Research and Planning

Questionnaire

This is part of our research into the thriller genre. To gain information on what the thriller market want, we designed and created a short questionnaire, with questions based around topics key to the genre, and areas we would like to explore. We were asking questions based around age ratings, favourite thriller movies, tension and atmosphere, and scares. We are currently leaning towards a horror-thriller, due to the vast amount of possibilities available to a film maker when making a horror thriller.

The results we received shows a few things with certainty. 70% of the people I asked said that they mainly watch 15 and 18-rated thrillers, which fits well with what we were planning to do. 60% people I asked preferred a horror thriller to any other kind of thriller, which also fits in very well. However, only 25% people said they preferred a slow pace, which is what we were planning to do, so we have decided to do a mixture during different parts of our movie opening, which would allow the majority of the audience to enjoy the pacing. Yet another thing which fitted in well was that 7 out of the 8 people we asked preferred jump scenes to a long drawn atmosphere. However we are planning to incorporate that kind of atmosphere into some of the jump scenes, which should have a great effect. We had mixed responses with the favourite thriller question. Although many said they prefer a horror thriller, we received answers for this question such as "Terminator 2" and "Alien". This is not particularly helpful, but after some discussion we decided that we could draw inspiration from it. 4 of the 8 people we asked said they preferred a tense atmosphere, which again fits in well with what we originally planned, and we can incorporate that easily into the plot.

Overall, the questionnaire helped us to adapt out original ideas into a short sequence, with a good atmosphere and a few scares, which we think the audience will enjoy. It has also helped us when planning the draft plot we created. However, as the sample we used was only from a total of eight people, we cannot make assumptions that everyone has the same views, as the sample we used was not big enough to use as a representation

Plot (Draft)

The draft plot we created was inspired by some of the answers we received from the questionnaire, and it helped us shape a rough sequence of events.

This was the original story we created. We decided due to budget restrictions, and simply not having enough time, we would focus more on atmosphere than action and effects. I think the end result is, in my opinion, better than what we had originally intended, so I am very pleased.