Audience Proposal
To begin with, I decided on a target audience for which I was to find my expectations of thrillers from. Ranging from ages 15-19, I based my research around young alternative teenagers. This is due to the fact that this is the target audience for our thriller in the making. I set out to find the expectations of costume, location, sound/music, genre and lighting. Through this I wish to create these expectations in our thriller film.

Costume

For the likes of costume, I wished to find out the colour pallet of costume design EG. Grey and dim or bright and colourful. Each of these costumes connotes something different. The grey and dim costume would connote a sense of ambiguity and darkness so the audience is kept firmly on edge. A dark costume will fit the theme of a thriller perfectly as it is a mysterious and dark genre. On the other hand, a bright colourful costume would create a contrast to the genre, connoting a sense of insanity in the character, which would keep the audience intrigued and give the thriller an interesting twist.

Location

Locations are an essential figure to our research. The findings of this will determine if the location chosen for our thriller fits our target audience. The options for our research are a suburban city, countryside, a forest or abroad. Our thriller, being set in a city area, hopes to find this is the most popular location. A suburban city, for the audience, would create a more dangerous atmosphere to the area because of the population and business of the place – this means it is harder to pinpoint a criminal. Therefore, this would create edginess to the thriller. However, a countryside location creates isolation, which the audience may feel empathy for and it would be more realistic to them. In addition, the research is based around people in Norfolk. Therefore, it may not be a popular finding because of people’s fondness for change. Furthermore, a forest is a very typical location for a thriller and our target audience, being alternative, aren’t likely to pick a typical location, which is seen in the word ‘alternative’. However, this location is very isolated which is why it is popular. This is due to the fact that there is no outside help around isolation, creating a more dangerous atmosphere than in a city. Additionally, an abroad location is also down to isolation because abroad language is different, therefore it is harder to find help.

Sound/music

The music in a thriller has a huge impact on how the character and concept are perceived. We gave the choice of an upbeat classical theme of music or a slow acoustic sound. An upbeat classical theme of music connotes a hectic atmosphere – this is used in thrillers such as ‘Psycho’. This genre of music connotes a classical stereotypical theme to a thriller and keeps the audience well aware of what is going on. Although, the acoustic sound is a contrast to the concept of the film, which creates ambiguity to the situation. This is evident in films such as ‘Elephant’.

Genre

The genre of film will affect the making of our film hugely. We had a decision between psychological thrillers, gangster thrillers and action thriller. From estimation we thought that psychological thrillers would have a larger audience. This genre is a mysterious and makes you think about the concept and realism of it, creating edginess for the audience. Furthermore, gangster thrillers are the next most realistic of these genres. However, only in certain areas is this concept realistic. The concept of gangster thriller has action elements but is mainly consistent of violence, sex, drugs etc. On the other hand, action thriller mainly focuses on violence and is very unrealistic and attracts a younger, less mature audience. Hence, our predictions were that this would not be popular amongst our research.

Lighting
Lighting creates the atmosphere in a thriller, whether it is light or dark. Therefore, we asked which would be preferred – ambient or non ambient lighting. Ambient lighting would create a more natural feel to the scene, creating a more realistic view for the audience. However, non ambient would create a Hollywood feel, which would make the thriller seem super natural and unrealistic.