Questionnaire:

Completed by: Me

I created a questionnaire based on our chosen genre – Thriller/fantasy to help get a better understanding of what the audience enjoy and what they want to see. This will help us develop our ideas. I asked 10 individuals face-to-face to get their verdict. In addition, this primary research is based on a stratified sample; this means we only asked the general public who watch thriller/fantasy films to answer this questionnaire. This allowed s to gain answers which were relevant. This questionnaire also helped us identify the age group, gender and also identify why they would like certain aspects of a thriller/fantasy film to change. Here is the questionnaire:

1.       Do you like thriller/fantasy films?

·         Yes IIIIIIIIIII

·         No

2.       What gender are you?

·         Female IIIIII

·         Male III

3.       What type of age group do you think are most likely to watch thriller/fantasy films? (Can tick more then 1)

·         Children (1-12) I

·         Teenagers (13-19) IIIIIII

·         Young Adults ( 20-35) IIIII

·         Adults (35-60) IIII

·         Old age (61-90)

4.       Do you think thriller/fantasy is a good combination for a film?

·         Yes IIIIIIIIII

·         No

5.       Why do you think this? (Please state)

-          Because I think it’s unique and there are not many films around with this combination.

-          I think that there are not many films with the combination and its two genres which many people are interested in.

-          Because it makes the film more interesting combining two genres together as it gets the audience intrigued to know what happened next.

-          Because it would make an exciting movie

-          Because it’s a unique genre

-          Because its interesting and its something different

-          Because it will appeal to both fantasy and thriller audiences

-          It shows an new insight of the film

-          Because its something different from original films

-          There are not many films with the genre thriller/fantasy which is different

6.       What would you like to see in a thriller/fantasy film? (Please state)

-          I would like to see it be more jumpy and have a mysterious question posed.

-          I would like to see more quick cut camera shots, tensional music and the use of flash backs

-          More special effects as it creates the film visually better

-          I would like to see a mixture of the thriller genre and the fantasy genre as combining two film genres usually just focus on one main one.

-          The fictional characters, it lets me escape from daily grins 

-          Unique story lines

-          I would like to see the film to be based more of fantasy then thriller. This is because most famous thriller/fantasy films are mostly based on thriller and just using a fantasy character.

-          More thriller than fantasy

-          I would like to see a twisted story

-          I would like to see Sci-Fi

7.       Why do you think this? (Please state)

-          Because it makes it more effective and creates more tension.

-          Because these are the aspects within thriller/fantasy films I enjoy seeing and also create this to be more intriguing.

-          Because it attracts a wider audience as this does not happen in reality.

-          Because it’s exciting

-          Because it’s not realistic, so its untreatable 

-          Because most similar films have similar story lines.

-          Because it makes it more effective and creates more tension.

-          I think this because I am more interested in thriller

-          Because its more interesting and effect creating an impact on the whole film

-          Because its more modern and will connect with the mystery of the storyline better

8.       What do you think we can add into our plot to create it to be more different to stereotypical thriller/fantasy films? (Please state)

-          Base the film in a unique location.

-          Add more codes and conventions from a fantasy film, so it’s not always based around thriller. 

-          Use unique costumes and extravagant make-up.

-          Use an unusual location.

-          More camera effects

-          Change some genders of the characters

-          Add more codes and conventions from a fantasy film, so it’s not always based around thriller. 

-          Realistic characters

-          Less special effects

-          Yes because you are familiar with the roles in the films

9.       Do you think we should make the film unconventional?

·         Yes IIIIIII

·         No III

10.   Why do you think this? (Please state)

-          Because this is what thriller/fantasy films are all about and are what people know them for.

-          Because this is what many individuals look forward to when seeing a certain genre; however, you could twist the story line to create a different atmosphere.

-          I believe that it adds to the effect.

-          Because I want to see something new and different.

-          Because this is what thriller/fantasy films are all about and are what people know them for.

-          Because it wouldn’t be a thriller/fantasy film if they had different conventions

-          So it’s different from other films.

-          I believe that it adds to the effect.

-          Because it wouldn’t be a thriller/fantasy film if they had different conventions

-          I would like to see more unusual characters which fit into the fantasy genre, however, also having an element of thriller to frighten the audience

First question: I created this first question to see if the public liked thriller/fantasy before continuing on with the questionnaire. This is the main question which the public need to answer with ‘yes’ before continuing on. This allowed me to get an overview of how popular this sub-genre is. I asked 10 individuals, who answered ‘yes’ straight away.

Second question: This question allows me to understand what gender of the public likes this sub-genre and what I can aim my film for. As I can see from the answers gathered, I asked more females, than males which give an unfair advantage on the questionnaire, however, they all seemed to answer ‘yes’ to liking this genre. In result, I can now aim for both male and female as I got a high number of positive answers for both categories.

