Focus group document

This is a video of the actual focus group that took place. As well as the questionnaires, we also had the participants take part in a small discussion about each of the films, and also a discussion about which they preferred and why. Our focus group was very effective, as we had a diverse range of people attend and it allowed us to understand more about the demographics of our target audience, and also their opinions of psychological thrillers; what they like and dislike, what they expect, what they don't expect and what works well and what doesn't.

Focus Group

For our focus group, we showed our audience two Psychological Thriller openings: The Sixth Sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCqv7ReKz4 and We Need To Talk About Kevin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxHdvs01QEA. They watched the openings, then completed three questionnaires we construced about both themselves and the openings. We did this to get a greater understanding of the demographics of our target audience, and also what their opinions on Psychological Thrillers are.  

History of Psychological Thrillers: Alfred Hitchcock

When researching Psychological Thriller, we believed it would be a good idea to include aspects of Psychological Thrillers from when they were first created. We looked back on the history of them to find out who had the most influence in starting the genre and making it what it is today.

When the genre was first introduced, the main aspects that made it identifiable were the levels of suspense, tension and excitement the genre conveyed in contrast to other film genres.
One of the most influential film directors in the genre was Alfred Hitchcock. (13^th August 1899 – 29^th April 1980)  Hitchcock was an English film director and producer who established many of the techniques we find in the suspense and Psychological Thriller genres today and

was named England's best director after his successful career in silent films and talkies.

Hitchcock’s first thriller was his third silent film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), which was a Jack the Ripper story. The Lodger introduced many themes, which would later run through most of Hitchcock’s work, and the director himself would refer to The Lodger as the first true ‘Hitchcock film’.
Hitchcock continued to direct and produce films through the 30s and 40s, then began to add colour in the 50s with films such as Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954).
After his mass of classics in the 50s, Hitchcock released the shocking and engrossing thriller: Psycho (1960) about an encounter between a secretary, a motel's disturbed owner-manager.  Psycho initially received mixed reviews, but eventually led to overwhelming critical acclaim and four Academy Award nominations including best Director for Hitchcock.

It is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and praised as a work of cinematic art by international film critics and film scholars. Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films.

In 1992, the US Library of congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and is now known as the icon for Psychological Thrillers.

The 1970s and 1980s saw Psychological Thrillers becoming vivid, explicit and violent. Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972) was given a R rating as a consequence of an explicit strangulation scene.

Psychological Thriller Openings

We decided to look deeper into the openings of Psychological Thrillers to really understand how they are constructed and how they work. Out of our choice of opeings, I looked closely at four of them to expand my understanding of what makes a Psychological Thiller.

The openings I chose were 'Shutter Island', 'Girl, Interrupted', 'Side Effects', and 'Silence of the Lambs'.
To get a clear understanding, I looked for how my openings:

• Created Enigma
• Introduced the Characters
• Set up the Plot
• Used Pace and Rhythm
• Set the Mood and Tone

Pschological Thriller Openings: Analysis

As we have decided on the genre of 'Psychological Thriller' for our opening, we decided to look at openings of other Psychological Thrillers to understand how the codes and conventions work together to convey what the genre is.



We looked at the film 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' to get a better understanding of how these codes and conventions can work together to produce a Psychological Thriller. The openings includes many typical aspects found in Psychological Thrillers, for example, it begins with what apears to be a desterted house with a single open window who's curtains are being blown about. The lighting inside the house is minimal, with only the light from the window allowing us to see what is going on which conveys an eerie, creepy atmosphere. The scene then jumps to a serge of people tainted red as they are covered in some sort of raw, bloodied meat. This connotes some of the common themes we found in our research, such as death and maybe murder. The redness of the meat also fits in with the typical iconography we have found, as it connoted blood and the devil, and evilness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxHdvs01QEA

 

We also studied the film 'Donnie Darko' which is the story about a schizophrenic boy who has come off his medication. Donnie Darko is the stereotypical 'mentally incapeable' character of a psychological thriller, and also has an imaginary friend who is able to influence him to do certain things. The film overall is a great example of a psychological thriller, as it features many of the stereotypical codes and conventions which we found are common in the genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyBaFYFySk

 



Another opening which fits the typical codes and conventions is 'American Psycho' a film about Patrick Bateman, a man who by day works on Wall Street, and by night descends into madness, as he experiments with fear and violence. In the beginning of the opening, we are introduced to an incredibly white and sterile environment, and then to the character himself, who completes a sort of workout, then goes on to wash himself. We can gather from this that this man may be quite OCD  about things being clean and tidy, and after he places a susbstance onto his face, which he then proceeds to peel off, we start to understand that there may be something wrong with this man; he may have some sort of mental disorder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGeAMVK75T4

 

Examples of various Psychological Thrillers

 

    

Audience Research: Survey Monkey

We wanted to understand our audience better, to find out who they are and what they do and don't like in psychological thrillers, so, we decided to use the website www.surveymonkey.com to compose a survey which would allow us to collect primary data from open and closed questions to get some answers. This will ensure that when completing our opening, we will use the stereotypical traits of typical pschological thrillers that people enjoy watching. Our use of open and closed questions will allow us to be able to gain both qualative and quantitative data, which will greatly benefit us when choosing what to add in our opening.  

 We E-mailed the link to our survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q3QS6Q7 to a variety of people to ensure diverse results

Our survey.

Psychological Thriller: Research into the genre.

To help us get an idea of what is expected in a Psychological Thriller, we looked at a selection of films and opeings of the genre. We wrote down our findings in this table, showing the stereotypical traits which make up a Psychological Thriller. These included the typical themes, characters, plot, settings, narrative and iconography found in the genre.

WHAT WE FOUND.

• We found that the typical Stock Settings of a pschological thriller usually involve quite personal places to the main character, such as their homes (particularly their bedrooms), schools, a therapists/councillors’ office and their own private place (a field or deserted house).
• We also found out that the main character was most likely to be a teeager or a child with a strange mental ability or disability, and that their parents didn't understand them, hence the need for a councillor or therapist. A police man or detecive was almost always involved as a consequence of the main character committing a crime which either harms themselves or others. The last key characters we found were romantic interests and a 'special' friend (a friend that was either really close and knew all of their secrets, or an imaginary friend.)
• The typical Themes of a Psychological Thriller tend to involve a murder or crime, a serious case of mental instability, the contrast of death and existance, and various perceptions of life and situations.
• The Narrative usually involves features such as flash backs, voice overs and strong binary opposites such as Good Vs Evil and Light Vs Dark
• We found that the stereotypical iconography of a Psychlogical Thriller includes a lot of dark, mysterious objects; real and surreal (dreams/nightmares, devils/demons, writing on walls that only the protagonist can see), churches and crosses and nature which has rotted (hanging trees, dead flowers ect).



Our table of the codes and conventions of a Psychological Thriller.
 

 To summerise our findings in a creative manner, we decided to present them in the form of a booklet, which will allow easy access to our information whilst also being entertaining to read.


Our booklet summerising the codes and conventions.