Questionnaire
We used https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/ to make our survey so we can see what the audiences preferences are and what they expect to see in a thriller film as well as what they enjoy. We will use these results to ensure that our title sequence lives up to the expectations of the audience and make it as good as possible.
Results:
Question 1&2 – The majority of people who answered were female and 22 people were between the ages of 13-16, 15 people between 17-20 and 21 people were 21 and over.
Question 3&4 – 78% of people said that they enjoy thriller films. And the most popular was the action thriller films.
Question 5 – 60% of people said that it doesn’t matter if the lead is male or female and 20% said they prefer a male lead and the other 20% said they prefer a female lead. From this data it proves that it doesn’t matter if the lead is male or female.
Question 6 – Music turned out to be the most popular in a title sequence as 48% of people said they prefer just music. However, 40% said they like both music and dialogue in a title sequence. From this I will ensure music is played throughout the sequence as it makes it more effective.
Question 7 – 43% of people said they would want to see the main character, however, this goes against the codes and conventions of the thriller genre and therefore, I will still hide the main character but show glimpses to leave it a mystery and draw the audience in.
Question 8 – Intense lighting was the majority response as 45% of people said they prefer intense lighting. If I use intense lighting then I will be able to use shadows and make it more effective, therefore I will use high-key lighting.
Question 9 – 55% said that mental illness is a good theme for a thriller genre, however I would like to combine this and action for the title sequence.
Question 10 – 80% said they prefer fast paced title sequences rather than slow-paced sequences. Therefore, I will do this by having jump cuts and short shot durations to make it more dramatic.
Screening of rough cut
Audience feedback
When screening the audience mistakes the title of our sequence which is ‘Inquest’ and thought it actually said ‘incest’ and this is a vital error. We will fix this by making the letters more spaced out.
One person suggested that the shots could be shorter and have jump cuts to speed it up and make it more dramatic which I think would be better. In order to do this we will re-film and get more shots so the duration isn’t effected and even longer as the sequence needs to be at least two minutes.
Another person said that the draw at the beginning ‘disrupted the silence’ and most people jumped when screening it. I would like to have white noise or fading in music and cut out the sound of the draw opening entirely.
Someone said that they were a bit confused about what was happening so to make it clearer I will use a picture of the ‘murder weapon’ labelled in the newspaper etc and then have the actor show the exact weapon.
Teacher assessment against criteria
We asked our teacher to assess our piece using the marking criteria so we could see what level out title sequence was currently at. This allowed us to identify the elements we haven’t hit and as a group we discussed how to move up to the next level.
We need to add in titles to the sequence and I will research what order they go in. Another improvement that the teacher said was to use a tri-pod in every shot so it’s not shaky and looks more professional and this will help us to get up to the next level.
The shots are held too long in places and will be cut and jump cuts will be used to make it fast paced and more dramatic. However, we need to add in more shots to make it 2 minutes long.
We will definitely re-film and get more shots and angles to improve it as well as use a tri-pod in every shot.
Nicole Webber AS Media 