Genre Survey

I created a genre survey so that we could get a greater understanding of what various audiences expected from a thriller genre film. I asked a total of 50 people to take part in the survey, i aimed to gather an indication as to what direction we could take with our production as essentially the audience is the key to our production. I asked a total of 9 questions:

1. Male/Female
2. Age Range
3. What age range would you think a thriller genre mostly appeals too?
4. What draws you in to a thriller film? E.g. The music, Action, plot etc...
5. What Sub-thriller genre are you most drawn too?
6. What setting would you typically find within a thriller film?
7. What sort of characters would you expect to see within a thriller film?
8. Within a thriller film what aspect builds tension most?
9. What was the last thriller film you watched, and how did it build tension in the best way?

Questions 1, 2 and 3 gave me an indication as to the different target audiences that were given me feedback and the target audiences that were most intrigued into the thriller genre. I created question 4, 6 and 7 as open ended questions so that i could get a wide level of feedback as to what actually brings viewers into thriller films, and what draws them into a thriller film. i hoped that due to the open ended questions it would make us get a greater understanding of the thriller audience as we may have picked up on something that we had never of thought about. I got a great level of feedback. It was obvious from the large number of people that agreed that the plot and characters must capture them immediately and last through the whole period of the film. as well as this it was widely thought that the music must create tension throughout the film. The survey also suggested that location was key and i had received a large proportion saying that a location that an audience can relate too, have a sense of familiarity will create great amounts of tension as well as this grim, dark, mysterious, eery and hostile locations were also well mentioned.

Question 5 suggested that viewers of thriller genres have a varied taste in the sub-genre they preferred watching for a thriller film. Action and horror thrillers came marginally top just above psychological and drama thrillers in the most preferred, which was then followed by sci-fi then crime thrillers. although it was clear that everyone has there own favorite, it showed how the most appealing seemed to be action and horror.

As a group we were adamant that within our production it was vital that we created tension, this would be key in creating a great thriller. On questions 8 and 9 i received some great feed back as to what the audiences felt about tension. An overwhelming majority said that music was the main attribute as to creating the sense of tension. It was also taken into account that Acting, Lighting and Setting were also key contributers in creating tension.