Questionnaire Results Analysis

Overall the results I received from my questionnaire were similar to the results I was expecting to get. I have found out that more people would expect an innocent victim within a thriller film and expect a deviant villain. This helps to give me an understanding of the type of personalities and characteristics for my characters I need within my thriller film. Through my questionnaire it has also given me knowledge of the sort of music I should use in my thriller film, from the results I found out that participants would expect to find “composed instrumental” music within a thriller film. The questionnaire I have devised together has helped given me an understanding of the audience expectations and has helped to give me key ideas and knowledge for my own thriller opening sequences.

Questionnaire Results

Results



As we can see from my results the majority of participants said they find out films through Cinema Adverts. This was the result I was expecting to receive as advertising in the cinema is probably the best way to advertise a film as you know you have an audience.



From question 2 “what cinema do you often go to?” We can see that most people got to Vue whilst another six participant said they go to Odeon. Once again this is the sort of result I was expecting, due to Vue being easier access and more popular as well as Odeon.



Most participants said that they go to the cinema twice a month where as eight participants said once a month. Participants said to me though, it varies, they said it depends what’s going on in the cinema.



As we can see from the results more people go to watch a film at either there friends house or cinema, rather than their own home. So I’ve established that most people go to watch films as more of a social event rather than by themselves, although there is still a small minority that watch films in their own homes.



The majority of participants prefer Crime/Gangster Thriller and the rest of the participants prefer Action/Drama Thriller. Crime/Gangster Thriller attends to have a more sort of interesting plot to them, they can leave you on the edges of your seats. Where as Action/ Drama Thriller can attend to become repetitive on story lines etc.



Most participants went along and said that they would expect to find composed instrumental music within a thriller film. One participant told me he wouldn’t know what to expect, this may be due to the many various thriller film that contain different aspects of music within them.



Majority of participants said they would expect the victim to be innocent; this is probably due to many pass thriller films. With their typical story lines, man wants to kill woman etc. Five participants said they would expect their victim to be deviant this may be due to new thriller films coming out on the market, new, interesting, exciting storylines.



Most participants said that they would expect to find the villain deviant within a thriller film, this may be due to new modern concepts of the thriller genre coming out on the big screen. Only a small minority said they would expect to find the villain unstable, the reason for such a small number of participants is due to the new complex and narrative structure of thriller films.



On the final question of my questionnaire I was expecting the result to be around this area. There are a high proportion of participants that prefer mainstream than independent films. This may be due to the fact that participants may not be able to defy independent in its key terms or only think that mainstream films and films in the cinema.

Femme Fatale

Definition: A woman with an irresistible seductive charm, who leads those who love her into danger or despair.

Reference: http://www.allwords.com/word-femme+fatale.html

Primary Characteristics and Conventions of Film Noir: Themes and Styles

Primary Characteristics and Conventions of Film Noir: Themes and Styles

The primary moods of classic film noir were melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia.

Heroes (or anti-heroes), corrupt characters and villains included down-and-out, conflicted hard-boiled detectives or private eyes, cops, gangsters, government agents, a lone wolf, socio-paths or killers, crooks, war veterans, politicians, petty criminals, murderers, or just plain Joes. These protagonists were often morally-ambiguous low-lifes from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing.

Storylines were often elliptical, non-linear and twisting. Narratives were frequently complex, maze-like and convoluted, and typically told with foreboding background music, flashbacks (or a series of flashbacks), witty, razor-sharp and acerbic dialogue, and/or reflective and confessional, first-person voice-over narration. Amnesia suffered by the protagonist was a common plot device, as was the downfall of an innocent Everyman who fell victim to temptation or was framed. Revelations regarding the hero were made to explain/justify the hero's own cynical perspective on life.

Film noir films (mostly shot in gloomy grays, blacks and whites) thematically showed the dark and inhumane side of human nature with cynicism and doomed love, and they emphasized the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic sides of the human experience. An oppressive atmosphere of menace, pessimism, anxiety, suspicion that anything can go wrong, dingy realism, futility, fatalism, defeat and entrapment were stylized characteristics of film noir. The protagonists in film noir were normally driven by their past or by human weakness to repeat former mistakes.

Film noir films were marked visually by expressionistic lighting, deep-focus or depth of field camera work, disorienting visual schemes, jarring editing or juxtaposition of elements, ominous shadows, skewed camera angles (usually vertical or diagonal rather than horizontal), circling cigarette smoke, existential sensibilities, and unbalanced or moody compositions. Settings were often interiors with low-key (or single-source) lighting, venetian-blinded windows and rooms, and dark, claustrophobic, gloomy appearances. Exteriors were often urban night scenes with deep shadows, wet asphalt, dark alleyways, rain-slicked or mean streets, flashing neon lights, and low key lighting. Story locations were often in murky and dark streets, dimly-lit and low-rent apartments and hotel rooms of big cities, or abandoned warehouses. [Often-times, war-time scarcities were the reason for the reduced budgets and shadowy, stark sets of B-pictures and film noirs.]

Some of the most prominent directors of film noir included Orson Welles, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Edgar Ulmer, Douglas Sirk, Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Henry Hathaway and Howard Hawks.

Femmes Fatales in Film Noir:

The females in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femmes fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women. Usually, the male protagonist in film noir wished to elude his mysterious past, and had to choose what path to take (or have the fateful choice made for him).

Invariably, the choice would be an overly ambitious one, to follow the dangerous but desirable wishes of these dames. It would be to pursue the goadings of a traitorous, self-destructive femme fatale who would lead the struggling, disillusioned, and doomed hero into committing murder or some other crime of passion coupled with twisted love. When the major character was a detective or private eye, he would become embroiled and trapped in an increasingly-complex, convoluted case that would lead to fatalistic, suffocating evidences of corruption, irresistible love and death. The femme fatale, who had also transgressed societal norms with her independent and smart, menacing actions, would bring both of them to a downfall