AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Questionnaire for expectations of thriller genre:

Please circle your best chosen answer.

 

1) Which gender are you?
Male?
Female?

2) What age group are you?
15-18?
19-30?
31+?

3) What type of sub genre of the thriller genre do you prefer?
Drama?
Sci-fi?
Crime?
Action?
Comedy?
Mystery?

4) Which is your favourite thriller film out of the following..?
Psycho?
Donnie Darko?
The Happening?
Paranormal activity?
Other _____________

5) What type of music do you think should be played in a thriller film?
Eerie?
Mysterious?
Up-beat?
Calm?
Classical?

6)Which location would best suit a thriller?
Woods?
Abandoned house?
Every day setting?
Shopping centre?
Other? ________

7) What factors do you think build up the atmosphere of a thriller film?
Special effects?
Sound effects?
Acting?
Realistic based plot?
Mise-en-scene?
Props?


8) Who would you watch a thriller film with?
Girlfriend/Boyfriend?
Family?
Friends?
Alone?


9) Who would you expect to be the victim within a thriller film?
Female?
Old person?
Hero/Heroine
Teenager?
Parent/Career?
Child?


10) How often on a regular basis would you watch a thriller?
Once a day?
Once a week?
Once every two weeks?
Once every month?
Once a year?
Never?

11) Have you had further post sixteen education?
Yes?
No?

12) How would you find out about media?

Magazine?

Telly?
Broadsheet?

Redtop?

Internet?

13) Do you enjoy reading books?

Yes?

No?

14) Do you have any hobbies? If so please specify

Yes? ________________

No?

15) If you had money going spare, would you consider buying a thriller film?

Yes?

No?

16) How would you first find out about a new thriller film?

Radio?

Internet?

TV?

Cinema?

Newspaper?

 

 

 It is very important to do audience research before chosing the final idea for a thriller opening. It allows you to find out what people want in a film. A director might have many ideas and have a basic story line in their head of a thriller they think to be "the latest thing" but if the director doesn't have the best intentions of the audience at heart, the thriller could end up losing a company lots of money as it doesn't appeal to the market. A target market should be chosen, thrillers usually appeal to teenages over the age group of 15 to much older adults. The BBFC gives most thrillers the legal age requirement of 15 years old and anyone under this age could find the film distressing. With thin in order, we chose to give our questionnaire to people over the age of 15 to ensure that everybodies responses are valid and we don't base our film on people who won't yet be able to watch it.

Idea 3

 STORY LINE:
Main idea of a psycho being the main character.
 The mans daughter dies. She's a rebellious teen who goes against her fathers religious views.
 The story will occur at a grave yard. There will be flashbacks of how the father murdered his daughter (drowning in a bath) and show his cold personality through his lack of emotions when standing at her grave.
 The man found his daughter an embarrassment in modern day society and wanted to keep his biblical views in the family. Her rebellious lifestyle caused him to become insane and break down resulting in a murder.

CLOTHING IDEAS:
 Provocative teen age clothes (mini skirts, leather jacket etc.) -Things which will show an obviously rebellious outburst through personal choices in clothing.

By wearing clothes such as this, it shows the girl to be provocative. A mini skirt stands for a girl being "easy" and conflicts against the religious views of the father in the biblical quote of  "no sex before marriage."

The father would wear clothes such as a suit. This will show that the family are from a normal background. His suit will be black with a black tie contrasting against a white shirt. This will represent the good and bad in him through the colours of his outfit. White stands for everything good and peaceful, where as black contrasts this and reflects the darker side in his personal religious views. The suit will also fit in with the theme of death. It will work as a mark of respect at his childs funeral which he will be going to, even though he was the one who killed her.

PROPS:

Pills (shows the mental state of the father)

Religious necklace of a cross

The bible (shows he has commited a crime and in confiding in God)

Bath (place of murder)

TITLES AND CREDITS:

Name of the thriller- "Black Water"

Titles for the film- Our titles will be done on the macs at school. We will write the names in black text, this shows the dark side the film will have and gives the audience an immediate assumption within the first few minutes of the film. This writing will be on water, this connotates the place of murder being commited in water and shows the danger which water has within the film.

Idea 2

Hostage situation

Abattoir (set at Henrys house)

Main idea of a girl being kidnapped and held hostage. The dad wants to save his little girl.
 The kidnapper's aim is to get the maximum amount of money as possible by threatening to kill the girl.

