Thriller Questionnaire (Question & Results) and Audience expections of a thriller

This a questionnaire that used :

 

Questionnaire

(Please circle your answers)

 

1.      Gender

Male                Female

2.      Age

Under 12         12 – 15            16 – 19            20 – 23            24 +

3.      Do you go to the cinema often?

Yes                  No

If 'No', Why?

............................................................................

4.      Do you like going to the cinema?

Yes                  No

If 'No', Why?

............................................................................

5.      What’s your favorite film genre and why?

.................................................................................................................................................

6.      What do you expect from a thriller film? (Multiple Choice)

Crime              Suspensions                 Investigation                Romance                   Comedy

Adventure         Death                           Drama                         Fast Paced                   Other

          

7.      Do you watch thriller films?

Yes                  No

If 'No', Why?

............................................................................

8.      What thriller sub-genre do you prefer to watch?

Conspiracy        Crime                          Disaster                       Psychological              Political

Spy                  Supernatural 

I asked 20 random people to do my questionnaire and this is the results I got from it:

Question 1

Most of the people I asked was males, 12 out of the 20 people were males. This shows nothing really just that I asked 4 more males than females. On the other hand, it could affect the result due to the fact ia sked more males than females could say this is what most males think, rather than what both gender think.

Question 2

Most of the people that I asked were between the ages of 16-19, due to the fact that I asked a lot of people in my college who happen to be in that age ranges that were most popular. Like question 1, this shows nothing and it only shows the ages of people I asked. On the other hand, the result could not generalilse all the ages which means that it could be bias of people in one particula age group. 

Question 3

This question the results were 50/50, 10 people saying they do go cinema often, and the other half saying they don't as much. The group that circled the answer 'no', most of them said to me when I asked them why, that they do go cinema but they don't go as often as they would like too due to a time factor. 

Question 4

Most of the people that filled out my questionnaire (85%) said they enjoy/like going to the cinema. When asked why. Most of them said it’s because of that going out feeling and the fact that the cinema screen is nothing like the T.V they have at home. The 15% that circled the answer no said it's because they find the process of going 'long' and at times a waste of money.

Question 5

Everyone that took my questionnaire knew what the word 'Genre' meant. Most of the people (65%) said that the genre of action is their favorite genre, and their reasons for this was because it make you laugh and it creates ideas (enigmas) in their heads of what happens next. The next genre they said that they find their favorite is comedy, due to the fact it makes them laugh. When ask what type of comedy they like most of them, if not all said they like Rom-Com.

Question 6

Crime (30%), suspense (25%), death (20%) and fast paced (15%) were the four top answers in my questionnaire. When I asked why people expected these things, most of them said that because you just expected either someone killing or doing a bad thing and someone is trying to find out who this person is or trying to find this person who they know.

Question 7

Most of the people who did my question (95%) said they do watch thriller films. The person that said no, the reason why they said that was because they don't find it interesting and they felt they are boring and predictable.

Question 8

At first, due to the fact that some of the people that I asked were not Media students, so I had to explain to them what a sub-genre is and give examples of them such as political thriller and gave an example of a film (The Interpreter (2005). After I did that, most of them (35% each) said crime and supernatural thrillers.

DVD/Poster Analysis

This is an analysis of a front cover of the DVD The Unborn (2009)

still frame analysis

In this still frame from the crime-thriller film named Colombiana (2011) which is about a female protagonist, Cataleya Restrepo (played by Zoe Saldana) who her parents were killed in front of her seeks out revenge from her parents killers. In this image, there are many aspects of the image that can be mentioned on.

In this shot, the protagonist, Cataleya is the only person in the shot and even though she is positioned on the left side of the image, she still shows her dominance in the shot and shows she is the main character. The shot used a mid-shot which shows half of her body, and that is effective because the audience are able to see half of her body and we are able to see the gum she is using. Also it always the audience to see the different side of the women which is countertypes the original stereotypical women. We can tell that she isn’t a typical stereotypical woman because of the clothes that she is wearing and the fact that she has a gun in her hand which isn’t normal for a woman to have in her hand.  Plus, the fact that she isn’t screaming as she is holding a gun but by the firing of it you can tell that she is quite but when she needs to she would make a lot of noise.  In addition to that, the serious stiff expression on her face shows the audience that she isn’t there to look pretty but she is there to do her job and get her job done as good as possible. The Lighting is natural and because of that you can see the light of the firing of the gun which allows this to be the focus on what she is doing. Also the fact that the background has no lighting could show how dark she could be or feel about the job that she is doing.

Main Task - Group Members

The names shown below are part of group 1, which was picked by my media teacher Laura Hoopwood. These group members are part of the main film task.

- Seun Jonah

- Denzel 

- John

- Kelsey

The main task will be a thriller opening (no longer than 2 minutes).

