Questionnaire Responses

After I created my Questionnaire I was struggling to get any responses for it. So I posted a link in a community page and asked if people would take some time to answer my questions. I was very lucky to then receive over 100 in the first hour. Now after a week of my questionnaire out, I have received 282 responses.

But as I am only using the free version of Survey Monkey I can only view the first 100 responses. However, still this vast amount of responses I got some useful information and also some non helpful information. Unfortunately the non helpful information was either irrelevant or people miss understood my final question.

• Gender Response: This question got 98 responses as two participants skipped this question. The majority of who took part in my online questionnaire were females. 76 who took part were female, so only 22 males took part.

• Age Response: This question received 99 responses, meaning one participant skipped this question. Eight of who took part were between the ages of 11-17. Fourteen of who took part were between the ages of 18-25. The rest of the participants were of the ages of 26 and above.

• Ethnicity Response: This question got 100 responses. Ninety seven who took part were the ethnicity of British White. Two of who took part were the ethnicity of Irish. One participant didn't want to answer the question... Fair Enough

• Cinema Response: This question involved me asking how often people go to the cinema in the a month. All 100 of the people who took part in the questionnaire answered this question. Ninety seven of who took part go to the cinema 0-3 times a month. Two of who took part go to the cinema 4-7 times a month. Meaning the last one of the participants go to the cinema 8 or more times more a month. 

• Film Genre Response: I asked this question by giving multiple choices for the participants to answer. The choices were a variety of film genre. The genre choice I gave was; Action, Horror, Comedy, Romance, Comical Romance, Thriller, Sci-Fi and Documentary. This questioned achieved 99 responses meaning one person skipped this question. The top three genres were; comedy we got 34 votes, comical romance which had 16 votes and then then action which achieved 15 votes. The least favourite genre was documentary which got 3 votes. 

• So the favourite is comedy. Well I haven't planned my film intro to be a comedy so how much people are liking comedy the most.. Sorry it's not happening. The reason why comedy was the favourite out of all of them was because of the majority of the people who took part were female and stereotypically females prefer comedy and romance comedies. So I didn't expect much more than comedy. I won't be doing comedy because comedy is actually one of the hardest genre to create. This is because what some people find funny others might not. Unfortunately not everyone shares the same comical values, so I wouldn't be able to suit everyone's style of comedy. Therefore not making my film intro suited to the audience.

• Film Start Preference Response: This question involved my asking what type of film intros people prefer. The choice was Film intros that either jump straight into action. Or Film intros that have a story that develops from the start. All 100 participants answered this question. 71 of the participants said that they prefer film intros that develop from the start. Which meant that the other 29 participants prefer film intros that jump straight into action. 

• It's good that some prefer film intros that jump straight into action as my film into idea starts off with action. So this means my film intro will suit some of my audience.. Hopefully 

• Interesting Film Opening Response: For this question I asked what makes a film intro interesting for each individual. I gave them a box which allowed the participant to put any type of response of their choice. This question only received 68 responses, meaning 32 skipped this question. However, this question is the most important so the more the merrier, but not so much in this case. Never mind. Unfortunately not all responses were as helpful. This was either because of people miss-understanding the question which was asked. As they answered saying what makes a whole film interesting and not just the intro. Other unhelpful answers were just people putting something.. To be funny. But trust me having Anal sex as an answer isn't as helpful as you'd think. Hey, ho there could be worse. So by carefully looking through and analysing all the responses, these are some examples of what I gained:
• A films intro has to have some excitement! Even if it's to introduce people to the film, make their entrance exciting so viewers are captured from the beginning!
• I like it when a film starts further into the story and then goes into flash back to tell the story or when the into quickly sets the scene and the characters.
• How it builds on the story of the film introducing you to the ethos of the film, the characters or back story so you can know some of the basic story.
• The film needs to very quickly do what the genre says it should. If I see a comedy I want to laugh in the intro, horror I want to jump etc.

From reading this information I can see that some audiences prefer a film intro stick to it's genre like glue. From start to finish. Also some people don't want too much to be given away, yet enough to know what the film is about. Now with this information I will be able to use this as a reference and a guide when creating my own film intro.

