Thriller Opening - Focus Group

In our focus group we showed our participants the opening few minutes to the hit thriller, 'The Maze Runner' and asked them a series of questions relating to their opinions of the opening and their idea about different thriller opening conventions. 

What did we learn?

• Music was considered the convention that they liked the most which suggests that music must be a key component in the making of a thriller opening
• In this case it demonstrated how the build up of music and sudden sounds (what the audience hears) is extremely useful in creating suspense and tension in a film opening and subsequently making the audience want to see more of the film
• Also visual elements where also useful in the creation of suspense, for example our focus group found it suspenseful when it was dark in the beginning of the opening as it was likely that it made them think about where the scene was taking place, who Was the boy shouting? Was he in an elevator? and where was it taking him?