Audience Research Survey

Here's a survey I created to receive some audience feedback:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7Q9HG3G

I designed the survey to find out what parts of my trailer deserved more focus when planning and creating it. The questions focus on how the individual people feel about thriller films, and what they think work best with the trailers.
 

To begin I asked how old the recipients were, this gave me the ability to see how people in my targeted age range responded to the questions. The results show that I had a wide range of ages answering my questions.

 

Only one person out of the 17 that answered said that they disliked thriller films. For the future questions I discounted this person's answers. My trailer is for people that enjoy watching thriller films, therefore I need their insight on what works with thriller trailers.
 

 

The next question asks how often the person watched thriller films. I used these answers to see which people's answers to the next few questions I should spend the most attention to. I feel that a person who watches thriller films often knows more about the technical side of the genre then someone who watches them rarely does. However in my questionnaire only one person said that they watched thriller films "rarely". Which meant that almost all answers held high importance to me.

 

 

The following question told me that most people find that characters are the most important part of a thriller trailer. The vote "characters" received almost double the amount of votes that the second placed option did ("setting"). But then again the answer "setting" had been chosen almost once per every three answerers. So this question gave me the idea that i should focus most of my thought process in designing the characters. To have a bigger understanding in why this should be the case, I asked why in the following question.

 



Here are some of the responses to that next question from the people who answered "characters" for the previous one "Characters are the most important part of any story. If I'm not interested in the characters then I have no reason to watch the movie". "Characters are the most important thing - if I don't care about the characters, I won't buy into whatever situation they are in". "Character development is #1 especially does the villain have a believable motive. Without a believable villains most films fall apart". Most of these answers are based around the idea that if they aren't invested in the characters, then they won't be invested in the film as a whole. On the other hand these responses are more for trailers as a whole. Some of the answers for "setting" go ahead and say why specifically for the thriller genre. For example: "Setting is key to building the tension needed in a good thriller", and "Setting is what creates the atmosphere in a thriller. While I want the characters to keep me watching, the atmosphere is what draws me in". Therefore I need to work on character and setting the most.

The final question was "what key elements of a trailer attract you most to go and see a film?". The answer "story" received the most votes for this question with 9 of a possible 17. Special effects and production company received no votes, meaning that I should put little to no thought into a production company name, and I shouldn't rely on special effects to have a good trailer.

 

 

 

In conclusion this survey has helped my process very much. I have discovered that the characters are the most important part of a trailer, and that the setting has a big focus for thriller films. II also learnt that the story is what makes most people go and see a certain film, so I should put a lot of focus into that area.