Thriller Audience Research

Thriller Research - Cinema Viewing of Thriller Films.

For my second piece of research I created a questionnaire to find out where people would expect to find thriller films being shown. For this I assembled a questionnaire of various Cinemas located inside Norwich and then asked people to tick which cinema would most be assosciated with which film and why.

The Thriller Films invovled in my questionnaire are as follows:

The Third Man
London To Brighton
Inside Man and Inside Man 2 (yet to be released)
Se7en

The Cinemas involved in my questionnaire are as follows:

Hollywood
Vue
Odeon
Cinema City

I myself would expect people to associate the bigger named thrillers in my list with mainstream cinemas and those that are either independent or seen as more cult films to be shown in independent cinemas.

The Results of the Questionnaire are as follows:

The Third Man and London To Brighton - Cinema City

Se7en and Inside Man - Vue, Odeon and Hollywood

As expected, most people agreed that those films that were either independent or that were released many years ago would only be shown in a cinema like Cinema City. This suggests that modern people associate "out dated" and low budget films with independent cinemas and that mainstream cinemas are just that. Mainstream. Furthermore most people agreed that a film like Se7en would of first have been shown in a mainstream theatre but due to it being "out dated" now it would most likely be shown again at a place like Cinema City due to its cult following.

Many people argued that Mainstream cinemas, being mainstream only show selected titles that are modern and expected to be a success. Independent films are slowly working there way into the odd showing at say Vue or Odeon but on the whole most people agreed that if a film like london To Brighton is shown it will only be avaliable at a cinema that is more driven by audience enjoyment than profit.

In my belief if my film was to be shown at a cinema it would be shown somewhere like Cinema City - an independent company that isnt afraid of showing something a bit edgy and out there. My film being low budget and featuring generic stereotypes fitting with independent thrillers would fit well with an audience that visited Cinema City but would probably not please those who visit a big name mainstream company such as Odeon or Vue.