Some pictures of the Thriller genre

Specific questionaire

Chloe has taken a Specific questionnaiire to find out more about our target audience and their interest in the thriller genre. Chloe has videoed a few people being interviewed and asked them questions about thriller films, what they find effective and what they think of our ideas for our production.                                                

This questionnaire will help us with creating our thriller film opening as we now know what our target audience is looking for in a thriller opening. Above is the video of the interview and list of questions asked.

The results we got from this interview were quite interesting and very helpful to us. Chloe found out that not everyone likes the thriller genre but for the people who do, some prefer the horror thrillers that involve murder, violence and creepy and gruesome scenes. She found out that people are kept engaged when there is a twist to the film, and when theres a lot of action. Also the audience like it when the film is very tensed but when she interviewed someone they said no becuase they do not really like the thriller genre. Chloe also found out that the audience find it more effective when there is music in the opening as it can create tension and suspense and that it can sometimes be effective if an over voice is used at somepoint in the opening.

From this questionnaire we have learnt that most people do like the thriller genre and the people that do are more or less round the same age, it is mostly teenagers and young adults who watch thriller films. This questionnaire will help us in our production as we have now got useful information about our target audience, we know what elements we need to include to make our thriller opening appealing and effective.

Emilys findings:

Horror Thriller Genre

All thriller films have differant sub genres which they come from, this could be action thriller or horror thrillers. The main one which most directors choose to base their films on are the horror genre as it tends to make the film more intresting as it scares the audience.

Aspects of films which tells the audience that the film is from a horror genre are as followed:

• Suspense
• Tension
• Dark environment
• Mystery

Horror thrillers are most exciting when the audience feel an atmosphere of what is being shown in the clip. For example when their is a dark scene being show, we may get an atmosphere and sense danger and that something bad is going to happen as we sterotype dark things as being bad.
Examples of good films which are in the horror genre are:

• The silence of the lambs
• 28 days later
• Pysco

Pysco is a iconic film from the horror thriller genre as it has many scenes in it which shows the thriller side. As you can see from the video above that straight away the audience can tell that this film is not going to be a happy film as it starts with music which gets your heart racing and shows clips of body parts which makes the audience start to ask questions such as 'is the person dead?' By the horror film making the audiece ask these types of questions it makes them want to carry on watching to see what happens next.

A man standing with a knife is iconic as a knife is a dangerous object which is now days a main weapon which is used to kill other people. Most horror genres have 'males' who are used to act as the murderer in the scene, this makes it more intense as we are use to watching men in films bring tention as they leave us woundering what is going to happen next.

Pysco is an old film being the reason why it is in black and white, however we there being no colours used we still know that this type of film comes from the horror thriller genre as we still get the cold feeling of what is happening. For example when their is differant shots of what we think is a dead body.

This film also is a crime genre as their is a murder investigation going on so the murder has to be sussed to who killed the person. By crime genre being used it links well with the horror genre as their is a 'murderer' on the lose which would begin to scare the audience as they dont know whethere they are going to get found or not.
By the opening of this horror film having dialogue, it tells us the story of what is going to happen which scares the audience into watching the film as they want to know whats going to happen next.

Youtube Video Clips

Seven



The Game


Zodiac:

Case Study

Name: David Fincher

Age: 48

Nationality: American

Kerrys Audience Research

General Questionnaire

Kerry took a general questionnaire to explore the audiences veiws on film and music so that she can improve and think about our thriller opening. By taking this questionnaire Kerry has now developed a helpful audience profile. It will help us when creating our opening as it means that we have more knowledge on the type of music and films people prefer and how to capture their attention when watching our thriller opening. The results show that different age ranges and genders influence peoples likes and dislikes. Below shows the questions which were asked the questionnaire

.

1.)What film genre do you prefer?  
2.) What age bracket do you fall into?

3.) Do you buy films online?

4.) How often do you go to the cinema?

5.) Are you male or female?

6.)What is your favourite film?

7.)Who is your favourite actor?

8.) Do you own more than five  DVD's?

9.) What genre of music do you listen to most?

10.) What was the last film you saw?

 From completing this questionaire Kerry found that the younger people who she surveyed prefered rock and pop music and owned more DVD's and brought more films online. Whereas the older people who she surveyed went to the cinema more and prefered more romantic and comedy films. I gave out my questionnaore to 15 people and received a variety of results, however she found similar results to those of similar ages. This could show that nowadays the media around us has changed and influenced us differently. I have learnt that when creating my film we need to take into consideration our target audience because if we dont refer to what they want to watch it wont appeal to them. This task has helped us to understand that we need to make sure our film will captivate our target audience. From these results we will develop this further into a specific questionnaire as well as a one to one interveiw.