Inspiration: The film "Taken" is about a girl being stolen and taken into prostitution. Her dad (an old security guard) is adding upp the clues to find his daughter. The main idea of  a vulnerable girls dad fighting to get his child back.

Costumes-
 Black clothing worn by the dad to show his seriousness.
 The kidnapper would wear a balaclava to hide his identity from the girl.
 The girl would be wearing casual clothing which would be raggid from the way that the man had kidnapped her. She would have make up down her face and look like she hasn't had a wash for a while. Her grubby look should show the audience a time bracket of how long she has been tied up for.

Props-
Rope
Knife
Gun
Dead animals (add a freaky effect and show the kidnapper to be a psycho)
Phone
Briefcase
Money

Titles/Credits-
Name of idea 2: Prisoner
 Titles for film: All black background. Only able to see the girls face. This inspiration is from the film mirrors as they used an expression of fear to show roughly what had happened so far.

Idea 1

WW2 based theme

Location: based in the air field of Folkingham
Icludes- historic equipment, war machinery, fields, tractors, hangers, silo's

The story line of this would be a pilot going to war and dies, his soul still stays at the air field, His wife/girlfriend visits it to "feel his presence" as something is telling her that he is still alive.

Costume ideas:

 The women would wear dresses just below the knee, normally with pleats in them to make them look as feminine as possible. Little gloves were popular in those days with lots of frills and buttons to do up. Fashion was a big importance in the 1930's and women dressed as women, trousers would not be worn by women during these times. Hats or head wear would be worn regularly as accessorising an outfit was important and having a full set (hat, dress and shoes) would be worn when going out on an occasion.

 The man would wear a full pilot outfit. It would need to have the ranking stripe on their blazer to show the importance and the wing badge to show they belong to a regiment. The hat and goggles are important pieces of this outfit as it gives a strong indication that the character is a pilot. The mise-en-scene would work well in this location as the idea of a pilot would fit perfectly in the field full of planes and equipment based on wars.

Location:Brief history outine.
There is a very old road leading down to the airfield. It was open in WW1 in Folkingham due to England needing as many military bases as possible. It was originally a "decoy" site. During the days there were many planes and military forces taking up the air fieldIn 1943 it was redeveloped into a bomber airfield. Then in 1959, it was turned into a missile base. When the missiles were used and taken out by the late 1960's the airfield was left weaponless.

Titles And Credits
Paranormal activity- The titles will be placed in a blood red colour to represent the idea of death which occured in the film. Paranormal is about ghost activity reflecting on our main idea of this thriller opening and we thought it would be aesthetically effective to use as our credits.

Donnie Darko

To focus on the symbolisms within a text...

 The Rabbit which occurs throughout the film “Donnie Darko” is a surprisingly scary feature of the film. Rabbits, to most people would be thought of as a fluffy cute animal, known as a pet for children. An innocent child’s mind would be unable to think of such a horrible creature. Doing so would suggest to us that the child could be experiencing some problems occurring in the mind and seen by many members of the audience as mentally unstable.  “Frank” (the bunny rabbit) could symbolise the mentally traumatic childhood which Donnie Darko has experienced to be on the pills, which are displayed, as being so important in the film.

The BBFC

 British Board Of Film Classification

What is it?   The reccomended age which a person aught to be to see the film in question.

 This is very important for many reasons. Firstly, if parensts let their child watch a film which was very violent and had lots of scenes including nudity, they would be outraged that they didn't know this information before going into the cinema and sitting their child down to watch it. The trailer advertising a film doesn't always add in the most horrific parts of the film, so when paying customers sit down, they get a film which they did not expect to see and this could cause many complaints and leave cinemas with minimum profits as people would stop buying tickets. The BBFC give a fair opinion what audience the film is most suitable for. 

 SUITABLE FOR ALL. It's hard to know what could effect and upset each individual child. How ever a "U" film is an all rounder, for anyone over the age of 4 years. No threatening behaviour or bad tensions should be made through these films. Nothing relating to sex, horror or threats should be in a "U" film to ensure the younger members of the audience can watch it without feeling uneasy. It should have a positive moral behind the film and should be suitable for the individual watch of a pre-school child.

