Why we Asked these Questions
What is your Gender?
- This was asked in order to for us to be able to get an idea of whether more males or females were giving us the answers to our other questions. We could then use this knowledge to find trends or patterns in our results, for example, if there could be more males saying they liked action or spy films and more females saying that they liked romance and comedy films, conforming to each of their gender stereotypes.
What age group are you in?
- We asked this in order to get an understanding of what ages were giving us our answers,this allowed us to see if our intended key demographic was actually answering our questions, if not, then we knew we'd be able to expand it and perhaps attract a wider audience than we had planned.
What is your favourite thriller film?
- In order to analyse other relevant opening sequences we needed to find out which thrillers our key demographic thought were best, then we would be able to take key elements from those opening sequences, then alter or develop our original ideas to conform to some conventions and break others - so that our thriller wasn't the same as any other generic thriller movie.
What is your favourite film genre?
- To get an idea of the genres our demographic thought were best, we would be able to make a decision as to whether we would create our opening sequence by conforming to the conventions of the thriller genre or if we would push the boundaries of the genre.
What do you think makes a good thriller film?
- By asking an open question, we allowed people to expand on their answers, if thrillers were their favourite films, then they could elaborate as to why they were, if not then they were able to talk about a different genre than the one they picked in the previous question.
What is your favourite Thriller sub-genre?
What is your favourite Thriller sub-genre?
- We asked this question to separate our initial ideas and choose one that would best suit our target audience. We were then able to narrow down our options to a psychological thriller or crime thriller ; we then decided to collaborate both of them to create our final idea for our film, mixing conventions of both the crime and psychological thriller sub-genres.
What weapons do you expect to see in thriller movies?
- To get an inclination of how brutal of an antagonist to portray in our narrative, we asked this question to see what kinds of weapons people prefer to see. Usually guns end things too quickly and it's difficult to build up tension and suspense in a scene without using a lot of filler dialogue - which can bore viewers - so we added a rope and other manual weapons such as knives, axes and also a crowbar for our serial killer to use - but we also kept the option of a gun for people to choose as it provided them with a bit more variety.
What do you think makes a good Villain?
- We asked this question to get an idea of what factors people liked to see in our villains, as this question could bring a wide range of answers, we left people with a blank text box to be as vague or as specific as they liked. Also, people's knowledge of films varies from person to person, so people will probably have different opinions about how to create a good villain - whether it be the actor portraying them (i.e Heath Ledger's performance as the joker in The Dark Knight) or the actual qualities of the character, like how cunning and ruthless the antagonist is in the movie 'Phone Booth'.
What kind of music do you think builds suspense in a thriller?
- For the non-diegetic sound in our film, we wanted to use it only to create suspense and intrigue our audience, so we gave conventional ideas for our audience to choose from, such as violin music and a music box - which is very common in psychological thrillers, but we also left and 'Other' option because we thought other people may have good ideas which we didn't think of.
"Movies are scarier during the day than the night" - Agree or Disagree
- This question refers to the setting of the film and how people perceive the events of the film. We believed that films in the thriller genre were scarier when set at night and in the dark, and that it can be used to create suspense and an eerie effect. For this question we expected to see most people disagree rather than agree, however some films such as Se7en manage to create tension and suspense without the help of the environment and only due to the narrative.
What weapons do you expect to see in thriller movies?
- To get an inclination of how brutal of an antagonist to portray in our narrative, we asked this question to see what kinds of weapons people prefer to see. Usually guns end things too quickly and it's difficult to build up tension and suspense in a scene without using a lot of filler dialogue - which can bore viewers - so we added a rope and other manual weapons such as knives, axes and also a crowbar for our serial killer to use - but we also kept the option of a gun for people to choose as it provided them with a bit more variety.
What do you think makes a good Villain?
- We asked this question to get an idea of what factors people liked to see in our villains, as this question could bring a wide range of answers, we left people with a blank text box to be as vague or as specific as they liked. Also, people's knowledge of films varies from person to person, so people will probably have different opinions about how to create a good villain - whether it be the actor portraying them (i.e Heath Ledger's performance as the joker in The Dark Knight) or the actual qualities of the character, like how cunning and ruthless the antagonist is in the movie 'Phone Booth'.
What kind of music do you think builds suspense in a thriller?
- For the non-diegetic sound in our film, we wanted to use it only to create suspense and intrigue our audience, so we gave conventional ideas for our audience to choose from, such as violin music and a music box - which is very common in psychological thrillers, but we also left and 'Other' option because we thought other people may have good ideas which we didn't think of.
"Movies are scarier during the day than the night" - Agree or Disagree
- This question refers to the setting of the film and how people perceive the events of the film. We believed that films in the thriller genre were scarier when set at night and in the dark, and that it can be used to create suspense and an eerie effect. For this question we expected to see most people disagree rather than agree, however some films such as Se7en manage to create tension and suspense without the help of the environment and only due to the narrative.
