Research: Questionnaire (Miss. B)

Questionnaire | Thriller Specific

Before producing any kind of product intended for the use and entertainment of the public, there needs to be a general idea of the target audience. For instance, a thriller movie typically attracts people either aged 15 and over or 18 and over, with an interest in the actual genre. There are more personalized opinions from people about thrillers, rather than just if they like that kind of movie or not. This is why a questionnaire is relevant toward everything about the production of a movie, including it's conventions, connotations and symbolism. Those are just a few subjects which you can carefully embed into a questionnaire through some interesting thriller-related questions. These results are necessary because the potential viewers of your final creation will most likely be more or less the same ones who answered the questions. There is no point in making something for the public if there is no notion on what they want, don't want and what they generally expect. Everything that gets collected from a questionnaire is primary research. 

There are three main types of questions that can be included in a survey - 

1. OPEN - the person can write their answer using specific detail
2. CLOSED - a simple yes or no
3. MULTIPLE - different set options, sometimes using time frames, sometimes allowing more than one answer

Demographics are also very important. This is an array of questions that cover personal information, such as age, gender, occupation & ethnicity. These questions appear in the beginning of a questionnaire. It's important to include this because direct questions can assist with warming up to the whole survey, but also determine something like the general age group of your audience which can help you with age classification. 

Advantages & Disadvantages of Questionnaires 

Advantages

• You can collect general as well as specific data
• You can ask whatever questions you want
• There are open, closed & multiple questions which make it interesting
• Sometimes questionnaires offer a reward for completion
• You can create professional-looking work to represent results such as graphs

Disadvantages

• Results can be limited due to things like location of survey or amount of people you ask
• People may not be truthful
• Options on a question might not suit an individual's answer
• Questions can be confusing if time frames overlap 
• Opinions change between the time you take answers and the time a movie has been released

My Questionnaire

1.        What is your name? _________________________________________

2.        Are you a MALE or a FEMALE?

3.        How old are you? 10-15  |  16-22  |  23-27  |  28+

4.        Are you a STUDENT or EMPLOYED or RETIRED?

5.        Do you enjoy watching thrillers? YES  |  NO

6.        Do you prefer a 15 or an 18 thriller?

7.        If a new thriller were to be made, what would you want? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8.        What would you expect? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9.        Do you get a chilling response when you watch a thriller? YES  |  NO

10.     What do you think is the most common dilemma in thriller movies? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

11.     Do any of these thriller aspects offend you?  RELIGION or SEX & NUDITY or DRUGS or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY or CONTROVERSY or CULTURE or VIOLENCE or RAPE

12.     What is your opinion on oppression/discrimination/persecution within thrillers? __________________________________________________________________________________________________

13.     Is censorship important & what would you like to be censored? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

14.     Should there be any languages other than English spoken in the newest thriller? Specify. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

15.     What particular genre of music would you like on a thriller soundtrack? POP or ROCK or INDIE or SOUL or JAZZ or SCREAMO or ALTERNATIVE

16.     Does the plot of a thriller seem more appealing when distributed in an INDOOR area or an OUTDOOR area?

17.     At the beginning of a thriller, do you prefer NORMALITY or DISRUPTION?

18.     At the end of a thriller, do you prefer a SOLUTION or a CLIFFHANGER?

19.     Which of these personalised character themes would you be most interested in?  DEPRESSION or MADNESS or SEXUALITY

20.     What kind of a structure suits a thriller – CHRONOLOGICAL or UNEXPECTED? Elaborate why. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

21.     Should the main character be GOOD or EVIL?

22.     Should the main character be MALE or FEMALE?

23.     Are the victims of thrillers usually MALE or FEMALE?

24.     How many friends or family members do you know that watch thrillers?  0-5  |  6-9  |  10+

Conclusion: This research of questionnaires has been beneficial to me because previously I could not see the importance of collecting data on a person's opinion, if by the end you choose what your product is like. But making my own questionnaire has taught me that it's a massive teamwork between you and the public, the decisions are a mixture of everyone's wants & needs. For that reason I think it is important to make a survey as interesting and diverse as possible which will keep your candidates interested in taking the time to answer. They also need to be fairly easy and straight-forward, checked for grammar and spelling so that they look legitimate and professional.