Below is the initial brainstorm ideas, the group came up with.

existing films production companies research

Paramount Pictures Corporation is one of the largest producers and distributors of films in the globe. Paramount has a range of multi-divisions in all areas such digital, home entertainment, network and cable television distribution, studio operations and consumer products and recreation as well has having on the world’s best film studio's and movie makers in the world had has a great reputation for producing thriller films that have won many awards.

Paramount Pictures Corporation all started back in 1912, when Adolph Zukor got American distribution rights to Sarah Bernhardt's four-reel film. The success of the opening of the film Queen Elizabeth on July 12th, 1912 was the first full length drama shown in the US and that made Zukor join the group of Famous Player Film Company. This group began to produces movies in New York, and made films such as The Prisoner of Zenda and The Count of Monte Cristo, and one year later Zukor invested in a film distribution company that goes by then name of Paramount Pictures. On June 28th 1916 was the day that Paramount history changed. The Jesse L. Lasky Company, which was producing films in Hollywood, merged with Famous Players to form the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation. The corporation consolidated its production and distribution divisions, and audiences began seeing the iconic "Paramount Pictures" label.

With this new merge, it generated enough money to create a new Hollywood studio and cost $1 million and from that they received the very first Academy Award for Best Picture from the member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. During the years, Paramount create some of the most iconic movies in American film history and that includes Romeo & Juliet (1968) which won two Academy Awards; True Grit (1969); The Godfather (1972) which won three Academy Awards and is considered the film that elevated the gangster drama genre; and Chinatown (1974). As well as that they have produced other great movies such as Star Trek (1978, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1989); Airplane! (1980, 1982); Friday the 13th (1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989) which was some the most iconic thriller films made; Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, 1984); and Beverly Hills Cops (1984, 1987).

In 1986, Paramount got a 22% share of the domestic box-office revenue which made them twice as welathy as thier closest competitor. In stiduo had five of the years's ten top-grossing films: Top Gun, Crocodile Dundee, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The Gloden Child and Freeis Buller's Day. The worldwide sensation Frorest Gump (1994) wins 6 Academy Awards (with 13 total nominations), inicluding Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), and Best Actor (Tom Hanks). The historical drama, Braveheart (1995), directed by and starring Mel Giibson wins a total of 5 Academy Awards, inclusing Best Picture and Best Director.

Now Paramount is one the most popular production companies and they are still going strong today. They are great at the making of thriller films and in recent times they are now producing films such Mission Impossible, Eagle Eye, Paranormal Activity, The Ring, Rules of Engagement, Red Eye, What lies Beneath and many more great films.

Youtube Programs that give an insight into thrillers

The name of the video i watched was called "Trubys Screenwriting - How to Write the Thriller Genre #2" and I watched it on youtube. The link below is the clip:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqcQWJ6uO48 

The video was all about the different techniques you can use in terms of writing a plot or screenwriting a thriller genre.

The first technique was how you connect love to the thriller plot and there are two ways in which you can do it:

The first way is that you make the protagonist have a decsion to make which is faith vs scepticism (thier faith in love). The choice is that the hero has and it is ususally a women in a thriller:

She could make the leap of faith in love and believe in total love but risk being murdered because the lover may or may not be a killer. A perfect example of this is the film What Lies Beneath (2000) is a film where the husband of the woman wants to kill her due to the fact that she found out that he has killed a girl who he has had an affair with . The other way is the she could fail to make the leap of faith and protect herself but the thing about this is that she would lose the great love of her life. A good example of the is Salt (2010) where to keep her identity the woman's  lover was killed infront of her which sparked her hatred of everyone.What this first technique does is give love a life and death that is a stakes and thriller audience really likes it.

the second technique is there are to lines that you need to think about when making a thriller these line are the personal line and the crime line. In this second technique you have to show the heros unique need would be sloved in the act uncovering the crime which means that you connect the heros personal line with the crime line.

An example of this is the film Taken (2008) due to the fact that it is personal because they have kidnapped his daughter and crime because kidnapping someone is illegal.

Pearl and Dean Research

This is the research into our target audience of three particular films. I went in the film salt in more detail. As the Thriller genre is the one my group need to focus on for the main task.

Price: B+

Estimated box office: £10,000,000

Genre(s): Thriller

Director(s): Phillip Noyce

Film Cast:  Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski and August Diehl

Certificate: 12A

Distributor:  Sony Pictures Intl.

Brief plot or narrative: In the final scene of the movie, Salt has to flee from the U.S government and the CIA because no one can believe her that she actually saved the President and stopped the Nukes. But what about the President? He was there. He saw Ted Winter kill all his staff and threaten him, surely he could say that Salt was not responsible.

