVEY - THRILLERPre-Production Research – (Small Group)

Question 1This is probably as straightforward of an answer as I could hope for, as shown by the results of this question sound is crucial to building suspense within a thriller. Although sound is extremely important it doesn’t mean that I will ignore the other elements of a film when looking at building suspense and tension.

Question 2A lot of my audience preferred preferred the psychological sub-genre to other sub-genres, this is good as my short film is intended to be a psychological thriller. I chose this genre because I knew it was successful and that it has a lasting effect on the audience as it makes them think more about what they are watching. The second highest was the mystery sub-genre, this is also good because I want to make the structure of the film a lot like a mystery, in that you will find out what’s really going on by the end.

Question 3One of the things I was certain on going into this task was that I wanted to have a dramatic ending that made the audience remember the film. It is clear that the audience too value a dramatic ending/twist very highly judging by these results. Developed characters was also selected a few times and I have been looking into developing characters so they have multiple layers and are able to intrigue the viewer on a higher level.

Question 4This result went as expected even though I worded the question quite vaguely. Although slow editing outweighs fast editing in the results I think I will use a combination of the two in the actual film, this way I can slow down the pace when I’m trying to build tension and speed up when the action is taking place.

Question 5A lot of people chose linear storylines as their preferred structure, which surprised me a little but then I realised that it was probably down to my wording of the question. When I put linear I mean ‘beginning, middle, end’ with a resolve at the end. When I put cyclical I meant that there would be no clear resolve to the issue and events from within the film could relapse and be used in other sections of the plot. By putting (disorderly) I immediately put off a lot of people answering the question as they would interpret that as confusing and no one wants to be confused.

Question 6A lot of people say that they don’t understand the film ‘Inception’ however my audience research shows that the majority of my audience do understand it, which reassures my faith in having a cyclical narrative or “disorderly” which Inception is a good example of.

Question 7A main concern of mine is that I wouldn’t have enough dialogue to keep my audience entertained due to the fact a majority of my short film so far involves the main character alone. A lot of my audience seem to be fine with reduced dialogue. I’m not saying I’m making a silent film but at times it will be the main character on his own and I don’t want to put dialogue in just for the sake of it.

Question 8The preferred number of characters in a short thriller film seems to be around three judging by the results of this question. This is roughly what I had expected and I am most likely going to be staying below three characters as I want to have the main focus on the protagonist’s isolation (hence the title ‘Exile’).

Question 9It was no surprise that trailer was the most popular option in this question as it is usually the most appealing part of a marketing scheme as you get actual footage from the film. Obviously I can’t make an entire trailer because that is an entire brief on its own but I can make a teaser trailer. A teaser trailer is easy to do and can be really effective at drawing in an audience, I have already been thinking of ideas for my teaser trailer, which I will blog soon.

Question 10One of the most important aspects of a thriller, if not the most important aspect, is the protagonist as they are the one the viewer identifies with in the scenes of tension and suspense. In certain scenarios it is important to have a male protagonist as apposed to a female protagonist because of gender stereotypes and audience expectation. The film ‘Die Hard’ would be received completely differently if the protagonist was female because it subverts traditional gender stereotypes. My short film could feature either gender because I haven’t enforced any gender stereotypes strongly. My audience prefers a male protagonist and I had already lined up a male actor so it works for me either way.