P7

1. Research
Josh Bailey

2. Existing Product
The shot of the fog under the
bridge and city highlights the
sense of mystery; fog is
representative to the mystery
genre since it sometimes
hides the truth of a crime as
it affects a persons vision to
see things clearly.
Names of some of the main cast,
this could attract more audience
of people who have seen other
films with those actors.
Also names of some of the
films that the director has
also made in the past and
may draw audience of who
liked those films to this one.
Clear and bright title that
catches the eye. Indicates the
film Is about the real life story
of the infamous zodiac killer.
The semi-transparent faces
on the poster hint towards
the mystery genre as well,
perhaps implying we do not
fully know these characters
intentions and whether
they are for good or evil.
The inclusion of the Golden
Gate Bridge signifies that the
film is set in San Francisco,
original to where the murders
took place.
The tagline “Based on a true story” draws attention from potential audience
as they might want to find out about the story and how it unfolds.

3. Existing Product
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZsF7IRTgMQ
The music in the trailer is quiet and slow but very brooding as it hums over the voice-overs
from different characters.
The two lead actors are
both credited with their
own shots while co-stars
share a scene in the trailer
with all their names
credited one after the
other that indicates that
they aren’t the lead but still
play a role in the movie.
The trailer is shot in
wide-screen meaning
it goes by screen ratio
of 16:9 and has more
image on the left and
right sides instead of
the top and bottom of
the screens. This could
inspire me to make my
trailer in this ratio.
The dialogue in the trailer is key to explain the complex plot of the film in just a few lines. The
trailer starts with the main character being asked if he killed his wife, and cuts off before he can
say anything. Some audio centres around pointing all fingers at Ben Affleck’s character (the
husband) and leading our audience to believe he did it but obviously more story unravels.
Rosamund Pike’s character (the wife) speaks over some scenes of the trailer with a echoed and
shallow voice that expresses how her words are written and someone else is reading them in
her voice.

4. Existing Product
The poster here shows the
main protagonist of the film
as well as the character of his
wife inside of a polaroid
picture. The polaroid
resembles imagery from the
film that the protagonists has
to in fact take pictures to
remember anything at all…
including clues on the
murder of his wife.
Included at the bottom of
the poster the title is clearly
visible as well as the names
of some of the cast.
Other fine print at the bottom of
the poster includes the director,
writers, producers, production
companies, logos and age ratings.
The tagline “Some memories
are best forgotten” serves as a
good premise about the film,
that the character would
probably be better of forgetting
his memories for good.
The colour scheme is
somewhat dark to symbolise
the morbid and dramatic
imagery and story of the film.

5. Existing Product
The scene starts peacefully
with the woman in the
shower and as told in the
story board, the character is
then interrupted by the
killer and stabbed to death
in the shower.
It is impossible to tell in
these storyboards but the
music that goes with this
scene in the film is
suspenseful and exhilarating
and brings the whole scene
together. That just goes to
show how different the
initial plans and the final
product can differ from each
other significantly.
These shots at the start of
the scene lure the audience
into a false sense of security
by thinking the woman is
safe but then show how
they envelope the murderer
into the scene via his
shadow in the curtain.
Shots of the woman being
stabbed are not shown this
may be to keep a low age
rating. Or it may actually be
to build suspense and the
sense of mystery because at
this time in the film we do
not know who the killer is.
Storyboard by Saul Bass
Psycho (1960)

6. Research Analysis
• What common features do the researched products have?
• All the products that I have researched are crime and mystery related and are
all feature length films of those genres respectively.
• All the films I've chosen are dramatic and serious as oppose to films like Game
Night and the TV show Sherlock which also include a lot of moments of comedy.
• The 4 films that I analysed for my research all do there job of attracting the
audience, the two posters are a good summary of what the film is like tone and
theme wise while the trailer gives us (the audience) a glimpse of how the
directors have put the story together for the big screen. The storyboards of
Psycho showed us the process of production for making the film itself.
• What aspects of the research will you include within your
on work?
• Taking inspiration from the trailer for Gone Girl (2014) I plan to have slow and
tension building music, instead of music with lyrics that plays on the radio.
• I've also decided to give my poster a dark theme so it looks more gripping and
true to its genre. Colour schemes that I might use are a mix of black, grey and
red.

