Research into Target Audience - Miss Miller

Research into Target Audience

Introduction

We decided to carry out this research to get a better understanding of what type of audience we should focus on making our thriller film for. We wanted to see what type of narrative and conventions people thought were entertaining so that we could apply them to our own opening narrative. We asked 40 people to gain a representative idea of how many people enjoy thrillers, watch thrillers and etc. We used these results and applied them to our idea for example the average age was 15/16 which means we are able to make a sequence that is suitable for slightly older audiences without scaring the more younger, sensitive audience.

This is the questionnaire that we made and gave to 40 people in order to gain the most accurate and reliable results. We included 7 closed questions and 3 open questions to gain more qualitative data.

   

Here we are able to see a true representation of what the majority of which gender has taken our questionnaire. This shows us that most of our answers would be answered from a male,meaning that our results may not accurately be a good representativeness of women, but will be of men. This means that we need to remembered after gaining our results to consider women as well and there feelings towards thriller films.

The majority of people here are aged 15/16. These students could be in year 11/12 and this displays a true demonstration of the usual age thrillers start at, most children/adults ages 15+  are the ones that are able to start watching thriller films as the BBFC usually set erie, thriller films at an age minimum of 15. This gives us a true representation of the target audience we are aim for and how the following questions have mainly been asked by the appropriate age group. This has helped us plan our opening sequence as we know that the majority of our audience are able to witness moderate violence and disturbing story lines without being to young and sensitive for this type of material.

Here we are able to see what percentage of people who actually like thriller films in general. We now know that 85% enjoy watching thrillers, Whereas only 15% don't. This gives us an understanding that the majority of people watching our thriller opening will enjoy it. This has helped to contribute to our thriller opening as we now know that the audience are expecting something rather unique as the majority of them enjoy a good thriller.

Here we see most people actually enjoy thrillers, More then half of the 40 people we asked said thrillers were one of there favourite genre. This gives us an understanding that the majority of these 40 people will enjoy our thriller opening and actually class it as one of there favourites.  This encouraged us to think creatively about our thriller opening because if the audience are stating that there favourite genre is in fact a thriller then we know we need to set out thriller high if we where going to compete in the film market. 

 Most of the people here preferred the films that contained a mysterious story line or a killer with a hidden identity. Here we are able to watch Psycho and Shutter island and be able to  study and take notes on what makes these films successful. Both of these films include very physiological story lines which include characters that are sometimes displayed as being very disturbed and the story lines may not always be in chronological order, creating confusion within the plot. We now know that the audience prefer to have to figure it out themselves and understand things better themselves as it supplies mystery to the story. This means that we are going to try and present this in our own thriller film. We wish to try and create something that leaves the audience a little scared, a little disturbed and a little bit confused. This has given us a whole new understanding on what settings, characters and narratives people prefer to have within a thriller film.

Here we can see the percentages of what type of sub genre people prefer, the most popular choice was psychological which supports our own idea of making a psychological thriller as we wish to use a unstable character that plays with the audiences psychological mind, some of the audience suggested something that wasn't within the options meaning that we were unable to get a true understanding of a favourite sub-genre, but from what we have learnt here people do enjoy a slight mystery and disturbing narrative within there thrillers. This has given as a wider view on what type of category our thriller opening will fall under. With the use of a mentally disturbed character we are falling into the psychological sub genre of thriller.

Here we learn what type of iconography our audience would prefer. The knife was chosen by half of our audience, this shows that people prefer a more violent and tense atmosphere with it being more personal. People are able to witness a more aggressive attack on someone. The majority of this audience prefer more gruesome weapons. This suggested to us that we needed to corporate this into our own thriller opening sequence. So we decided that a good, suitable weapon to use here would be to use a knife in the murder scene between Cameron and his mother. This would create a more interactive, brutal scene, which this audience would seem to enjoy.

The majority of our audience did in fact prefer quiet and isolated locations, this could be because they prefer a location that doesn't provided any safety or sense of escape. This helps us to decide what type of atmosphere to create in our own film, by changing the setting into an isolated scarier one. This is used in all our planned settings. As in the first scene we have arranged to have Cameron hang him self in a dark alley way/corridor. The following scene is in a compact kitchen that allows no escape for our character grace. In our final scene the character Harmony appears isolated as she is alone within the scene. There is no evidence of human activity when makes the scene a whole lot scarier as we have learnt from this target audience.

Here we see that 50% of the 40 people asked like the scary aspect of thrillers but 50% don't. This means that in our own thriller we need to focus on creating something that continues to be erie but not frightening enough to actually terrify people, this will help balance out the frightening aspect in our thriller. This is going to be done by maintaining a suspenseful atmosphere throughout the thriller opening but make sure that there are no sudden jumpy moments, unless crucial for effect. 

Most of the people that where interviewed liked the idea of hidden identity. Due to more then half of the people preferring it. In our thriller we may want to have a lot of enigma and mystery to leave the audience suspecting, how, when, who and why?. We are planning to do this by having Cameron's death in the beginning of the opening sequence and then flash back. This is to create confusion within the audience and although the audience know Cameron murdered his mother they are unable to conclude why. Which is what would leave them watching our thriller Disturbia if it was a whole feature length film as they would want to learn more about this story.

Vox Pops

Vox pops have been used a numerous of times within the media. They are video or audio representations of interviews. For example if someone wanted to carry out a survey they could also use vox pops to one, prove that they have carried out the research rightfully. Or two, to look back over the vox pops and observe the interview for future improvements.

Below I have 3 examples of the vox pops I have presented for my research. This is to portray qualitative data within my research as well as just the written percentages which are quantitative data. I am also able to see what three examples these people fall into and even elaborate further by focusing on there reactions and facial expressions.

Conclusion

I was able to find out a lot of useful information that will be incorporated into my thriller. For example the use of an isolated setting and hidden identity are crucial for creating a disturbing and entertaining scene for this type of audience. If we plan to create a good thriller opening we also need to consider the story line, which by doing the questionnaire we have learnt people prefer mystery and psychological aspects.

If i was to repeat this research I would venture out of the school and ask parents and older generation to gain a valid representatives of the population.