Third question: This is a question which is popular within the questionnaire; this was a question which was extremely important as it allowed the public to answer ‘what the age group is mostly likely going to watch this type of genre.’ This means I got a variety of answers for several different personalities. Judging by the answered gathered, I can see that 7 people answered with ‘teenagers’ which is the highest rating within all categories. This allows me to understand what I am missing within my plot to attract more young adults. However, young adults achieved 5 marks and adults achieved 4 marks. This question, I allowed the audience to state more then 1 answer, as this category can range of many different ages. Furthermore, this question allowed me to understand the popular target audiences within this sub-genre and what I need to aim to achieve the right audience.

Forth and Fifth question: These questions are very important aspect of the questionnaire and it sums up our genre, allowing the audience to personally say if they think this is a good combination of film genres and why. The whole 10 peoples I asked, agreed to ‘yes’ that it a good combination for a film. This is suggesting that this is very different from other film genres, however, fits perfectly together to create a creative and different film genre. Many people said that they think its ‘unique and not many films around with this combination’ and ‘that there are not many films with the combination and is two genres which many people are interested in.’ These are answers which I was looking for as they are positive and allows me to understand the positive aspects as my group and I wanted to create a film opening which had a gap in the market, however, it would have been good to collect some negative feedback as this would have allowed me to have aspects of the film opening I would be able to improve and develop.

Sixth and seventh question: This question allowed me to ask the audience ‘what they would want to see within a fantasy/thriller film’ as this helped me gain improvements and develop on my opening and what I can add within the opening which the public will like. The ideas already in my opening, may just be my interests and won’t intrigue individuals with the same passion, this is allowing me to gather information which other personalities will enjoy and will attract them to watch the film. Many people answered saying : ‘I would like to see it be more jumpy and have a mysterious question posed’ and ‘I would like to see more quick cut camera shots, tensional music and the use of flash backs.’ These were very important answers which stood out when gathering answers as my main aim is to use tensional music and we wanted to create some sort of flash back which happened in the past to pose a question on the audience. However, this was one of the weaker questions as many people had to think hard about the answers and did not understand the concept.

Eighth question: This question allows me to discover if the audience wants to see the stereotypical thriller/fantasy film. This will allow us to make sure we include the right aspects into our movie. Despite this, the results clearly show that we need to add more codes and conventions from a fantasy genre, so it’s not always based around the thriller genre, also include unique costumes and extravagant make-up as this will show the true emotions of the character and will take away reality from the film as we are including a lot of the fantasy. Furthermore, an individual also suggested to use an ‘exclusive location’ this means not setting our opening somewhere which is busy and is known as a typical thriller movie location e.g. haunted house, grave yard.

Ninth and tenth question: This is a good question as it shows if the audience want a stereotypical plot or if we can be more creative. In addition, a higher amount of people said ‘yes’ to making the film unconventional, whereas, the rest of the population said ‘no’. This means that many people are letting us be creative and not following the simply steps of using the ‘codes and conventions’ of a thriller/fantasy film. The tenth question allowed me to understand why people think is, many people believed that adding the ‘codes and conventions; within the film, people will know who the characters are, etc and believes it adds more effect. This is true, however, many individuals look forward to when seeing a certain genre; although, you could twist the story line to create a different atmosphere which suggest that following the codes and conventions of a film is not always the right answer.

Conclusion:In conclusion, this questionnaire was very successful as it allowed me gather the people's information, letting me develop and understand the positive and negative research of my opening, this allowed me to create a list of questions designed to collect specific information. Within this questionnaire, I have based it on ‘Stratified sampling.’ In addition, this allows me to interview individuals with the key characteristics within the theme. This questionnaire is aimed at individual’s who enjoy thriller/fantasy films, meaning the questionnaire is directly for people with the key features.  Judging by the answers gathered, as a group, I will discuss with Nicola and Chloe about what people would like to see within a thriller/fantasy movie and see what we come up with in a conclusion of adding certain aspects in. In addition, we have decided to add special effects in, e.g. heart beating, heavy breathing as this is something which many people want to see.

Advantages of this questionnaire:

• it focuses on important sub-populations and ignores irrelevant answers
• improves the accuracy of the final estimation
• it’s efficient and guarantee a balanced sample
• it helped me gather my knowledge of what individuals are interested in.

Disadvantages of this questionnaire:

• it was difficult in identifying appropriate strata and is more complex to organise and analyse the results I was given
• I was not able to gather information from various personalities as i would if i created an online survey
• People many not give me the information correctly
• I have to go out and find people to answer the questionnaire, whereas, an online survey people do in their own time.