Questionnaires

These questionnaires help us in the deciding of the youngest viewer we may have for our thriller. Through questioning a variety of ages, we were able to conclude that younger people did enjoy thrillers, as low as the age of 15. We were also able to decide a oldest age of our viewer, as we also questioned people as old as 50 years old. We had a positive response from the older people also, which told us that people at this age still enjoy the trill and suspense of the thriller genre. Therefore we used this information to decide an age range, which we came to a youngest age of 15, and an older age of 48.

These questionnaires were also useful for the type of personality our viewers may have. From the information we gained through the various people we asked, we were able to decide the male and female attributes of our ideal viewer of our thriller. The male, for example, would be of an age around 15-24, an age where someone may have the most time and money that they'll have, but still enjoy a thriller. They may also shop at big brand stores and enjoy a variety of music such as pop and rock.

This was useful because we were able to target a certain audience which may have watched our thriller, and found our ideal audience. Through this information, we changed things in our opening to make it viewable for the whole audience, for example, the tempo is slowed and suspense is the predominant thriller conventions.

Research and Planning: Narrative

The Sixth Sense

- The film is about a child psychologist, Malcolm Crowe, who on the night of receiving an award for his work is visited by a very unhappy ex-patient.

-After this encounter, Crowe takes on the task of curing a boy with the same illness as the ex patient.

-The boy "sees dead people" which turns out to be a vital factor in the notorious twist
at the end of the film (Malcolm turns out to have been dead the whole time).

- He spends a lot of time with the boy (Cole)

- He is Cole's only hope.


Taken

-The film is about ex special forces agent Brian Mills who creates a whole new life for himself just to be closer to his daughter. However for her birthday she takes a trip to Paris with a friend and unfortunately is kidnapped.

-We follow Bryan's journey as he attempts to find his daughter using all his skills and experience.

-He goes through various brothels and finds all kinds of different evidence which gives him the information he needs to find his daughter.

-Eventually he's lead to an illegal sex trafficking auction in which he sees his daughter selling for a lot of money.

-He tails the rich Arab who has bought her and eventually through fights and action finds her, kills basically all her kidnappers and saves the day.


True Romance

In this film we follow the journey of Clarence Worley who on the night of his birthday meets a girl in the cinema called Alabama Whitman. The next day the girl reveals to him that she is a call-girl who was hired to have a one night stand with him but has fallen in love with him. The next morning they get married and Clarence goes to collect some clothes from the club where she worked.

Alabama's pimp Drexl Spivey is unhappy with the situation and beats up Clarence, as he turns away he kills both Drexl and his partner leaving the building with the wrong suitcase. In this suitcase was bags of cocaine, after realising what he had taken Clarence and Alabama decide to go and sell the drug to Clarence's friend Dick, an aspiring actor hooked on drugs, so they can travel to Mexico.

Little do they know the owners of the drug are the Sicilian Mafia and they want to reclaim it.

Box Office Revenue

IMDb Thrillers Audience Figures and Box Office Revenues

Taken (Morel, 2008) 
Budget: $25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $24,717,037 (USA) (3,183 Screens)
                                
£1,165,986 (UK) (396 Screens) 
                               
Gross: $145,000,989 (USA) (3 July 2009)




The Sixth Sense (Shyamalan, 1999)

Budget: $40,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:                                    $26,681,262 (USA) (2,161 Screens)
 £257,479 (UK) (9 Screens)


Gross: $293,501,675 (USA) (12 May 2000)




Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) 
Budget: $806,947 (estimated)  

Gross: $32,000,000 (USA)
           $50,000,000 (Worldwide) ( January 2004)

Rentals: $11,200,000 (USA)





Shutter Island (Scorsese, 2010)

Budget : $80,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $41,062,440 (USA)        (2,991 Screens)
                                                                     £2,250,178 (UK)  (416 Screens)

Gross: $127,968,405 (USA) (4 June 2010)

This research shows that many movies of the thriller genre have been incredibly successful in bringing in revenue. All films which we researched: 'Taken', 'The Sixth Sense', 'Psycho' and 'Shutter Island' were all very successful at the box office and therefore all made substantial profit. This shows that there will be a definite audience for our thriller. Another similarity between the four films is the release date, all of the films were released towards the beginning and middle of the year which tells us that if we there is a certain time in which thrillers are most popular which is crucial if we want to generate a bigger revenue.

From this research we have learnt
- Timing of release is crucial for generating revenue
- There is a definite audience for our thriller 

Film Distributors' Association

Films released

Non-Stop (Collet-Serra, 2014)

“Non-Stop,” produced by a team led by Joel Silver, cost about $50 million to make and was financed independently. Universal Pictures paid $13 million for domestic distribution rights. Without Neeson in the starring role, a B-movie script like that of "Non-Stop" would never get made, but because he got on board, the potentially uninteresting project became a financial success. 

Although the film's R-rating ensures it won't reach as broad an audience as Neeson is used to, surprisingly positive reviews and a strong international market 

Neeson's movie, Non-stop, respectably given its R-rating, opened to $28.9 million in February.

Reaping $202.4 million world wide.

