Target Audience: Genre Success Research

Aswell as the questionnaire, it was important to research how popular my chosen genre choice was with the general public in terms of in the cinema. For this I used the uk film council website and its 2009 statistical yearbook.

Here I found a breakdown of the popularity of genres in relation to the money made from films released in 2008.

The genre of thriller appeared to not be as popular as I'd thought, with only 28 releases compared to Comedy's 140, and earnt only 21.2 million in gross box office in comparison to comedy's 222.4. But from my Questionnaires I knew that people did enjoy thrillers, so i researched further.

This table however, appeared to show a different story. Based on the amount of money made from the films in the first weekend at the cinema as well as the box office gross, the top two films of 2008 were Quantum of Solace and The Dark Knight, both of which in the thriller genre.




Aswell as in cinemas, the thriller genre appeared to make money in DVD sales. In 2008, 8.5% of DVD sales were of the thriller genre, ranking fourth out of 12 genres in the UK.

From my own research as well as that produced from my own questionnaire, I found that Thriller is indeed a popular genre, with a wide range of interesting sub-genres. The idea of suspense will be interesting to create and therefore my own research has backed up the decision to create my own film opening in the style of a thriller.

Target Audience: Questionnaire

Before even thinking about ideas for the production, we needed to define our potential target audience for the genre of a thriller, and through producing and conducting a questionnaire we were able to get some useful information that would help us create a final product that would satisfy the audience watching.

This consisted of eight questions, first determining age and gender, and then going on to find out exactly what it is people enjoy about thriller films.

When asked why people enjoy thrillers, 9 out of 24 said it was for the suspense, and 7 for the enjoyment, whilst only 5 said they looked specifaclly for a good storyline. From here it was concluded that suspense was not a only a key convention, but was an important factor in keeping an audience interested.

Question 5 asked the audience exactly what it was they expected to see in a thriller in terms of themes. As you can see here from this tally chart of general results, the most popular thematical expectations were murder, crime and combat, with gang warfare also being a popular choice. It was these results that helped us later when creating the idea for our piece.

When asked what kind of techniques audiences looked for in a thriller, 'Tension/Release' was an extremely popular option, just as suspense had been earlier on in the survey and so we were reminded again of its importance. 'Mystery' was also favoured aswell as 'Action Sequences'. The 'Martial Arts' option didn't receive much interest and so we thought we'd stray away from a martial arts styled film opening.

Finally we asked our audience, divided up into categories of 15-21 (7), 22-25 (6), 26-36 (5) and Over 36 (6) what types of characters they enjoyed watching. Although this question was quite specific it was useful when drafting our ideas. From this: Undercover Policemen, Gang leaders and 'The Victim's Point of View' all were equally popular and we took this into account when creating character profiles for the roles in our own film.

1 Minute Video Continuity Piece

In order to familiarise ourselves with the camera equipment and learn about the rules of filming, we drafted a storyboard and filmed a 1 minute video.

Inside this video, we had two main focuses. As well as filming to the best of our standard, we were to concentrate on maintaining the 180 degree rule; that the camera had to kept on one side of 'the line' in order for the shot to make sense.

On top of this we had to include on our video what is called a 'match on action' which involves connecting two different views of the same action at the same moment in the movement. In our video, we chose the opening of a door.

I found that our continuity piece went successfully, that we didn't break the 180 degree rule and that our match on action worked well. At first i found that when playing back our shots were not following on from one another, but this was merely a case of pressing "pause" in between filming rather than "stop".

Our finished video can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeXfVUxO8sU

Textual Analyses of Thriller Openings

In order to be able to create a film opening sequence to fit into the thriller genre, I needed to research what these openings usually include. For this, I analysed the openings of:

1. The Day After Tomorrow (2008)- A Disaster Thriller
2. The Manchurian Candidate (2004)- A Conspiracy Thriller
3. The Sixth Sense (1999)- A Psychological Thriller

These were fairly modern films, films I felt would use modern techniques in their openings that would be relevant to the audience I was aiming my own film at.

1. The Day After Tomorrow

Credits:

-Black screen, straight clear font positioned at bottom of screen.

-Titles quite small, look business-like, no effects just fade in and out.

-Music quite eery, classical, like an orchestra.

-Colours are simple.

-Throughout the credits the setting is shown, camera pans quickly over the setting in order to build tension and set a quick pace.

Opening:

-Date and time used to set setting.

-Sound of the wind is atmospheric, brings in the theme of climate that is vital to the film.

-Fast action and camera movement lets the audience know its going to be a fast-paced film, like a thriller typically is.

-Sound of machinery also builds tension, foreshadows that something is going to go wrong.

-Silence is effective along with a close-up of character's face as realisation hits them.

-Aerial shots help to set the scene, (relevant to such a large motion picture, may not be possible in own production)

-Music: drums to build tension, aswell as sound of ice cracking.

-Relevant props: machines, costumes suitable for climate and time setting which is modern. Props also indicate setting is modern-day.

-Lighting is bright, as daytime and set in ice which is bright.

Opening gets straight into action, which is typical of a thriller and follows conventions of keeping audience on edge.

2. The Manchurian Candidate

Credits:

-Black screen.

-Titles in colours of American flag, works as politics are a strong theme throughout the film.

-Effects on titles, move like a flag.

-Like The Day After Tomorrow though, font is small in size and plain, no curled effects.

-Titles in middle of screen.

-Music is upbeat, more modern, contrast with the black screen and effects on titles that build tension.

Opening:

-Medium shot of soldiers playing cards, sets scene of war setting.

-Modern style reggae music that contrasts with the setting of inside the tank.

-Titles still in corner.

-Close up of faces to introduce characters.

-At first, the atmosphere seems calm, with little tension. However contrasted with the setting this is daunting as you expect something to go wrong.

-Straight cut, natural style editing.

-Sounds of voices over music.

-Cuts to long shot of war scene, quiet- sounds of wind.

-Again, date and time used to set setting.

-Silence used for tension.

-Main characters on own introduced in individual shots.

-Props fit with the army, military costumes.

-Lighting more subdued in van.

Overall, The Manchurian Candidate follows similar conventions in terms of the titles, and that the films begins with action, yet the tension here is less obvious.

3. The Sixth Sense

Credits:

-Black screen.

-Small plain titles in centre screen.

-Titles fade in and out.

-Slow transition to build tension.

-Music is eery, orchestral again.

-Violins along with slow fade of titles build more tension as this is a psychological thriller, instantly get the audience in the eery mood.

Opening:

-Music carries on to continue building tension.

-Fade in to close up of bright lightbulb, abstract shot.

-Silence as medium shot of woman coming towards camera in the cellar, gives impression someone is watching her. Silence is eery.

-Lighting is dark, sets the mood.

-Cuts to medium shot of couple in home, sets the scene.

-Quiet music and hustled talking, change of shots adds mystery, almost seems as though its not in chronological order.

-Long shot of house in darkness and use of shadows build suspense.

-Sounds of glass cracking seems natural in contrast with the music that builds tension.

-Straight cut editing.

-Close up of faces to show reactions, personal.

Sixth sense uses the same technique of understated titles and music in order to build suspense. Like the other two, it uses a combination of digetic and non-digetic sound and i like the effect this brings to the opening.