Grace Suiter - AS Media Studies
Audience Research
10th November 2014
Today we were discussing how we would collect audience research and the different methods available. We also brainstormed and collectively came up with some ideas which would work effectively. We thought of questionnaires because they are simple to convert into graphs and interpret the data from. They are also fairly simple to produce and are user friendly. Rhianna and Tommy assigned themselves the task of writing up a questionnaire and they will then assign these to different people; collecting 20 results. We also thought about conducting video interviews which Katie and I have assigned ourselves the task of doing. We decided we would interview four different people; 2 female and 2 male. This is then an equal set of results which we can use to help us determine how we should create our thriller film opening. Below is a copy of the questions Katie and I designed to ask our interviewees. Currently, we have already asked one interviewee;
Josh Obisanya, and he gave us results which we thought would defintely help us with our openings. He said that he enjoyed Action-Thrillers the most because he enjoyed the fight scene and his favourite Thriller film was Indianna Jones due to this factor. Tommorow, mine and Katie's aim is to ask at least one more person, if not two more people, the questions and then we can begin to edit our interviews together to create a clip which shows the answers to our questions in a clear manor.
As a group, we also needed to learn what type of data we would be collecting; quantative or qualative data. We discovered that quantative data is statistical information, whereas qualative data is open questions which allows the interviewee to right down their personal thoughts and feelings about the question. This has helped us tremendously because if we include both types of data, this should help us reach the higher grades which is definitely what we would like to do. It has also allowed us to incorporate the two data types within our questions, both verbally and written.
Interviews
19th November 2014
These are all of the interviews Katie and I conducted over the past couple of weeks and we finished editing them all together today. We found that the qualative data we collected was very useful because we were able to gather our interviewee's thoughts and opinions on the films and topics we were asking about, compared to simply just asking them closed questions. Katie and I designed our questions on the 4th November and shortly after deciding our questions, we decided to go out and conduct an interview. We interviewed Josh Obisanya and he was really helpful with our research; as where our other interviewees. We then conducted our other three interviews the following day and this is the reason as to why the setting is different from Josh's compared to the other three interviews. This a continuity mistake however we didn't believe it was vital enough to change because it isn't our opening scene. However, if we had of had enough time, we would have felt more inclined to change it, but we decided it wasn't a valuable use of our time. Instead, we decided to focus on editing our Video Questionnaires and help Tommy with transforming the data into bars and charts. Our four interviewees were Josh
Obisanya, Arthur Lidgey, Annabel Owen and Katie Greenwood and all four of tham had different opinions and feelings on what thriller films they enjoyed the most. 16 seconds into the interview was a section which we really struggled to edit because it was such a small clip. Katie and I spent a long time trying to make it run smoothly however this proved difficult because we couldn't delete the small section. However, it isn't too noticeable and again we couldn't re-film it because Annabel was wearing a different outfit. Rhianna also made the decision to leave our group because it was a struggle to find a suitable time to work together out of lesson times because our untaught lessons were different. Therefore, she decided to move to Megan, Issy and Milo's group because their study period's worked better together as a group.
Interview Analysis
What is your favourite thriller film?
The information from our interviews was very helpful and informative as to what our potential audience may enjoy. Arthur and Josh both thought action thrillers were the best, Annabel believed Psycho thrillers were her favourite and Katie preffered horror thrillers. This quite a broad range of favourite sub-genres, however on our questionnaires we asked the same question and so we should be able to calculate an average.
What events do you like in a thriller film?
What event Annabel said she liked the ending of a thriller film and finding out what the conclusion is and who has done the bad thing. This isn't particularly helpful because we are creating an opening, however if we make the opening quite suspicious, then this can link to the ending because the audience doesn't know who has committed the bad crime. Arthur said he enjoyed the car chases, fights, gunfights and the punching; this concludes that Arthur enjoys the violence and fast paced action. Katie's favourite part was the murders because it gives her an intense adrenaline rush which create tension. Finally, Josh also said he enjoyed the fight scenes and the action which is a similar response to Arthur. From this, we can presume that the males would enjoy fighting and action, however everybody has their own opinions as to what they do and don't enjoy.
What is your favourite thriller film and why?
Annabel said her favourite thriller film was Saw because it is all unexpected and you don't know why everythings happened and why it's happened. Arthur said Fight Club was his favourite because it is entertaining and funny however this is a slightly anomolous result, even though it is his opinion. Katie said her favourite was Woman in Black because it was jumpy and has a lot of scary moments embedded in it and this is a feature I would like to include in my thriller opening. Josh said that James Bond was his favourite thriller because it is interesting and intrigues him because of all the gadgets and the bad guys which James Bond has to face. Overall, all of the interviewee's enjoy the tension and the adrenaline rush which thriller films create.
Why is this your favourite type of thriller film?
Arhtur said he enjoyed action thrillers the most because it increases your adrenaline and it makes you excited to be watching the film. This is a helpful piece of research because it means that our potential audience do want to be intrigued from the outset and not feel bored from the beginning otherwise they won't want to watch it. Annabel said that she enjoyed the scaryness and the suspense which means that we need to make sure our opening is implicit and doesn't give too much information away. This should then keep the audience guessing and not want our opening to end. Katie said she likes horror thrillers because it gives you an adrenaline rush and this is a similar response to Arthur which suggests that a lot of people must enjoy the adrenaline rush as an element of a thriller film. Finally, Josh said he enjoyed the fight scenes and the suspense of action thrillers and so this must be another element which viewers enjoy because Annabel said a similar response. Overall, this means that our opening has to be suspenseful and increase adrenaline because it's a popular feeling whilst watching a thriller opening.