PARENTAL GUIDENCE. A General film how ever some specific scenes may be unsuitable for a pre-school child to view alone without becomming a little scared. A child of the age of 8 should be fine to watch it alone however any child younger than 8 should have parental permission before viewing it to ensure no problems will be caused after the showing.

 12 YEARS AND OLDER. A young child could find the scenes in one of these "12/12A" rated films unsuitable for a child under this age. This age is for cinema use only. No child may enter a "12A" without being accompanied by an adult. The parent has the right to decide whether the child would be ok to watch the "12A" but the same film could not be brought or rented in a shop for video use by a child under the legal age of 12.

FIFTEEN YEARS OLD ONLY. Noone under the age of 15 could enter a "15" film at the cinema of buy/rent the film from a shop. Even if accompanied by an adult the individual child must be over the legal age to go into the film and see it. Cinema's regularly ask for the birth date's of the people going in to watch it as no legal ID can be given unless a passport is taken, however this is unlikely to take to the cinema and is the legal age group which is broken mostly at cinema showings as children can easily lie about their age. It is up to the ticket seller to look to see whether they believe the birth date which they have been given to let the child in question in or not. This age group is allowed swear words of a thame nature. Sex, nudity and violence but not in extreme proportions.
This is the right age group to set our thriller opening at. A good thriller should have a sense of mystery involved and fear should flicker through the audience at different points of a film. The feeling of fear should not become so intense and over powering that viewers find it distressing. Violence should not be very over the top, not only would this be a component of a film rating"18" but could also lose many viewers, through making it to hard to watch. Sex and nudity could be involved in a thriller film but by making the age rating "15" you would not see the act happening. The film would give hints to suggest that it would happen but not show you the actual scene.

 18 YEARS OF AGE ONLY. Noone under the legal age of being classed as an adult in the UK may see an "18" film. In the cinema ID will be asked from individuals as the film could be very graphic with violence, sex and nudity, swearing or sexual violence. Nobody under the legal age of "18" could rent or buy the film without identification of either a driving liscence, passport or other formal document.

 LISCENCED CINEMA'S ONLY. This is the most unknown age restriction. This film can only be displayed in liscenced cinemas. Involves alot of sex and adult scenes with things such as fetish material involving adults. These kind of films can only be sold/rented in "sex shops" by a person over the legal age of "18". It is the strictest age liscencing and identification would be very strict. It is the only age restriction which says you CAN NOT order a film by mail to arrive at your house. It HAS to be purchased. It would contain very extreme scenes found very distressing by a person under the age of 18.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

 Started up as an American company in 1912. Paramount was one of the very first national distributors. In the early days they were only sold with in their reigon, this was very costly as it wouldn't reach the maximum target audience it could expand too otherwise.
 Paramount Pictures believed that Actors were crutial in the films and that companys would invest in them through the ownage of these actors.People who wanted the early stars which paramount had invested in such as Mary Pickford needed to pay for a years worth of other paramount pictures. Paramount was then in a very good position of wealth.
Paramount was very popular in the famous "New York City" not only through shooting films there but by displaying their cartoon characters in the theatres there.

 During 1931-1940. America was going through the "Wall Street Crash" which nearly left Paramount Pictures in deverstation. Zukor got rid of his earlier partners during this time and was voted up to chairman of the board, luckily this abled him to get the pictures out of bankruptcy! When they were fully recovered, they invested in many more actors/actresses and were selling around 70 films each year. They were very famous for creating Betty Boopy, this ran smoothly for a while however people thought of her as too "sexy" and demanded more clothing and a longer length skirt. Paramount rebounded with Popeye The Sailor Man making people think of them as good again and regaining loyal customers.

During the years of the way, Paramount Pictures drew back strongly on the amount of films which they were creating as they realised that people wouldn't buy them when on rations and extreme money shortages. People would stay at home not go out to be entertained.

The next major event for Paramount Pictures was that it teamed up with Universal Studios to form Cinema International Cooperation this meant distributing films out of the US as a pair.

1984-1990 Paramount Pictures hit Hollywood! Paramount is part of Viacom (an international media company) and features in over hundreds of films and cartoons. It is very popular and has gone through success after success from the early 1900's and is getting bigger and better each day and providing people with hours of entertainment from timless classics to modern action movies. It's a globally known industry. They also linked in and paired with dreamworks for other films and earns billions of dollars each year through the popular demand of sales by consumers eager to watch the latest releases.