Audience Research; Influence on our Thriller Planning

We were able to incorporate our audience research into our the planning and production of our final thriller.

The results from the questionnaires and graphs showed us that people in the age range 13-18 prefer to watch thrillers with the age group 19-25 closely following, using this information we attempted to make our thriller suitable for younger teenagers; however this wasn't plausible due to the complexity of the thriller genre and the generic codes and conventions of the thriller genre wouldn't be suitable for the younger teenagers aged 13-15 as thrillers are dark, complex, and have a sense of realism to them that could confuse a younger audience giving them a false sense of reality; therefore we decided to aim our film at an older audience and therefore creating a wider audience, age bracket 19-40. We did this by having a complex plot and dark, mysterious characters, such as Mary- the false friend; this created different levels of deceit and complexity throughout the thriller.

Through our research we found out that more men preferred watching thrillers compared to women, we decided to try and aim our thriller at balanced audience by having a strong male character and strong female character, however the audience could become slightly unbalanced-as in more men will watch it- due to the fact the we have used typical gender stereotypes and have a weak, helpless female victim, which could deter women from watching the film as we have perceived women to be the weaker sex and some female members of the audience could find this offensive.

Although many people asked preferred the sub-genre of action thriller, we decided to focus predominately on the crime sub-genre of the thriller genre. This was done in order to appeal to a wider audience and attempt to appeal to the female audience, who may have been offended by the use of a weak female character; as many women said they preferred conspiracy and psychological thrillers, and although our production focuses mainly as being a crime thriller, there are elements of the conspiracy sub-genre-shown through Tom and Mary's relationship. Many women said they preferred these sub-genres as they made them think more, and women think on a more emotional level than man. However our production does have action, shown through the drug taking and kidnapping. By incorporating aspects of the preferred sub-genres, we are able to appeal to a wider audience, as it will capture female and male attention, and the different levels throughout the production will appeal to older audiences as well as younger audiences.