What do you expect from the characters you see in a thriller film?
Annabel said she expected the characters to be twisted and evil, Arthur said he thought they should be unpredictable and be able to change at any moment, Katie said she thought that the victim should be timid and tense, whereas the villain should be scary and boisterous. Finally, Josh said that the villain should be spontaneous and keep you guessing. Overall, all of our interviewee's believe that the villain should be unpredictable and twisted, whereas the victim should be defenseless and weak. This means that if we portray these stereotypical attitudes, the audience should be able to establish who is the protagonist, antagonist and damsel.
Questionnaires
19th November 2014.
Question 1: How old are you?
As you can see, the majority of the people we asked were between the ages of 16-18. Overall, we asked 13 people between the ages of 16-18 and 2 people who were aged 31 and over. This was not an equal split between the categories however the majority of the people who we are appealing to are expected to be young people and so we have asked a lot of young people. An improvement Tommy could've made would have been to of asked a wider range of people because including our interviews, we asked 17 people aged between 16-18. However, a benefit of asking so many young people is that we can really make our thriller opening appealing to 16-18 year olds and so we know that they should defintely enjoy it, providing we stick to our audience research. I wouldn't say it's a negative, however it could've been
improved if we had asked a wider range of people. It could've been made more reliable however the information we have gathered is reliable for a specific age group.
Question 2: Male or Female?
We asked nearly an equal amount of males and females; 7 males and 8 females to be precise. This is quite an equal split and therefore makes our results more equal and relevant to both genders. This means that if we abide by the results we collected, we can hopefully appeal to both sexes.
Question 3&4: Which sub-genre of thriller is your favourite? Why
The most popular response was a horror thriller because five people selected this answer, followed by action and crime which equally scored four and finally psychological which had three people select it. They are all quite equal answers and so I believe that any of them will be popular because there isn't really a result which majorly stands out amongst them all. People liked horror because they liked the 'adrenaline rush of being scared." Enjoyed the action thriller because you "see the good guy beat the bad guy." Found Psychological thrillers interesting because it "gets you thinking/investigating." They are all different responses and so as a grouo we will have to discuss which sub-genre we will be able to create the best and which sub-genre we think will appeal the most to our audience.
Question 5: What aspects of thriller films do you enjoy the most?
This was a qualative question and suggested many different opinions.
- Keeping the audience intrigued
-Gun fights
-Suspense and mystery (mentioned more than once)
-Car chase/fights
-Character dying
-Plot twists
-Trying to work out what's happening
-Cliff hangers
People have many different aspects they enjoy in thriller films and so if as a group we choose some different events and themes to include within our opening; hopefully we can create an opening which will appeal to a mass audience. If we included too many of these events and themes, it may look too overloaded and then not appeal to anybody or look professional at all.
Question 6: What film certification do you usually watch?
According to our research, the only two film certifications people watch are 15 and 18 which means that these two certifications are what we need to appeal our opening to (15 as opposed to 18).There is quite a large difference between 15 and 18, featured in a 15 film is strong
violence and language, references to sex, drug taking and other explicit images. An 18 film includes more intense variations of a 15; more strong language, extreme violence and horror and gorey images which may be unsuitable for 15 years olds. Therefore I think we should aim to certify our thriller opening to 15 because we don't want to scare viewers too much. None of the responses said PG, U or even 12 which surprosed me because there are some horrors which are certified to be 12's and they can be quite scary.
What film certification do you normally watch?
Question 7: Do you prefer old fashioned films or modern films?
Overall, as you can see from the pie chart (on the right), the majority of people prefer modern films more than old fashioned films. However, there are 3 people who like both just as much as each other. However the majority vote is
modern films and so we have to appeal to the majority vote as opposed to the minority vote. If we appeal to the larger audience, it is common thinking that a higher percentage of people will want to watch it. Whereas if we appeal to the minority, then a considerably smaller percentage of people will want to watch our thriller opening. We also have to be unopinionated as to what we prefer because it isn't us we are making the thriller opening for, we are making it for viewers. This is how real directors and film producers have to think because otherwise they wouldn't get millions of people watching the film they produced.
Question 8: What location do you expect a thriller to be in?
The majority answer was an urban setting and we can easily see this from the pie chart on the right. An urban setting would be a busy, upbeat setting however this is quite surprising because normally it is quite a secluded and dingey are; not a highly populated and busy area. However, a housing estate and woods was the second joint majority vote and this was not surprising because they are fairly stereotypical settings for thrillers. I would prefer to shoot the opening in a woods or secluded area because it builds tension. On the other hand, if our potential audience would prefer it be in an urban area, then as a group we will have to consult with each other and decide which setting we believe would be the most appropriate. Finally, as you can see from the pie chart, nobody chose a space setting which means we can automatically eliminate it from our options. However, it would've been impossible for us to create a realistic space setting because we do not have the equipment, experience or time to create something realistic or professional looking.
What have I learnt from collection audience research?
The audience research has been extremely helpful because it has enabled us as a group to identify what is popular and what isn't. I already had an idea as to what I thought would be popular and I was mostly correct, apart from the location. I presumed people would prefer a secluded area, however the majority vote was an urban area. This surprised me because I thought that an urban area would be too busy and overpopulated for a thriller film. However, because it was a popular answer, as a group we defintely have to consider it. It has showed us which sub-genre we could create; Fantasy is unpopular and phsychological thrillers were also not as popular as I presumed they would be. Overall, audience research has opened my mind as to what will be popular and what will not and so it has definitely been a successful task to complete. The qualative answers were also extremely useful because it allowed us to gather peoples thoughts and feelings which was more in depth than a quantative answer. However, the quantative questions were easy to interpret and collect.