One to One interviews

For my one to one interviews i wrote out 12 questions to do with the thriller genre and asked three people to answer each question. My original idea was to film everyones answers however nobody wanted to be put in front of a camera so i changed my idea to writing the answers down to the questions which i was asking my peers. I interviewed three people which come from differant age groups; one from the elderly, one from middle age and lastly a teenager, by me doing this me and my group can see the age group who are mostly intrested in thrillers and who we should base our target audience on.

To the left, i have taken a picture of the questions which i asked; as they are not clear they are:
1. Name?
2. How old are you?
3. Do you enjoy watching films?
4. What do you think of the thriller genre?
5. When you watch thrillers do you understand the storyline?
6. What types of thrillers do you enjoy more, action or horror?
7. In thrillers, stalkers and murders are usually men, would you find a film more intresting if it was a woman?
8. My idea is (i then explained) what do you think of this idea?
9. Would you be intrested to go to the cinema to see this film?

10. What part of a film captures your most attention, beginning, middle or end?
11. If a thriller is set in a dark environment do you find this more intense?
12. Do you like films which are mysterious and leave you guessing?

The first person who i interviewed was Tracy who is 43 years old. From Tracy's interview i found out that she enjoys watching films and that Thriller is her favourite genre so was intrested to hear my idea of a storyline. Tracy prefers to watch horror thrillers rather than actions as they intrest her more, and says that she will only understand the storyline depending on how good it has been directed. From this me and my group will have to take into consideration of how we are going to direct our film so that everyone will understand our storyline.

When i asked Tracy the idea which we have in mind for our film she found it very intresting as she said it leaves her with questions which she wants answered whcih would make her carry on watching the film. I have found out that it would be best to set a thriller in a dark environment as it sets up more tension.

Secondly i interviewed someone from the older age group of 63. From interviewing this person, i have found out that elderly people do not really enjoy watching up to date films which in our case means that it wouldnt be a good idea to base our target audience on elderly people as most do not like to watch thrillers.
Pat was intrested in the idea which we have in mind for our thriller opening as she said that she would be intrested to see the outcome, however she also said that the way we film it would have to grab her attention to make her want to carry on watching as she doesnt usually watch many thrillers.

Pat commented that the most intresting part of a film which captures her attention the most is the ending  as it concludes the story, in this case we would not have to take this into consideration as we are only filming the opening sequence.

Analyse of 'Mimic'

Mimics opening credits starts with an high angle shot over New York whilest its snowing. By the opening scene starting with snow, it gives us a cold feeling as it must be winter.
The music which is being played throughout the opening sequence is a low beat which builds up tention as it gets louder at certain stages. The music builds the tension by making the audiences heart rate increase as it begins to get louder.

Butterflies are usually used to represnt happiness, however in this situation the film director has used butterflies to represnt death as their are many butterflies which have pins in them to show that they are harmed, in pain and danger. The butterflies give away to the audience that the film is going to be a disturbing film which will be in the thriller genre as it is associated with bad things.

In the background of the main soundtrack their has been some diegetic sound, the diegetic sounds are butterflies flying with their wings touching; this gives the audience an idea of the life which the butterflies did have but now that has been taken from them. A big bang can also be heard in the background which could relate to a gun shot or thunder which once again are both a negative image towards the film.
Editing has been used to merge differant shots together, which makes it effective to watch as you dont get a clear image of what is about to next be seen. Editing has also been used to take colour away from pictures to make the shot look more dull looking and more dark.

Analysis of opening credits of 'Se7ven'

The opening credits of se7ven comes across to the audience as mysterious were we see the characters actions but dont see the actual character themself.
To make the opening credits effective, they have used alot of 'close up' shots to show the characters action. For example we see that their is an image being cut up and the close up shot shows the audience what the image is. The film director may of chose to use alot of close up shot as it doesnt let the audience see much of the character.


The way how the camera is postioned throughout the opening credits is changed to leave the audience asking questions. For example, we see that their is being a letter wrote but as the camera is postioned on to the paper which the letter is being wrote on, it makes the writing blury leaving the audience woundering what the charecter is up to and asking questions. The way how the camera is postioned is clever as it engages the audeince as they want to know more information on the character which hasnt been identified yet.
Music is played throughout the openings which builds suspense as the beat in the music increases, as their is music played during the openings the flim director has not used any diegtic sound.