What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The feedback for our teaser trailer was mixed. Our class responded to our trailer by giving us feedback to help us improve and give us confidence in what they found were good in terms of both horror AND trailer conventions.

Feedback is important when producing an ad campaign for a film. This helps the distributors to decide what to keep and get rid of in the trailer.

We gathered the feedback for our groups trailer by having a set-up screening in class. This enabled us to see their reactions and also hear them talk about our trailer.


Soundtrack

• Many said they did not like the heartbeats at the end and that it went on for too long. Some did say that they liked the effect that the heartbeats made and added suspence at the end of the trailer.
• Our audience said that we used a good soundtrack and added to the horror conventions.
• They liked the breathing at the start of the trailer when the girl is running and of which was a good convention within horror. They said that this was effective and told them that she is running away from something scary.
• Our audience thought that the voice of the protagonist saying 'please, please' repetitively was good and effective.
• They liked the voiceover of when the antagonist is speaking which denoted the power he has.

Mise En Scene/Filming

• Our audience stated that they did not like the office scene at the beginning and said it was a bit cheesy. 
• Our audience said they liked the shot of Dale where he looks fierce and scary where we made the shot darker to make him look more evil and they said that this tells the audience who is the antagonist within the trailer.
• They said they liked the shots with the torch and said that this was really powerful.
• They liked the shot of the legs running and the puddle- the angle worked really well.
• Our audience liked the shot of Emily in the woods where she looks scared and is saying 'please, please'.
•  Our audience said that they liked how you jump into the action straight away and get involved in the action.
• They stated that they liked the canted angles as this makes them feel that there is a sense of instability. They agreed that the canted angle was good as it is often used in horror. 
• They said that the location was good and we made good use of the haunted house. However, they did say we should of had more of the house. 
• Our audience said that they liked the handheld shots. 
• Our audience also said the low angle, tilted upwards shot up the stairs was really good and made them feel like they were in the trailer. 
• Also, they said that the teenager within the trailer showed a good horror convention as this is used within real horror film trailers as it demonstrates their vulnerability. 

Editing

• A few people said they didn't like the intertitles where we had an effect around the text which was a slight blur and was white. 
• Our audience said they did not think the gore was appropriate and that it revealed too much.
• They stated that at the end, the woods should be faster, creating a bigger build up.
• They thought that the 'light' shot is too long and could be shortened but is good for disorientation and suspence.
• Our audience said that they felt the length of the trailer was a good length following the typical length of a trailer.
• They said that they liked the darkness in the house, adding the horror genre, recognising horror forms and conventions.

After receiving our feedback of our teaser trailer, we looked carefully at the things most people didn't like. 

• We changed the colour of the inter titles where we originally used white, however we changed the blurred colour to red, helping to add to the horror theme. We feel this was a very good choice to make within our trailer.
• We would of liked to do the office scene again however due to time issues, we decided that it would be okay the way it originally was.
• We felt as a group that we wanted to keep the gore within the trailer however we then needed to change the age certificate to 18. This does cause some challenges such as not getting as much of a wide range audience but we feel the scene was more than appropriate for the story-line and so decided to keep it. We did however, make the shot a little shorter in length so that it didn't reveal too much.
• The end of the trailer with the running scene was then changed and we speed-ed it up making the pace of it faster and more intense. 

Our group felt that the use of the feedback was really good and allowed us to hear what the trailer was like from other people's eyes. This made us want to change certain parts within the trailer of which were appropriate. We did not change everything that our feedback audience didn't like however, because as a group we discussed how certain parts were effective in our opinion. We were then pleased with the outcome as we got to change the specific parts that the audience especially didn't like but got to keep the shots that we wanted and felt were necessary.