7. Questionnaire Analysis

8. Audience research
• Observation: Most people do enjoy watching crime and mystery films.
63.64% said yes – 36.36% said no
• What this says about my audience: They might enjoy my product since it is
also a film planned to be in these genres.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I’m aiming to make my film
fit the genre of crime and mystery.

9. Audience research
• Observation: Most people would not pay to see these films in the cinema.
45.45% said yes – 54.55% said no
• What this says about my audience: There is a very small difference in
percentage here. So some people would still pay to go see these films in
theatres.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: To the 45% of people
who said they would pay to see these obviously enjoy the films so they should enjoy
mine to, given that it’s good.

10. Audience research
• Observation: This shows that a lot more people are likely to watch films of
these genres if they based of real life events.
72.73% said yes – 27.27% said no
• What this says about my audience: They like stories that have actually
happened rather than original stories.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: My story is an original script,
story and everything. So this may put people off wanting to watch my film.

11. Audience research
• Observation: Some people that have taken my survey have watched
crime&mystery films before.
For this question I got 7 good results from survey takers
• What this says about my audience: Some of my audience have already seen a
number of crime or mystery movies, whether in the cinemas or at home, they have seen
some famous and critically acclaimed films in the genres.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: My products will take some
inspiration from these films and include aspects that fans of the films might enjoy.

12. Audience research
• Observation: This shows how many people have watched movies in these genres and which
exact movies they are.
Gone Girl and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo have both been seen by 25% of the audience
while Shutter Island has been seen by 50% and Sicario by 12.5%
• What this says about my audience: This information now shows that some of my
audience have actually seen films along the lines of my product.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: For the people who have seen some
of these films, I aim for my film to feature particularly similar elements of these productions in
its final cut.

13. Audience research
• Observation: The fact that people have answered this shows that they do have
expectations on what to see on a crime &mystery movie poster.
I received 7 good answers off survey takers for this question
• What this says about my audience: They have seen posters for films in the
crime&mystery genres.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I shall make my poster with
all of these designs and ideas in mind and try to make it appeal to potential audience.

14. Audience research
• Observation: People have expectations of colour schemes that go with these genres.
10 people answered this question and 1 person skipped
• What this says about my audience: They have seen enough films of these
genres to pair them with colours of their own.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I could also attempt to make
my poster using a very simple colour scheme like one of these and thus try to
appeal to my audience.

15. Audience research
• Observation: Here I can tell how long people think a trailer should be and get an idea on how long I
should make mine. 20% of people who took the survey say that my trailer should be between 1 -1:30
minutes long, 30% think 1:30 – 2, another 30% think 2 – 2:30, while yet another 10% say between
2:30 – 3, and finally the last 10% think the trailer should be between 3:30 – 4 minutes long.
• What this says about my audience: It shows that they do watch movie trailers and pay attention to
the length of them.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: With this information I can see how long the
trailer for my production should be.

16. Audience research
• Observation: This shows the amount of people willing to buy merchandise from a
crime&mystery film. 100% of survey takers said no to buying merchandise based off crime
and mystery films.
• What this says about my audience: Here, my audience show no interest of purchasing
merchandise based on films in such genres which helps me decide whether or not to make
any merchandise at all.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I had no initial plans to make any
merchandise products to coincide with my film, and this graph helps decide that I shouldn’t
produce them.

17. Audience research
• Observation: From this I can tell which of the films genres that are included in my question, are
the favourites of people who took the survey.
For this question I had 10 answers from people who took the questionnaire, out of those 10, 30%
liked comedy films. Sci-fi and fantasy both got 20% of the votes and horror, rom-com and
animation got 10% each.
• What this says about my audience: From this I can see out of all 11 people who have
taken the survey as of me writing this, none of their favourite categories is crime&mystery.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I could potentially place elements of
other film genres in my FMP, such as, have an action sequence or a comedic relief moment.