This film is similar to my groups thriller film due to the fact is it someone changing their identity and the fact that he is obviously running from something in the start of the film.  The difference is that instead of him having this hidden talent and secret from the start of the film, he gains help from someone that he doesn’t know and that give him the power and help that he needs.

Research in a typical thriller synopsis

Thriller films usually have a typical story line that happens, and they all have similar narratives. The fact that my group and I want to make the first 2 minutes of a thriller film, I would want to have almost the same narratives as the best thriller films  of all time. The example of a great thriller film is The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

The Silence of the Lambs, which was first viewed in 1991, directed by Johnathan Demme, written by Ted Tally but the book was written by Thomas Harris, starring stars such as Jodie Foster, Anothy Hopkins and Lawrence A. Bonny is all about a young FBI agent who goes by the name of Clarice Starling in the film is assigned to help find a missing woman to save her from a psychopathic serial killer ho skins his victims. Clarice attempts to gain a better insight into the twisted mind of the killer by talking to another psychopath Hannibal Lecter, who used to be a respected psychiatrist. FBI agent Jack Crawford believes that Lecter who is also a very powerful and clever mind manipulator have the answers to their questions to help locate the killer. Clarice must first try and gain Lecter's confidence before he is to give away any information. In the opening week this film made a massive $13 million whilst working on a budget of just around $19million. The reason why I know this is a thriller genre is because of the fact that crime is the main storyline in this film, and in most thriller films. Also I know it is a thriller film because it has a complex narrative to it and it leaves to audience with clues and with false paths to keep them on their feet and to keep them guessing what is going to happen next and linking back to that, an enigma is create where the film itself creates questions that the audience have to answer for themselves. The film reason that I know it is a thriller film is that it is all about murder and there is an investigation toward the murder and that happens in most thriller  films.

Iconic Sound Connected with the Thriller

I'm going to making my own 2 minute opening of a thriller film and I want it to be good as possible, and the reason why I want to research on iconic thriller sounds because it would give me inspiration to do so.


To find out more I need to do some research into films iconic sound track of Jaws (1975):


Jaws

This thriller film is all about a great white shark that has be menacing a small island and a police chief, and marine scientist and a fisherman have set out to stop it. This films was directed Steven Spielberg and has one of the most iconic sounds in thriller film history. The music that is getting played in the opening of the film by John Williams is one of the most iconic sounds in film history. The pitch of the music starts of very low, almost a muffle sound, and the rhythm is the music is slow before it starts to speed up a bit. This is to create a sense of tension in the film and leaving the audience in a frame of mind where they are thinking ‘What is going on?’ ‘What is going to happen?’ in there next scene at their fire camp, there is dialogue and people socialising with each other and the only music you can hear is the one of the playing the harmonica and we go to the next scene and see a male and a female going skinny dipping, but on the girl gets in the water and that when new dramatic music begins to play. Whilst the girl is swimming the camera shows something coming from underneath her and it camera is at the shark point of view and that’s how the audience knows something bad is going to happen. Then we start to hear music as the shark gets closer to the girl, and as the shark the closer and you can feel the tension in the music, and when the shark finally gets the girl at first the music stops as she goes down into the water. Then as she starts to get dragged around and begins to scream, the music comes back on again and as she gets pulled back into the water the music stops and you can only hear the sound of the ocean. This shows that if not for the music the audience wouldn’t have known that she was in trouble, and on the music helped us to know.  

Coventions of a Thriller and Sub-Genres

In thriller films we see a lot of things, but there are things that we see on the big screen are all planned and all thriller films are set in a certain way to grab the attention of the audience. When planning a thriller film, you have to take into consideration these conventions:

-          Crime is the main story

-          A complex narrative structure with clues and false paths

-          Enigmas are established

-          Protagonist (good guy) drawn into a web of conspiracy  and trouble by the antagonist (bad guy)

-          Extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations

-          Themes of identity and voyeurism

-           The opening scene often places the protagonist in danger

As well as thriller being a genre on its own, there are different types of thriller and these are called a sub-genre. A sub-genre is a derivative of that genre. Examples of these are:

-          Action-Thriller

-          Conspiracy-Thriller

-          Crime-Thriller

-          Disaster-Thriller

-          Psychological-Thriller

-          Spy-Thriller

-          Supernatural-Thriller

In this blog I am going to talk about Conspiracy Thrillers.

Conspiracy thrillers (also known as ‘paranoid thrillers’) are generally about journalists or amateur investigators who get themselves mixed up in conspiracies which go all the way to the top. These are often used to “recreate” what might have happened during a historical event. The protagonist often struggles to uncover the conspiracy and contain ‘man-in-peril’ stories (very rarely ‘woman-in-peril’) and are similar to detective stories.

