Questionnaire

As a group, we decided to do a questionnaire to see what type of audience we will actually end up appealing to with out final thriller opening, and also to narrow down the audience that we plan on aiming at. So, we thought of some relevant questions, and we now plan on asking people from mainly the age and audience that we intend to appeal to (eg. university students), but also to other people as well, to get a wider sample, and to see if our thriller would appeal to a larger audience than we actually intended.

Here is the survey we are going to send out:

When we get the results back, we will post them on here so everyone can see if we are aiming for the right kind of target audience with the thriller we are going for.

Audience

As a group, we decided to create a detailed character profile of the type of person that our thriller opening is trying to appeal to.

Our audience is about 20 years old, and are considered to be intelligent. Many of them go to university to study subjects like English and Psychology. They are predominately male, but the margin between the genders is small.

Our audience is interested in finding out more about the world around them; they do not accept what they are told without first questioning and coming to their own conclusions. They are interested in conspiracy theories, but are realistic about them - for example, although they might believe that the government are hiding something from the general public, they are more sceptical about aliens.

They also enjoy socialising, and are by no means friendless. Many people would consider our audience to be 'the life and soul of the party' because of their confident nature and friendly demeanour.

When it comes to thrillers, our audience enjoys a more complex plot which requires them to think and make judgements for themselves, rather than having the plot spoon fed to them. For this reason, they prefer psychological thrillers such as 'Eagle Eye' (D.J. Caruso, 2008) and 'Memento' (Christopher Nolan, 2000).

In order to appeal to this audience as fully as possible, we decided to make our thriller a psychological-conspiracy thriller, with a complex plot that requires the audience to make some assumptions for themselves.

Initial Ideas For Thriller Project:

As a group, we all used a recent lesson to decide on general outlines/ideas for our Thriller, we wrote a spider diagram which includes the whole groups ideas and opinions.

Next lesson we hope to make our best ideas definite, and get started on times for filming, locations, actors, make-up costume (etc.)

Psychological Thriller

For our thriller course work we have many ideas for different sub-genre's but the sub-genre we think that we will be doing is a psychological thriller. So I thought I would do some background research into it.
The simple definition for a psychological thriller is: 'a suspenseful movie emphasizing the psychology of its characters rather than the plot'. An example of a plot in a psychological thriller is: 'the characters are exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one'. My source for this information is definition.com.
To find out what sort of psychological films that are most popular, I went and found out what the 10 most popular films are. I got this list from a website called 'top10thrillers'. The results I found was:
1. Silence of the Lambs - 1991
2. Rear Window - 1954
3. The Manchurian Candidate - 1954
4. Taxi Driver - 1976
5. Se7en - 1995
6. Memento - 2000
7. The Usual Suspects - 1995
8. Play Misty with me - 1971
9. Straw Dogs - 1971
10. Les Diaboliques - 1971
To check this list I also went on other websites to see if other lists differ or are similar. Overall, the lists are similar, however, some lists say Memento is better than Silence of the Lamb but the rest of the lists are near enough the same. Throughout all the lists I found, Psycho wasn't on any. This surprised me as I thought it would be near the top. This is because its an old film but its a classic and still complex.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - El Laberinto Del Fauno (2006) - Guillermo del Toro - Fantasy Thriller

1. What is revealed to the audience?
A black screen is shown, with non-diegetic sound of heavy breathing, accompanied by a woman humming a soothing tune. Writing appears, and the audience becomes aware of what is occuring before and during the storyline (Spain 1944, after the civil war, the armed resistance against the new fascist regime) The camera then slowly pans to a young girl with blood on her face, breathing heavily and obviously in distress, the camera pans anti-clockwise into a close-up, to show that she is lying on the ground. A voiceover then begins to describe a fantasy world, where a young girl longs to enter the real world, and does so - clearing her memory and killing her; her father swears he would wait for her to return to him.

2. What is conventional?
- The element of the unknown
- The main character is introduced; the audience feels confusion to the manner of her introduction; as she is badly hurt and struggling to breath

3. What is unconventional?
- Having a good and thorough understanding of the backstory to the storyline; whilst still maintaining the element of the unknown
- The camera angle when panning into a close up of the main character's face, as she turns from the edge of the frame to the center

4. How has it inspired me?
It has inspired me to perhaps explore a rare sub-genre of thriller, and daring to be unconventional and individual, while still using fairly simple techniques of sound and camera shots/angle and managing to successfully create an unknown for the audience.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - Pulp Fiction (1994) - Quentin Tarantino - Crime Thriller

1. What is revealed to the audience?
A black screen with the definition of 'pulp' is shown - it seems to have two, very seperate meanings. an american woman and british man are then shown sitting at a booth in a diner, smoking and drinking coffee, the man discusses how he will "never do it again" - it then becomes clear they are talking about robbing banks etc. and how it would be much easier then what they are doing now. The decide to rob the diner; as it becomes clear they are a couple. The woman seems calm to begin with, until she pulls out a gun - creating a different persona; beginning to swear and scream. The frame showing the couple holding guns is then frozen, music then enters along with a black screen with titles appearing slowly.

2. What is conventional?
- The opening raises a lot more questions than it answers; the audience is unsure if they are main characters, but they seem (to begin with) fairly essential to the plot so far - as well as it beginning half way through a conversation.
- During the dialogue there are conventional over-the-shoulder shots or mid shots of individuals within the conversation
- The lighting is fairly dim - showing an ordinary setting.
- The violent nature at the end of the opening sequence.

3. What is unconventional?
- The definition of 'pulp' before the title of the movie.
- The viewer feels involved with the characters - the 'hipness'
- Forshadowing seemingly pointless things to the plot.

4. How has it inspired me?
I liked the false sense of ease you are put into throughout the opening, a seemingly typical setting, and calm atmosphere surrounding an odd conversation, resulting in violence.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Stanley Kubrick - Crime Thriller

1. What is revealed to the audience?
Barely anything is revealed in this opening - there is a mid shot of a strange and sinister looking male; staring at the camera menacingly. The camera then pans out slowly to reveal 3 more men beside him - all staring blankly, without purpose. The panning continues into a long shot, causing many more people to be revealed. A voiceover begins; the audience then becomes aware the sinister male is named Alex, Alex continues to tell the audience the name of the 3 men beside him (while the camera continues to slowly pan away from them) and describing how they are planning to do with the evening, whilst similtaneously drinking, what is hinted at, some kind of drug or hallucegenic.

2. What is conventional?
- The title sequence; a blank red screen, changing to blue and quickly back to red - the red connotes violence in this case.
- The editing is predominantly made up of straight cuts to begin with...
- Slow, rhythmic and a quite haunting harmonic playing throughout opening - creates tension
- Main character(s) introduced to audience - through voiceover - fairly conventional

3. What is unconventional?
- No diegetic sound
- The main character staring into the camera - not letting it leave his gaze
- The mise-en-scene raises a lot of questions, the setting is out of the ordinary, as well as the clothing and make-up.

4. How has it inspired me?
I really like the unconventional way Alex stares into the camera, and when the camera slowly pans out revealing more people surrounding him - which includes the way it is all one shot with no cuts between, creating a completely smooth yet, sinister shot.