Stick Insect Productions: Audience Research

This is part of the audience research I did, as well as Fun and Patty going round the school with questionnaires. I asked a few people a variety of questions including favourite film genre, sub genre of a thriller, and their favourite films and why, and received very different answers from each.

Stick Insect Productions: AS Preliminary

                                        Actors: Funn and Gahlid
                                        Camera: Patty
                                        Directed by: Grace and Patty
                                        Edited by: Grace and Patty

Audience Research: Results and findings from Questionnaire

Here are some pie charts of the key aspects of my groups questionnaire, which would help us with our production work most:

Gender

According to this bar graph, it is clear that the gender of our target audience are females. This could help us with our opening sequence because this will lead us to what conventions we would need to subvert or make generic conventions in order to satisfy our target audience. The target audience being females could also help us with the role of the character (antagonist) of maybe being a female character, 

which would subvert generic conventions of the antagonist being a male character.

How old are you?

According to this pie chart, the suitable age range for our film could be 16-20 years olds. This shows that we would need to follow a few conventional trends which would interest our target audience. For example, the characters in our thriller could be young and represented in a positive light. Seeing how conventionally teens are portrayed in a negative light, this could make our work more interesting and unusual.  We decided that we need to include an unconventional approach as another one of our questions showed that the majority of the public enjoyed both mainstream and independent films; this would allow us for more creative freedom  Another aspect we could contain in our thriller is to have a setting which our target audience would be familiar with. This sense of familiarity would usually make the audience more interested in the product, making the thriller more successful.

What's your favourite sub-genre of a    thriller?

This pie chart specifies what kind of sub-genres we should include in order to satisfy our target audience. It is evident from the graphs that most people want psychological thriller to be included in our opening sequence. However, there is about 25% of our audience who chose "Crime". This tells us that we should include some aspects of crime. This provided us with an insight of what we could include in our project. For example, the use of drugs and women included in sex crimes. This is because our overall result of gender and age suggests that the theme would be relevant and making our audience more interested in our film.

 

Which do you prefer?

This result tells us that the majority of our audience who took part in the questionnaire preferred independent over mainstream  However, about a quarter of whom we asked preferred mainstream. This would allow us more creative freedom as we could then include conventions of both mainstream and independent films as opposed to just keeping to one aspect. This could mean that we could include some aspects of mainstream conventions, but as the majority of our audience preferred independent, we will focus on projecting independent conventions into our opening sequence.

      

Which do you find most important?

We decided to include this question in order to make sure to know what our group should focus on. The majority of the audience picked plot as being the most important, which means that we should include a strong plot for our story. However, the characters and effect also showed to be quite important which means that we should have an important character selection that the audience can root for and have some interesting, unusual ideas about the effects that we can use to satisfy the audience.

Product Research: Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock (1960)

I chose to do product research on 'Psycho' as it is a classic film and very well known by different variety of people.

As soon as the trailer starts the audience can hear the famous soundtrack of the film which implies its a very 'sit on the edge of your seat' film. The first few shots are very fast and close ups of different parts of the body, including the hand scraping down the wall which implies a scream for help, the close up of the foot being still implies a murder and a man pulling down a shower curtain with a knife in his hand implies danger. The man holding the knifes face is blacked out to create a more mysterious and creepy atmosphere.
The shot of the house showing the front door and a lot of overgrowth of plants, looks very run down and old to suggest to the audience the oddness of this place and how its atmosphere is not what we expect. When the women says to the owner of the motel 'Do you have any vacancies?' he replies with 'We have 12 vacancies' which implies to the audience that its an empty place which not very many people go to.







The shot of the house through the car window with the rain trickling down the front window implies the creepiness of the house and what takes place inside it. We then see a shot of the house at night which creates a spine-chilling and eerie atmosphere, with the added effect of the trees on the right hand side adding to the darkness. The lights aren't on in the upper section of the house to show that there is something maybe hidden and secretive up there.

In this shot we can see the protagonist in the shower. She is in a position in which she is seen as vulnerable and alone. She has no idea whats going to happen next and as you can see there is a dark shadow lingering behind the shower curtain. This is technique is used to build up tension and curiosity for the audience.




Overall I really like this opening as it wasn't to obvious what was going to happen throughout the film, and makes you want to carry on watching it. I also liked Psycho as it is a film that builds up tension all throughout and has a really unexpected ending. Hitchcock did a pretty good job.

Audience Research: Online Questionnaire

We decided to make an online questionnaire for anonymous members of the audience to fill out so that we can get the most feedback possible.

Here is the questionnaire in two parts:
Part 1
Part 2

Font Conference

Although this isn't strictly thriller related, I found this comedic video which could possibly help us when choosing fonts for our thriller in the future. This made me realise that our group will have to seriously consider the font we choose for our film so that we don't confuse the audience and still manage to look professional (I doubt that Comic Sans would save the day though.).

Product Research: Shutter Island (2010)

I decided to watch Scorsese's Shutter Island in order to grasp more conventions of the psychological sub genre of thrillers. Overall I found the film to be quite enjoyable, yet dull at times. I think that visually, the film's cold colour scheme proved to be rather intimidating; it's clinical brightness made the film disturbing in an odd sense. I think that the remote location of the film also made the film more frightening as there was no clear hope of escape. On the other hand, I think that the mental asylum location, a patient going missing, and most importantly the windy, cold weather were all very conventional of the film's genre, making the film lost it's originality. However, I did note some interesting aspects of the film which I thought could be useful for our group's work.

First of all, I think that the soundtrack of the film is very effective in portraying an enigmatic, forlorn atmosphere. The repetitive use of the ship horn in the film makes the audience feel alarmed as the sound is very unpleasant. I think that also the use of the string and brass instruments also add to the mystery of the film. I believe that the soundtrack makes the audience feel very isolated and alone. Our group could benefit from using a similar type of soundtrack in order to make our audience feel similarly; nonetheless, I believe that using such a strong soundtrack would limit us creatively.

The camerawork is the strongest point of the film. I think that the variety of wide shots, close ups and angled mid shots are what sells the film. For example, in the beginning scene when we see  Teddy Daniels in the bathroom, he is shot from a close up, showing his emotions, displaying anxiety and stress from the very beginning of the film. Unlike many other thrillers, this film does not seem to have a 'too good to be true' beginning. I think that Teddy's appearance also makes the film quite different from other thrillers - although he is the protagonist, he doesn't look perfect; he looks tired and worn out, adding to the intimidating atmosphere. One of the most interesting shots in the film is the blue room on the ship with the shackles. The camera focuses on them instead of the protagonist. I think that this adds a sense of enigma to Teddy's character as he does not fit the conventional character of a hero. I think that the symbolism behind the open shackles also foreshadows some of the plot in the film in a very clever way - the shackles suggest an escape of some sort, matching the conventions of a thriller. I also think that the use of the dark colours in the shot are very interesting, adding to the sense of tension in the scene.