Vox Pop Evaluation

Vox Pop Evaluation

For our vox pop we asked 12 students aged 16 - 18 to answer our six questions aimed about thriller films. We made sure our vox pop was representative; however we stuck to a limited age range. This age range makes it easier for us to acknowledge the realistic views that the teenage public may have about certain thriller films. These questions would allow me and my group to discover new information that would be extremely helpful when it comes to creating and producing our own thriller production. This vox pop was necessary as it would inform the four of us about their personal interests about the genre thrillers.

What’s your favorite thriller film?

Limitless           Taken                               Emelie                Taken

Legend            Se7en                              Black Swan        The Conjuring

Nerve              Paranormal Activity       Batman               Hannibal

What makes it thrilling?

These 12 students had similar views about what makes thrillers effective. The answers vary from the thrillers having low key lighting, suspense, fast paced and unexpected plot twists. They say that a suspenseful soundtrack that builds up the tension, action packed narrative, chase scenes throughout the film and jump scenes are also elements that help to make it exciting and efficient.  Their answers are all conventional for a stereotypical thriller film; this supports the thriller narrative that can occur. This question helps us understand what makes a thriller thrilling in order to be successful; therefore as a group we should consider most of these generic fundamentals of a thriller film.

What kind of soundtrack makes it effective?

This question helped me and my group understand that this is also a significant factor in making the thriller effective. The typical answers we received were “eerie, fast paced music, orchestra, upbeat, rapidly increasing building up the suspense.” This shows how as a group we should make sure to add these features so it fits the typical theme of a thriller film.  The soundtrack has always been a favorite of mine when it comes to thrillers, therefore I would like to spend a good amount of time choosing a suitable/appropriate soundtrack that would associate with the events taking place in our own thriller production.  For example when a shock factor appears we would like the soundtrack to correlate and set the atmosphere even further. The soundtrack would evidently foreshadow upcoming events, which would be interesting for the viewers to see.

What’s your favorite thriller sub genre and why?

The respondents took a liking to related sub genres and there were common ones such as action and horror. Also some other students included psychological, mystery and crime.  Within these sub genres there are many jump scares that are quite popular, this is a way to entice the audience. The fact that the viewers take pleasure in these types of films makes it clear that they enjoy the props and the atmosphere that is familiarised by the mise en scene. A couple of respondents chose psychological, this suggests that they like to think more deeply into what they’re watching and don’t want to be passive viewers. The psychological factor would propose them to question the narrative and release more enigmas. Enigmas are a popular aspect that I would like to incorporate within out production so we can have our consumers guessing and searching for more answers within the thriller film.  As a group we chose our sub genre to be crime/mystery, this was chosen as they quite popular within our psychographics.

How often do you watch thrillers?

It was found out that the respondents watch thriller films fairly often; however it was more noticeable that the males had more of an interest in watching it regularly. The females stated how they don’t really watch it as often as other genres, this infers that our production may be more liked by males however this may not always be the case as there were a few females who mentioned that they have an interest in mystery and crime thrillers. I would say that this genre of film is quite popular with teenage groups as it is deemed as exciting and very thrilling, the reason why teenagers are more attached t this genre could be that they use it as escapism and become engrossed by the narrative as it is quite realistic yet  some may consider thrillers to be unrealistic.