As background information for our Thriller, we conducted audience research in the form of focus group and audience feedback in the style of a small premiere in which we asked for feedback on what the audience though of put piece. A focus group is used as qualitative data, we chose this type of data as we felt it was very detailed and accurate and our results would give us a much more specific overview on the thriller subject.
The participants that took part in out focus group were Simone Newton, Jeremy Williams, Joe Bailey, Mark Bansor, James Dick and Keshav Patel. We decided to ask them a series of questions to help us get a better understanding on our audience’s perception and knowledge of thrillers.
Firstly we asked “What would you expect to see in a thriller?” The group responded that they would expect to see lots of action, suspense and tension within the action and characters, sexual content, men in suits, dead bodies and an eerie musical soundtrack. The second question was “What certificate would you expect a thriller to be?” It was unanimous decisions that the certificate should be 15 to appeal to a wider target audience yet still contain more explicit and violent content. Thirdly we asked “What would you like to see in a thriller?” They answered a venerable female character, twist at the end, simple ideas but yet make you think and have physiological undertones. Next we asked what characters should be featured within a thriller, they reciprocated with a male and female couple, a mysterious character, a funny guy to create humour at appropriate times, and a bad villainous character. They also suggested that there should be a minimal amount of characters so that the plot is easier to understand. We then wanted to find out what target audience we should focus on marketing our film to. We were told to focus on mainly teenagers and particularly young adults of the 18-25 range as these are the people who have the most time and enjoyment on going to the cinema to see these types of films. It was also apparent that the male gender should mainly be targeted, as fast pace action is more appealing to them. Also another unusable concept is that adults with young children may enjoy watching thriller films, if they have put there children to bed and just want to enjoy a good film together. In addition we asked “Where would you expect a thriller to be set?” they replied with an American suburban setting, and at night. Also to create suspense the action could take place in run down areas, forests and jungles. Any areas that is isolated and silent.
Finally we asked “Do you know exactly what a thriller is?” There was a mixed response with one being “A film with everything” which showed that all aspects of genres and hybrids had to be considered. Overall it was a strong implication for a strong plot with suspense and twists. Although overall none of our participants knew what the actual definition of a thriller film was, and with that we noted that we had to include many enigmas within our own piece.
After the filming and editing process of our film, we burnt a copy onto a DVD disc and on Monday 27th April 2009 in a school lunch time decided to host a film screening of our thriller. We invited several of our friends of mixed gender and asked them to watch our thriller closely and then give us feedback and any criticism they wished to share about our project.
The first response was from a group of female participants, Katherine Cunningham, Chloe Isbell, Rebecca Morement, Fiona Evans Francesca Davies and Kiesha Lynch. We mainly got a very positive reaction from all the girls with Kat mentioning on the good use of match editing. Chloe said she enjoyed the variety of shots and the way the use of levels linked together. Fran believed the film created suspense and like and Fiona commented on the good use of soundtrack used throughout the piece. Kiesha explained how she wanted to see more and wanted to know what was going to happen to the characters. Finally Rebecca remarked on the use of our created flashback saying that is was a clever way of creating confusion and enigmas for the audience. Our teacher then exclaimed this style of plot is called a MacGuffin.
Mostly used in thriller films, a MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the audience’s attention and also anything that serves as a motivation, serves its purpose. The MacGuffin can sometimes be ambiguous, completely undefined, generic or left open to interpretation. Generally a MacGuffin is the central focus of the first act of the film, this is in the case of our thriller as we have used a flashback (action before narrative) style to jeep our audience guessing.
Next we asked the male viewers; Josh Ashton, Joe Bailey, Jeremy Williams and Jack McCarthy, most who also participated in out focus group, what their thoughts were on our thriller. The feedback was again highly positive, with remarks again being on the good use of camera shots and how the film creates enigmas. Joe particularly inputted that the music fitted each scene very well, and that the scene where a loud door closes and a close up of a glass smashes onto the floor, gave him a shock and made him jump, something he did not expect to happen within an AS media piece.
I then showed the copy of our thriller to my parents, to see what an older generations judgement would be on our film. Both informed me that it was a very good piece, that the music worked well, it had a mysterious plot and that it was edited to a high standard. Their only criticisms were that the characters needed to be spaced out more as the action happened very quickly – which is understandable for a two minute film and also that when the dialect is spoken it could not always be heard as the soundtrack over powers it slightly.
