My idea is to set up an interview to ask some individuals from my target audience what they associate with the thriller genre and also the conventions that they expect to see within a regular film trailer - overall this will help me conduct efficient target market research and enable me to ensure that I produce a trailer that will be suitable for them.
Below are the questions that I asked and the responses that I received. Each candidate is aged 15 and over so they are in my target audience group and there is also a balanced number of males and females making my interview is none gender biased whilst giving good representative results. I asked different people for every question (all participants were the ages of my target audience).
Question 1 - "When watching a thriller trailer, do you want the scenes included to show a good amount of the 'fast action' that takes place in the film or do you think it would act as a spoiler to the films story line?"
Answer 1 - "Personally, I would want the trailer to show clips of the main disruption in the film but only show a few clips and then that way it would make me want to see it more as I would want to know what this disruption is and
how it is sorted out."
Answer 2 - "I think the trailer should start off all calm and things to build up tension because then it makes the arrival of trouble more surprising and exciting. I would want to see clips of the trouble of the main thing that happens but I wouldn't want to see the villain - if there is one."
Answer 3 - "Yes although it would be better if the trailer just gave hints as to what happens but doesn't tell the audience straight out because then it would be worth going to see to find out what actually happens."
My conclusion - Due to these answers from my target audience, put together with the answers that I received from the general public and my personal opinion, for the structure and content of my trailer I am planning to show the setting and narrative as calm and controlled (known as the equilibrium in Todorov's narrative structure) as this is a good technique to use to build anticipation and suspense as the audience are expecting something to happen but they don't know when or what exactly.
Also in my survey, one of the reoccurring conventions I received was that people, not just in thriller specific trailers but all film trailers, want to see parts of the films main disruption yet they don't want to know why it happens or how it is solved as this acts as a spoiler.
I then plan to show parts of the disruption and recognition of the disruption, as this will help show the audience that something major does happen within the film making them want to go see the full film to see what happens.
Question 2 - "Are there any particular locations you think have to be in a thriller trailer or do you think it can be open to a variety of different locations?"
Answer 1 - "Most thrillers are set around the policing and detective sort of story lines and so there are usually a lot of scenes shown to be in police stations, police rooms, offices and in some cases inside prisons e.c.t but I don't think all thrillers have to involve the story line from the view point of police so it could show scenes anywhere depending on the sort of story line it is."
Answer 2 - "I think they can be set in any location, it just depends on what the narrative is"
Answer 3 - "For a trailer there will probably be quite a few locations if a lot of different scenes are being shown but there tends to be a lot of scenes centered in a city"
Question 3 - "What sort of shot types would you expect to see within a thriller film trailer?"
Answer 1 - " Establishing and long shots of the location to set the scene."
Answer 2 - "Close-up shots of facial expressions to show the response of characters to situations happening in the trailer."
Answer 3 - "Mixture of shots as long as the shot type best fits the thing that is going on in the scene."
Question 4 - "What type of music would you expect to hear in a thriller trailer?"
Answer 1 - "Tension and suspense should be created by the music so eery sounds"
Answer 2 - "Starts off slow to build tension and then get it to build up to a fast pace as the action starts happening"
Answer 3 - "Start off in silence and have loud thuds to start off with and go straight into the eery/spooky vibe"
Question 4 "What are other typical conventions that you like to see in a thriller video such as the typography e.c.t?"
Answer 1 - "Names of the actors included."
Answer 2 - "Text shown in-between the scenes."
Answer 3 - "Release date, name of the film shown, usually at the end."
Most popular conventions mentioned
- Show parts of the main disruption in the trailer but not too much to give away the entire films plot
- Location dependent on the sort of thriller story it is
- Villain of the film not shown
- Several different shot types of characters and locations
- Good tense music
- Continuity throughout with colours and music type e.c.t
- Actors named
- Text shown between scenes
- Name of the film at the end of the trailer
- Release date
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