Rated- PG 13

Films on release

Imitation game (Tyldum, 2014)

The Imitation Game, evidently, brings together the actor, role and subject matter desired by every distributor and financier. With a debut of £2.74m (including £47,000 in previews) from 459 screens, delivering a robust average of £5,975, the film has landed at the top end of industry expectations. 

Reviews suggest that the movie is adapted to make the movie more dramatic and more of a thriller. 

Rotten Tomatoes review: 'The story, though considerably altered to make it more dramatic, is an interesting one, and Turing and Clarke's relationship is compelling in the film. Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley both give great performances in this film.'

Due to be released

Fast and furious 7 (Wan, 2015)

As reported by THR, the Fast & Furious 7 budget – originally expected to fall somewhere within the range of $200 million – is now approaching $250 million and beyond, in part because of a potential $50 million claim by Universal Pictures’ insurer, Fireman’s Fund (in response to the 13 weeks of effects-heavy shooting that the film is currently undergoing.

$2.3 billion in worldwide box-office sales throughout the series, the movie finale is set to do well.

PG-13 (for prolonged frenetic sequences of violence, action and mayhem, suggestive content and brief.

Film Listings

Thrillers currently being shown (locally - Richmond, West London)

The Imitation Game is available for viewing every day of the week at 6 in the evening and at 12 noon Monday to Friday. This gives the older audience members the choice to view the film at a time where most teenage viewer will be in school or college.

Taken 3 is available for viewing everyday at 3:00 midday and 8 in the evening on Friday and Sunday. The cinema is playing the film late in the evening on a Friday and Sunday night as the majority of young people (Key demographic 15-24) often go out on these nights.

Thrillers currently being shown (Central London)

In Central London Ex Machina is shown everyday of the week at 12 noon and 8 in the evening. Again this gives audience members of older generations a time slot to watch the film without the bombardment of teenagers.

In Central London Taken 3 is shown everyday from 12:45 to 8:40 in the evening. The cinema is showing the film consecutively throughout the week as the film has been talked about none stop throughout the media. Having multiple showing times will not only provide more chances to see the film but also attract a broader demographic.

BBFC Website- 2014 guidelines

This is an example of a thriller film that was released a few months ago. As you can see from the image the movie was predicted to be rated at an 18 due to a lot of sexualised threat and aggressive language toward a women in one of the scenes. The distributors wanted the film to be a 15 so that the film could reach a wider audience and so that the younger age group could also see the film. They achieved the 15 rating during the finishing version as they listened to the BBFC and took out some of the scenes.

This is a bar chart from a survey that the BBFC did in 2014 to see what age groups go to the cinema in a weekly bases. As you can see that the age group that goes to the cinema more on a weekly bases is the 35-54 age group. This could be due to them having more free time and having more money to spend on leisure.

The classification groups between 15 and 18  

This is the requirements for a film to be rated an 15

This is the requirements for a film to be rated an 18

             My evaluation from my research 

From my research i have discovered that our classification should be 15+ or 18+ due to the fact that my research showed me that if we aim our film at the older age group we are more likely to have a broader group. In addition I have also found out that more middle aged people go to the cinema on a weekly bases. This surprised me as i did not except middle aged people to go to the cinema on a weekly bases. However this has told me that our thriller film would need to appeal to the higher age group. In conclusion I think that our film should be aiming to get a classification of 15+ so that we have a broader audience. However if we do not meet the requirements to gain that classification then a 18+ classification would be okay due to there being a lot of people in that age group too.

Thriller presentation

Thriller Presentation - Dylan Evans

'Psycho' (Hitchcock, 1960)

Sound is a vitally important factor in any thriller. One of the most famous examples of sound in a thriller movie is the 'eeking' violin sound used in 'Psycho' (Hitchcock,1960) during the shower scene. Since the film was released it has become an iconic sound and can be attached to any shocking moment in any video and immediately add a thrilling touch.  One of the key conventions in any thriller is to build suspense and from this example it is clear that sound can be used to do this.   

'The Sixth Sense' (Shyamalan, 1999)

Another example of a famous thriller movie is 'The Sixth Sense' (Shyamalan,1999) The main reasons this film became so successful was that firstly it had a cast list including Bruce Willis but also it featured a mind-blowing twist in that Bruce Willis was in fact dead the whole time and the only reason the little boy could communicate with him was because he could see dead people. Two key conventions in this thriller are camera work and special effects (depicting the ghosts). An example of this is when the young boy is on the toilet and a ghost hovers past the door. This is a shocking moment of the film and the different camera angles leading up to it help build tension (typical of a thriller).


'Taken' (Morel, 2008)

Taken (Morel,2008) is an example of a contemporary thriller. The story consists of a good character, Brian Mills (Liam Neeson) taking on evil sex traffickers who have taken his daughter. The main event in the film in which unbearable tension is built is when his daughter is actually taken. In the moments before she's taken she has a phone call with her dad in which the conversation is fast paced. The most chilling image is when the daughter sees her friend in the window opposite to her being taken. This then foreshadows that she will have to go through the same thing (building tension.)

Thriller presentation