18. Interviews

19. Interview 1
• Do you like crime/thriller movie?
• "Yes"
• Which ones have you seen?
• "Fargo, Gone girl, Requiem for a dream"
• How did you watch these films?
• "Netflix or amazon prime (streaming)"
• Would you watch these films again?
• "Yeah"

20. Interview 1
• Observation: The person I interviewed here seems to be a fan of
films in the crime/thriller genres and has cleary seen quite a
number. They have watched these films on streaming services and
have specified that they would in fact watch these films again
• What this says about my audience: This shows that there are
some people I know that might be interested in watching my final
cut film; it is a thriller film and they would watch another one
• How will your product appeal to this audience: While
producing my FMP I shall try to make it match the genres I
intend it to be in using undertones, colour schemes, music
etc. Given hopefully that my film will be successful I am open
to the idea of allowing the film to be put onto streaming sites
with memberships to make it more accessible.

21. Interview 2
• Do you like crime/thriller movies?
• "Yeah, some of them"
• Which ones have you seen?
• "Donnie Darko? The Nice Guys?"
• How did you watch these films?
• "One on Netflix and the other in the cinema"
• Would you watch these films again?
• "Yeah maybe"

22. Interview 2
• Observation: The second person I had interviewed also
appeared to enjoy watching this genre of films but this time
one of the films mentioned is also a comedy. Since this
person I interviewed also watches films on streaming sites,
as well as theatres, that backs up my ideas to put my film on
either Netflix or amazon prime.
• What this says about my audience: The two films they
mentioned they have watched are very different, this
informs me that people are open to watch a wide variety of
different films that also share themes.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: In
some scenes of my FMP I could perhaps include comedic
scenes or darker, more gritty scenes to appeal to a wider
audience.

23. Audience Profile
Category Demographic Content to appeal to this audience
Age Range
16+ Years • The content of the film will be a bit
mature. While not necessarily graphic it
will deal with
Gender
Male & Female • My products will be open for any and all
genders. Some parts may be more suited
for men or women.
Psychographic
Socially conscious
(type B)
• I placed my work into the socially
conscious (type B) because I find people
who are in that group would like the
morbid and dark themes of my film and
would place themselves in that scenario.
Social Status
Working class - Upper class • My product would be intended to be
shown in theatres, then streaming/DVD
as a normal movie would go. As to make
it accessible to everyone. As long as
someone can afford a ticket or
subscription they could watch my film

24. Research Evaluation

25. Research Evaluation
• Give an overview of how you conducted your research. Discuss the strengths and
weaknesses of each method
– Product Research
• Product research is the first primary research I did for my FMP, for this I looked at already existing
products myself and analysed them, this way I could find trends, imagery, tones and elements
that would all be useful to have in my film
• Using other, already existing products I was able to learn techniques and gain inspiration that I
might use in my FMP. Obviously I used crime & thriller films to analyse this way I could find similar
tones and elements in each
• Some drawbacks of the product research are that I can not closely draw inspiration from the
existing product so much that in can be seen as plagiarism
– Questionnaires
• The questionnaire was done over the internet from anonymous survey takers and thus isn’t
reliable on getting personal answers from people you know but is however, very good at getting
multiple answers fast and from a wide-range of different people
• The questionnaire helped me get a better understanding of my audience and will help me
determine how to design certain aspects of my product I.e. Colour scheme
• The downsides of the questionnaire are that it's very limiting and could have been improved to
have better questions.
– Interviews
• Conducting the interviews were a perfect way to gain personal answers from people you know and
whose opinions you understand. This gave me insight of how to appeal to a more specific audience if I
chose to do so
• As well as the questionnaire the interview let me get an in depth view of my audience and instead of
not knowing anything about the source of the answers I received, I knew exactly where those answers
were from the perspective of the person I asked.
• With the interviews however the answers are quite limited as well. As they are only one person and
that doesn’t speak for the entire potential audiences.

26. Research Evaluation
– What sort of a response did you get?
Overall I believe I got a mixed response based of the answers I received between
both the questionnaire and the interviews. While the information I gathered from
the questionnaire was thanks to a large number of anonymous people, this way I
was given an overall estimate on how popular my ideas would be and if they
would work. On the other hand the answers from the interviews were short and
personal, I knew where they were coming from and how the interviewee feels
about crime and thriller films. The mixed responses are a positive thing in my
mind as they let me know my strengths and show me my weaknesses that I can
improve upon.
– How did you distribute your survey? Give an advantage and a disadvantage
When I first finished my survey I straight away sent it to friends and peers that I
know would give me honest results. After that I sent it into blackboard where it
was put onto the notice board for other people to find and help with. It took
some time but eventually I got enough results to complete my research and start
producing my FMP.