Questionnaire Analysis -Miss Miller

After creating a narrative and having different ideas, as a group we created a questionnaire for others to complete. The answers to the questions will help us change or add to our idea to make it appeal to a larger number of people. Once the questions were answered, we gathered the results and ordered them into a pie charts which are displayed below.

  

From the results of this question, we can see that the majority of people asked are aged fifteen to seventeen. This is positive information as our thriller film is age certificated 15+, therefore information following on from this will be useful, as we will want to make our sequence appeal to our target adience. Overall, our thriller sequence should appeal to our audience (which is the majority at 57%) and possibly the 28% 18+, showing that the audience can be assorted.

Stereotypically, men are known to prefer thriller films over women. These results have shown that our idea could work as the killer within our sequence is female. Therefore, women would be more interested in the thriller but men would be too as that is what is typically known. The characters within our sequence and the narrative is unique, and from the results shown above, this will appeal to a wide ranging audience, including different genders.

Again, this highlights what we can add to our opening scenes. It shows how restricted it could be by not going as far as an eighteen certificate. These results also show that a certificate aged twelve is not an option as a lack of people prefered that aged certificate. This also shows that we can still add conventional thriller aspects such as violence and death, we do not have to appeal to the age of twelve/make the opening childish. Lastly, these results are extremely helpful as 65% prefer to watch a certificate 15, which is our chosen certificate for our thriller, therefore it will appeal to the audience.

The large amount of answers linking to 'good plot' and 'element of shock' fits well with our idea. This is because our is quite fresh and new unlike the typical thriller plot. Although our plot is unique, it still included the element of shock, which is conventional and is what the audience want included. This will interest a wider audience as it contains a twist/element of shock.

Alike the other question, this has added to our idea and helps us link in what others want to see. This is because our thriller sequence contains shock and surprise, a unique plot and a hidden identity, contributing to 78% of this pie chart. From this, we realised the strength of our idea and the importance of the audience. The audience needs always have to be taken into account to make a successful thriller film.

From this we can see that sequels are not always vital. Therefore, we do not have to worry about the ending of the film being a cliffhanger and then have to make a sequel to gain popularity. Overall, people would only watch sequels if it appealed to them and if the first film was enjoyable. This shows to me that a sequel is not crucial which is a positive point as a plot like ours, would be difficult to make into a sequel therefore the first film should be quite detailed.

This has extremely helped us in thinking about the different sounds that can be used in our opening. The opening will contain the killer/bride reminiscing over her ruined wedding day and her mental state. This shows that dialogue isn't vital and that we should focus on creating the atmosphere by using different sound effects such as eerie wedding bells and a typical thriller soundtrack. From this, we can incorporate non-diegetic sounds to appeal to the audience, and make our opening sequence more successful and full of suspense.

Luckily, our thriller will contain all three of these types of characters, appealing to a large number of the audience. The killer will be a woman/bride which is original, referring back to the female gender. From this, we have decided that families/friends should be incorporated in the opening sequence, and possibly made victims, appealing more to the audience. From this, we have seen that characters can be conventional and we do not have to worry about creating hugely unique characters, as long as the audience feel empathy towards characters and bond with them, through the use of different techniques such as mise-en-scene and cinematography.

From the last question I find that typical characters can be used for example victim/killer however I can link this question to that and allow those characters to be unconventional. The victim did a negative thing, and that's why he has become the victim and the killer is in a negative frame of mind and has faced negative situations therefore, the audience's view is unapparent. This is because the victim status continues to cross over, causing the audience to engage with the narrative.

 These results luckily link to our desired setting of an attic in a house, causing our idea to strengthen and appeal to a wide ranged audience. This chosen setting is domestic as the audience feel a sense of normality, which contrasts to the typical thriller mood of creepy and frightening, this causes the audience to feel uneasy as they are awaiting for a negative event to occur. This specific setting also links to the dark and mysterious answer as the audience are left wondering what will happen next. Also the dark room highlights the bride/killer's emotions, causing the audience to engage with the characters and their bond to strengthen Lastly, the setting would be isolated highlighting loneliness and the idea that the setting is not safe. 

As the main character is at a mental state, the actor playing the killer would have to be committed to the role and make the audience believe what they are seeing. Overall, this links to the character playing the role well, and should be discussed before creating our opening sequence. Lastly, the attractive female result, can be contributed as a conventional, blonde victim can be added, to make the audience feel emphasise with her and their bond to strengthen.

This shows that sub-genres are not vital to a thriller. Therefore, we can focus on the thriller aspect and conventions that we can use for that genre without having to add a sub-genre. From these results, we can focus on thriller elements, causing our opening to strengthen and appeal to the audience as different conventions are added.

These are positive results for us as luckily our characters and plot are not typical and are original. From this, the audience are more likely to choose to watch our thriller as it isn't typical and is unlike a film viewed before. I believe that our idea is quite new and different but still contains the typical thriller elements such as shock, surprise and suspense.. Also, as the plot introduces the killer's bad experience and mental state it should not contain a large amount of violence/gore and more psychological problems, and the feelings of the different characters, causing the audience to bond with the different characters and to be intrigued by the plot.

This questionnaire will be extremely helpful with further planning of our opening sequence, as the audience's ideas can be added, appealing to a range of different people. For a thriller to succeed, it needs to be watched and liked by a large amount of people. By making this questionnaire, it has been helpful to fulfill that. Below, a video of a person answering the questionnaire.

To conclude, the questionnaire helped to find what can be added to make out idea appeal to more people, and a wide ranged audience. Also, we discovered that the audience wanted to see an idea that is unique/original. Therefore, we need to make sure that our opening sequence will fulfill this. Following on, we need to make sure that our opening sequence contains the aspects of the thriller genre that the audience would prefer to see (such as shock, surprise and suspense.) The questionnaire results also helped us think about our chosen age certificate, and what to add in the opening sequence to stay true to that certificate (a 15+.) To conclude, we plan on incorporating as many different elements that the audience would like to see as possible, to make our opening sequence more successful.