Audience research including questionnarie

1) What is your favourite thriller movie and what was it that you liked about it?The most popular choice to emerge from these results was The Godfather. Many people seemed to like it as it crossed audiences, for example the romance aspect in the film made it more appealing to women. Another popular film to come out of the results was pulp fiction. This was a popular choice because it used humour, whilst still being a thriller and it was also a very unique plot that is so unlike other thrillers. Silence of the Lambs was also a popular choice, mainly because they found the main character so scary.

2) From 1-6 (1being the highest and 6 being the lowest) which thriller sub-genre do you prefer?1. Psychological thriller2. Thriller of acquired identity.3. The thriller of murderous passion.4. The political thriller.5. Morale confrontation.6. Innocent-on-the-run

3) Do you prefer the plot to keep to a liner or non-liner narrative?Non-Liner: 18 Liner: 12

4) Do you think that the plot should mean the hero wins at the end of the film?Yes- 28 No- 2

5) Do you think that the plot is more effective when set in an everyday location?Yes- 17 No-13

6) What role do you think costume plays in a movie?Very important -4 Important- 11 Unimportant - 9 Very unimportant-6

7) Do you think that props play an important role?Yes-20 No- 10

8) Do you like twists in the story?Yes-24 No- 6

9) Do you think sound effects add to the tension in a movie?Yes-19 No-11

10) What actors do you associate with thrillers?Al Picino, Antony Hopkins, Tom Cruise, Shia LaBouf.

We presented our results on the group blog, and through the data produced from this questionnaire, we were able to produce a pitch in powerpoint involving our ideas and our selected audience for our thriller film. From our audience research we could work out the demographics for our thriller.

Short thriller sequence analysis of Paranormal Activity

Director: Oren Peli
Writer: Oren Peli (screenplay)
Release Date:25th November 2009 (UK)
Genre: Horror Mystery Thriller
Rated: 15
Plot: After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.

The theory of equilibrium is applied through a normal environment and just a normal routine of a couple trying to go to sleep at night, however they are frequently desturbed by a demonic presence. A demon is something unusual so this is applied to the theory of equilibrium as its presence destroys the normal sate of equiibrium and turns it into the unormal and paranromal.
Like all thrillers, suspense is created. This is done effectively because each time the demon comes, something more creepy happens. For example early on it begins with the door creeking, breeze occuring from no where. However it gets progressively worse as doors slam, the demon slides into bed next to the girl, drags her out of bed, makes the house shake and the lights flash. Even footprints are left by the demon when the girl's boyfriend purposely leaves talcum powder on the floor. The camerawork is effective as it is filmed through a handheld jerky, shakey camera because the couple try to catch the demon on camera and we see it and everything that happens through the poised hand-held camera. The camera itself is an important prop in the film and is an important tool in the film for us, so we can see the paranormal. Particularly at the footprints scene, it enables the audience to question what the demon thing is and why is it haunting this girl?

After watching and analysing this movie, it has enabled me to link some of the thriller motifs as ideas into our own planning of our thriller film. We will be applying the state of equilibrium through a normal envionment, but will apply suspense, mystery and abnormality through the use of props (collage of photos) and an unusual character (obsessive stalker with OCD), although our unusual character is not mythical, so that the audience can relate our film to reality, and we hope that it will make it more creepy and believable.

Analysis of practical pre-lim tasks.

Our first pre-lim task was named 'The Dream' the aim of the practical task was to represent continuity through filming, hence using doors to open and close in the footage. It begins with the actor trying to work but he cannot concentrate and falls into a dream-like state. The film shows him walking until he pushes someone and finds and unexpected visitor.
Continuity of our task is presented as the camera movement flows consistently as the actor walks out of his study, down the corridoor and through the door into a darkened room smoothly. The camera work was not jerky or shaky so we did a good job there. However, we did have a problem with lighting for the final shot in the dark room with the unexpected visitor, so we had to film from a different angle, so we could open a door to allow there to be more light in the scene so that the actors were visibale, and this made the footage shot more effective.

For our second prelim task we decided to add more mise-en-scene to the task, throught the use of props. The props we used was- masks, a plastic gun, chairs and for costume one actor wore a cloak. This added more mystery and detail to our practical task. Again the task was focusing on continuity. This time we had to actors involved and the opening scene starts with a cloaked, masked, mysterious looking character walking down a corridoor at pace. The camera follows smoothly as the cloaked man gets to a door, opens it and enters the room. Inside the room he meets another masked character at the desk. The room was set up messy and chairs were turned over, to convey an idea that something dangerous has happened and to convey an idea of equilibrium, that a normal environment has changed due to different and unusual events.
The two masked characters go into conflict arguing and then both fighting over a gun. The cloaked character shoots the other masked character and the film ends.
Again the camera work was good and consistent, apart from in one scene one of the actors tripped over a chair and so that had to be edited out, leaving a bit of a gap in that scene of the cloaked man walking towards the other masked character. That was the only fault for continuity.

Overall, we have learnt that using more mise-en-scene will make your film more interesting and effective. We also learnt the importance of continuity, and lighting and we will refer to this and be aware of this and more in the future when completing practical tasks.