Reservoir Dogs Analysis

Analysis

At the beginning we see a group of men who we presume to be gangsters at a cafe dinner paying tip. The reason why as an audience we think these men are gangsters are because of the way they are dressed. All the men bare two are costumed in black suits with white shirts (traditional gangster clothing). The other two are dressed in more of a causal dress manner. These two characters are dressed like this to standout. These characters are shown dressed differently as they do not appear as much as the others in the film, but they are easily remembered because of how they dress.

After the scene where the men are in the cafe, we are shown the men walking across in a car park. We see the men approaching swinging their arms, smoking with each step falling at the same time. This shows that the men have a connection as they move in the same manner and speed. The sway of the arms and smoking symbolise the rebellious attitudes that gangsters would have.

After the small extract of watching the men walk through the car park, as an audience we get close ups of all of the eight men. The few split seconds that we see the faces of each man shows their characteristics. An example of this would be Steve Buscemi's character Mr Pink. He lifts his glasses up as soon as the camera is positioned to record him. I think the director Quentin Tarantino did this to show the character Mr Pink wanting to be professional about the up coming job, but also to hide his identity from all around him.

Just before the men leave the cafe a radio show starts to play over the top of the recorded footage. The radio starts to play Little Green Bag this is a contrasting type of song because it seems to cheerful song for a gangster type film. So it adds a slight black humour to the film which then later continues throughout the film.

As the credits occur the same song from the radio broadcast plays over the credits, to show a clear link that the intro is still being shown. The title of the film shown rising above the back of the men as they walk on to the road. This can show a connection that the story line of the film is going to involve these characters.

The rest of the credits are of the production and editing team. Their names are presented on a blank black screen. This shows that a these people have a connection with the film, but are not acting in it. You can tell this because their names are not presented with a film or image of them.

The Dark Knight Analysis

Before I take the task of creating my own film opening I need to look at some professionally made film openings. Then I will be able to analyse them, but also to give me some ideas.

So first, I have chosen the film opening of The Dark Knight. (I must say my personal favourite this is)  
(Intro of film found below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-8Lssf3_Yg

(I will only be analysing up to 3 minutes and 28 seconds, as the rest of the clip is the film itself and past the intro timing)

Analysis

We first realise that this is the film opening as for a few split seconds before the symbolising batman shape appears within the blue smoke.

Straight after the symbol is revealed we are shown an establishing shot, this sets the scene for us. This is actually the very beginning of the film which doesn't include any credits. From the establishing shot the camera zooms in on a window being smashed open. The smashing of the window creates suspense and indulges the audience from the start. Furthermore it makes the audience think of reasons why the window is being smashed.

From that we shown two men dressed in dark clothes with clown masks. So, now from the breaking of the glass and the first sighting of clowns, we are on the perspective of the antagonist. This creates drama and can start to give us an insight that some sort of trouble will be coming up next.

We then start to get an understanding of character importance as the next cut involves a ten second slow focus on the clown mask belonging to the third revealed henchman. This slow and enclosing focus tells us that this certain character has big importance to the plot and film.

The audience are shown the first two clowns zip wiring across to the adjacent building, this shows that the main event of the intro  has begun. Now the audience will start to anticipate for something big to happen as action slowly occurs.

The intro then has action shots going between the two sets of clowns. The first original two, working on the alarm system and then the new set of three running into the bank. But the audience should notice how the camera (when on the set of three clowns) follow the same main focus clown. The order of which we see the action is the side view of his movements and actions. This shows furthermore that this certain character has an importance and that he has the main role on what is to happen.

Therefore the intro to The Dark Knight is very good at creating suspense and allowing the audience to have a main focus to certain characters; who will further on in the film be a great importance and main character.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire

A part of my media course work is  to have research into audience of films. So to do this I have created a short seven question survey. It would be great if you could please take a few moments of your time to fill it out. 

Sorry that I can't give you anything for it, but my appreciation and thanks will be out to you. 

Thank you in advance and please enjoy.

 (Please find hyper-link below)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V65MNRK