Survey Findings

In order to better understand the audience we are targeting with our thriller, we carried out a survey, which will help us with targeting and thus tone, casting, and pace, when filming our opening.

In terms of accessing film, the most prevalent method for 16-24 year olds was watching films online (legitimately or otherwise), whereas older audiences, especially the 36-50 age range, tend to frequent the cinema as a primary method of seeing films. A surprising number of these elected to go to Art house cinemas rather than Multiplexes, which suggests that if targeting this group we ought to go for a more Art house tone, which is useful given our lack of budget.

This graph is the result of the survey asking people to rate films out of 10. In theory, the highest possible score is 30 due to the average being taken from each age group. This means that some films such as Notebook and Insidious have lower scores due to certain age groups not having seen them. However this graph is very useful for seeing which films are popular based on both viewership and quality. Unsurprisingly the three highest rated films are Skyfall, Lord of the Rings, and Forrest Gump. Some of the more useful results relate to the popularity of big budget action films such as Transformers and Terminator with younger audiences rather than any 24+ audience. Films that did well with older audiences included The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, 39 Steps, and Silence of the Lambs. This is useful to us as it indicates that a more psychological and suspenseful thriller would be more effective in targeting our audience.

Among 0-24 year olds, the general consensus for favourite film genre was Action, Comedy, or Thriller. Action and, especially, Thriller became more prominent as the age of the subject increased, especially among male subjects, which indicates that an older audience is actually a more effective audience for us to target, given that we are making a thriller. Also relevant to this is preferred features of thrillers, which for the younger audience tended to be fast pace and action, whereas for older audiences tension and suspense were more prevalent.

So if we are targeting any older audience, 25+, specifically male, we ought to ascertain the preferred actors and films of this group. According to the survey these include Robert de Niro, Leonardo di Caprio, Jodie Foster, Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, 'Catch Me If You Can', 'Silence of the Lambs', 'The Shining', and 'The Godfather'. Evidently the film needs strong characters and a good deal of suspense in order to appeal to this audience.

CM