Questionnaire

Questionnaire
I created a questionnaire for my project to get a better idea of what my target audience expects from a thriller film. For this I used the website survey monkey, as it allowed me to get responses quickly, and from a large amount of people. In this case a survey is better than using existing data already on the internet, because the film industry is rapidly changing  my main source of data was from media students in my class, these being experts on film, and aged 16-17, mean they wouldn't have accurately represented the average film viewer, because of this I also asked family members to fill out my survey, including a large amount of adults.
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/NVN8RP8

My first question was, have you seen many horror thrillers? with options, yes. no and a few. out of this 38.46% said yes, 7.69% said no and 53.85% said a few. I asked this question to see how popular this genre is, as my opening is the start of a psychological thriller with horror elements. This is thought of as a niche genre as some people find it hard to understand the plot lines that psychological themed films have, and so tend to be more unpopular. The fact that the majority of people that I surveyed had only seen a few psychological thriller horror films showed me that it isn't as popular as your typical horror and action films, .

My second question was what is your favourite of thrillers in general? 61.54% said surprising plot twists, which isn't surprising as the general meaning of thrillers is that they involve around anticipation and suspense, and a plot twist builds anticipation as no one ever expects it, they are also often the main things that people remember after watching the film, such as the main protagonist's wive's head being delivered by John Die in Se7en, the second most popular answer was enigmas, this is used often in psychological thrillers, often times, these are left unanswered, leaving audiences to theorise what it all means, for example, in the shining the meaning of Jack Torrance's insanity doesn't seem to make sense leaving viewers confused, This can be off putting as many people watch films to relax and don't want to be picking up on every small detail, trying to work out the overall meaning.

My third question was asking if lots of jump scares can ruin films, and i found that 46.15% of people said yes compared to 53.85% of people saying no. Th reason that more people said that jump scares don't ruin horror films may be because the majority of horror films rely on them, thus when a horror film came out like the babadook, which didn't have to rely on constantly to get cheap sares, it came under criticism by many viewers that it didn't live up to their standards as a horror film, some going as far as to call it boring. Because of my results I have tried to include a few parts in the opening to make people jump, like the hand that comes from nowhere to grab me.
my fourth question was simply asking what the gender of the person was, i asked this to make sure the people surveyed were male and female, meaning more reliable results, and 30.77% were male compared to 69.23%.

my fifth question was do you enjoy a mysterious villain who stays hidden for the entire film, which surprisingly got 70% yes and 30% no answers. This is a huge enigma, as audiences want to know who is behind harming the main characters in the film, and it is rare that films never show the villain at all. However, this fits in with the theme of a psychological thriller, as they often involve mind games and deception, and a villain staying hidden is just that. Because of this, i have decided to not show the actual villain in my opening, and am instead showing a sot from the point of view of him. It's also important to remember that often psychological thrillers dont have a set group of antagonists or protagonists, for example the psychological thriller Ex-Machina has a subjective view on who is really in the wrong.

my sixth question was what do you think is the most important in the first 2 minutes of a film, which is important for me as the task is to create a 2 minute film opening. Setting the scene for the film and signifying the genre both got around 40% , and because of this I have decided to show the setting of the antagonist's house, and aspects of horror and psychology.
with my final question, Do you believe music is the most effective way to build tension, 100% of the surveys said yes, because of this, I have included music at the points of the film when the main character is in danger, and when when he finds out it is all a dream. Examples of effective music in psychological horror films is in the iconic shower scene in psycho, when the lady is stabbed in the shower.