 The link below is a trailer of an example of a conspiracy film. The title of the film is Se7en (1995) directed by David Frincher, starring stars such as Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt. This film is about two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his way of working and doing his job which is to kill people. This is a conspiracy genre because there is an investigation going on and the one of the people investigating is an amateur in terms of being a detective and the fact that one of his first case is to deal with a serial killer. Also the fact that the protagonist is really struggling to get to the bottom of the case. As well as that, the fact that it is a male who is the amateur investigator which normally happens in these films.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE

The Basics of Filming and Prelim Task

Match on action, over the shoulder shot, 180 degree rule and  shot reverse shot and four of the basics of filming and they ae the main things you have to know when you are filming and editing anything becuase if you dont follow these basics your production would go wrong. 


Match on action
A match on action, is a technique is used when editing film footage and it is a cut that bring together two different views of the same action. What the match on action shot does is that ti brings two shots togehter, and by careful editing it makes it seems as the seem that the motion continues uninterrupted. If your not careful with match on action shots, then you could have situation where you get a jump shot in your editing.The diagram below is an example of a match on action shot:


 

Over the shoulder shot
this show is taken from behid the person who is talking, in other words the subject. Over the shoulder shots help the establish the position of each person wothen the shot and get the see reactions from both subjects in the shot and it helps the audience to see what the other persons point of view is like. It common to cut shots during a conversation to see the view between the different speakers. The diagram below is an example of an over the shoulder shot.


 

180 degree rule
this is a one of the biggest and well known rule when it comes to filming. It is basically a guideline that states that both of the subjects in the same scene should always be filmed on either the left or the right side of thr subject and the camera has to be on that side throughtout that scene. The image below show what the rule is about:

 


Shot reverse shot
this is a film technique where one of the subject is shown looking at the other subject and then the other subject is shown looking back at the first subject. This image below shows this:

  

My Preliminary Task 

The names shown below are part of group 1, which was picked by my media teacher Laura Hopwood. These group members are part of the prelim task.

- Seun Jonah

- Denzel Aifuwa-Morgan

- John Martins

The prelim task must show the following:

- Dialogue (conversation)

- Match-on-match action

- Shot-reverse-shot

- Natural editing

The Roles In My Group:

- Seun Jonah - Actor/Co-Director

- Denzel Aifuwa-Morgan - Camera man/Co-Director

- John Martins - Editor

this link below shows my groups prelim task, that my group filmed and edited: 

Certificate ratings – BBFC research

All films have a certificate rating and this rating is given by the British Board of Films Classification, also known as the BBFC. These people watch everything films that is put out to the public and they give that film an age certificate and this is based on:

- Discrimination

- Drugs

- Horror

- Imitable behaviour

- Language

- Nudity

- Sex

- Theme

- Violence

Below are the certitficates the BBFC give to films:

Suitable for all

It is impossible to predict what might upset any particular child. But a ‘U’ film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. ‘U’ films should be set within a positive moral framework and should offer comforting scenes of any violence, threat or horror.

If a work is particularly suitable for a nursery to view alone, this will be indicated in the Consumer Advice.

Parental Guidance

General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children.

Children over the age of eight would be able to watch a PG film, but any age under that would have to be accompanied by a parental figure when watching the film due to the fact that they are content may upset younger or more sensitive children.

Suitable for 12 years and over

Exactly the same criteria are used to classify works at ‘12A’ and ‘12’. These categories are awarded where the material is suitable, in general, only for those aged 12 and over. Works classified at these categories may upset children under 12 or scenes that some parents will find unsuitable for their child.

The ‘12A’ category exists only for cinema films. No one younger than 12 may see a ‘12A’ film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult and films classified ‘12A’ are not recommended for a child below the age of 12. An adult may take a younger child if they feel that the film is suitable for that particular child. In such circumstances, full responsibilities lie to the adult for allowing a child under 12 to view the film.

The ‘12’ category exists only for video/DVD works. No one younger than 12 may rent or buy a ‘12’ rated video work. The content in films of this age may have things like horror, mild language, mild nakedness and mild violence.

Suitable only for 15 years or over

No-one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No-one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work. The content in films of this age rating may contain language, sexual themes, volience, inappropriate behaviour and nudity.

Suitable only for adults

No-one younger than 18 may see an ‘18’ film in a cinema. No-one younger than 18 may rent or buy an ‘18’ rated video work. The content in films of this age rating may include things like discrimination, drug usage, language, nudity, inappropriate behaviour, sexual themes and violence.

To be shown only in specially licensed cinemas, or supplied only in licensed sex shops, and to adults of not less than 18 years.

The ‘R18’ category is a special and legally restricted classification primarily for explicit works of consenting sex or strong fetish material involving adults. Films may only be shown to adults in specially licensed cinemas, and video works may be supplied to adults only in licensed sex shops. ‘R18’ videos may not be supplied by mail order. In terms of the content of the film, this rating may include everything that the films rating is based on.


Information From The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)