In conclusion our feedback was of an extremely positive nature, it was mentioned many times that as a group we have included many excellent specific features such as camera shots, levels, and a good soundtrack. We have achieved our initial aim to create enigma’s and suspense for our audience and are pleased with all the participants comments.
The participants that took part in out focus group were Simone Newton, Jeremy Williams, Joe Bailey, Mark Bansor, James Dick and Keshav Patel. We decided to ask them a series of questions to help us get a better understanding on our audience’s perception and knowledge of thrillers.
Firstly we asked “What would you expect to see in a thriller?” The group responded that they would expect to see lots of action, suspense and tension within the action and characters, sexual content, men in suits, dead bodies and an eerie musical soundtrack. The second question was “What certificate would you expect a thriller to be?” It was unanimous decisions that the certificate should be 15 to appeal to a wider target audience yet still contain more explicit and violent content. Thirdly we asked “What would you like to see in a thriller?” They answered a venerable female character, twist at the end, simple ideas but yet make you think and have physiological undertones. Next we asked what characters should be featured within a thriller, they reciprocated with a male and female couple, a mysterious character, a funny guy to create humour at appropriate times, and a bad villainous character. They also suggested that there should be a minimal amount of characters so that the plot is easier to understand. We then wanted to find out what target audience we should focus on marketing our film to. We were told to focus on mainly teenagers and particularly young adults of the 18-25 range as these are the people who have the most time and enjoyment on going to the cinema to see these types of films. It was also apparent that the male gender should mainly be targeted, as fast pace action is more appealing to them. Also another unusable concept is that adults with young children may enjoy watching thriller films, if they have put there children to bed and just want to enjoy a good film together. In addition we asked “Where would you expect a thriller to be set?” they replied with an American suburban setting, and at night. Also to create suspense the action could take place in run down areas, forests and jungles. Any areas that is isolated and silent.
Finally we asked “Do you know exactly what a thriller is?” There was a mixed response with one being “A film with everything” which showed that all aspects of genres and hybrids had to be considered. Overall it was a strong implication for a strong plot with suspense and twists. Although overall none of our participants knew what the actual definition of a thriller film was, and with that we noted that we had to include many enigmas within our own piece.
After the filming and editing process of our film, we burnt a copy onto a DVD disc and on Monday 27th April 2009 in a school lunch time decided to host a film screening of our thriller. We invited several of our friends of mixed gender and asked them to watch our thriller closely and then give us feedback and any criticism they wished to share about our project.
The first response was from a group of female participants, Katherine Cunningham, Chloe Isbell, Rebecca Morement, Fiona Evans Francesca Davies and Kiesha Lynch. We mainly got a very positive reaction from all the girls with Kat mentioning on the good use of match editing. Chloe said she enjoyed the variety of shots and the way the use of levels linked together. Fran believed the film created suspense and like and Fiona commented on the good use of soundtrack used throughout the piece. Kiesha explained how she wanted to see more and wanted to know what was going to happen to the characters. Finally Rebecca remarked on the use of our created flashback saying that is was a clever way of creating confusion and enigmas for the audience. Our teacher then exclaimed this style of plot is called a MacGuffin.
Mostly used in thriller films, a MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the audience’s attention and also anything that serves as a motivation, serves its purpose. The MacGuffin can sometimes be ambiguous, completely undefined, generic or left open to interpretation. Generally a MacGuffin is the central focus of the first act of the film, this is in the case of our thriller as we have used a flashback (action before narrative) style to jeep our audience guessing.
Next we asked the male viewers; Josh Ashton, Joe Bailey, Jeremy Williams and Jack McCarthy, most who also participated in out focus group, what their thoughts were on our thriller. The feedback was again highly positive, with remarks again being on the good use of camera shots and how the film creates enigmas. Joe particularly inputted that the music fitted each scene very well, and that the scene where a loud door closes and a close up of a glass smashes onto the floor, gave him a shock and made him jump, something he did not expect to happen within an AS media piece.
I then showed the copy of our thriller to my parents, to see what an older generations judgement would be on our film. Both informed me that it was a very good piece, that the music worked well, it had a mysterious plot and that it was edited to a high standard. Their only criticisms were that the characters needed to be spaced out more as the action happened very quickly – which is understandable for a two minute film and also that when the dialect is spoken it could not always be heard as the soundtrack over powers it slightly.
In conclusion our feedback was of an extremely positive nature, it was mentioned many times that as a group we have included many excellent specific features such as camera shots, levels, and a good soundtrack. We have achieved our initial aim to create enigma’s and suspense for our audience and are pleased with all the participants comments.
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