Survey Results

Part of the research stage is doing audience research, meaning that you can create something they want. To do this I created a questionnaire which asked:

Do you watch films often?
Favourite genres?
Last Thriller Seen?
Favourite Thrillers?
What should be in a thriller?
Most important aspect of a film?
Protagonist associated with Thrillers?

The people I asked were part of the Audience Profile (see earlier post) and so were male (and female) between the age of 16 and 25.

The results of this went with the research I had done earlier, with everyone I asked saying they watched at least 3 films a week, and that the 3 most watched genres are Thriller, Comedy and Action. The last thriller watched varied but was either ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ (recently released in the cinema), ‘Inception’ (one of the highest rated thrillers of the last few years) and some of the older surveyed stated the last thriller they had seen was ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ (also recently released in cinemas). Inception and the Chris Nolan Batman films were some of the most popular thrillers, along with Sherlock Holmes: aGoS and some more action orientated thrillers like Law Abiding Citizen, V For Vendetta and The Departed.

Those surveyed all felt that the main parts of a thriller are twists, suspense and thrills. They also feel that story and character are the most important aspects of a film, which is what a trailer needs to communicate successfully. The characters in a thriller could be a number of things, but lots of people felt that there needs to be a conspiracy, and that the hero should be a professional, a soldier or police officer etc. The characters also need to be mysterious and to a point relate-able.


From this I know what type of story I could do for my target audience, and what elements to include for it to be seen by my target audience.