More criticisms than compliments were raised regarding our groups horror trailer. This proved that we had a tremendous amount of work to do to get it up to scratch. The fact that the vast majority of the group picked up on similar good and bad aspects they found within the trailer, meant that the feedback was completely honest and reliable. This helped us to shape our final product into a much more convincing and realistic teaser trailer for the final draft. Aside from the classroom feedback, I also asked members of my family and my friends to take a look at the trailer to gain further feedback; however the responses were somewhat mixed. Target audience feedback is highly significant information to obtain for the production of any film. This particularly applies to the film's distributor as they need to get an idea of what scenes to retain or cut out so that the film is able to receive its full potential when being placed on the market.
Positive feedback
Flash lighting
Regarding the editing side of the media spectrum, the audience said that the short, snappy scenes of the anonymous person reading the scroll of paper were extremely effective as we used flash lighting, making it really stand out. This flash lighting would have therefore worked well in the trailers advertisement as a few people stated this to be a good 'eye opener'; therefore we decided to keep these short clips in the trailer and also make them recur more often throughout. The flashing up of these clips was actually unintentional at first; we came across it while we were playing around with the program to learn new features.
Fast paced shots
Many said that they liked the way in which our group had placed a series of fast paced shots together, as they were really fast, creating alterations in tempo which made it more exciting for them. They stated that they liked this because the vast majority of horror trailers on the market do this same thing to create a climax and to get the audiences heart racing. They said that a number of the shots worked really well together within the sequence with the type of clips we decided to coil together. Although we greatly appreciated this feedback, it didn't make us decide to include more fast shots as we thought that we had definitely used sufficient to grab the audiences attention.
Past Events
A lot of the demographic feedback stated that the grey-scale filters and the speckled filter effect we created at the start of the trailer (where the child was swinging on the swing) was very effective and aesthetically pleasing as it clearly showed them that it was supposed to be set back in time. We were happy with this feedback as we had spent a lot of time deciding how to portray to the audience that the trailer was presenting a skip back in time without it looking like just a random piece of footage. We also messed around with the brightness and contrast features a lot here as we were trying to get an ideal old fashioned effect. Based on this audience feedback, it obviously paid off.
Good camera shots
The opening and establishing shots of three of the characters entering and walking through the woods was very popular with the audience. They stated that it appeared as though we were being followed by the killer at these points as we filmed the characters with a hand held camera walking from behind. A selection of the audience were also impressed by the extreme close up shot of the killer running. For this shot, we took a close up of his feet and added a flash light to it, similar to what we did for the clips of the person reading the scroll of paper. The audience thought this was extremely effective as the shot was very quick. They described the extreme close up focus of the feet as a very unique shot which they would never have thought of using.Music and sound effects fitting in with shots
There were a select few people who spoke very positively about the way in which our sound effects worked extremely well with the visual aspects of the trailer. For our sound effects, we used a scratching noise, which was repeated about every seven seconds throughout the course of the trailer. According to the audience feedback, these scratching noises fitted in perfectly, thanks to how we timed them on the sequence. As we were given a mixture of positive and negative reviews regarding the different sounds, we decided to just work on the music that went along with these scratching sound effects as we feel that the actual music was what was letting us down for being too samey throughout.
Negative feedback
Presentation of killer
More than one person stated that he/she didn't fully approve of the way in which we presented the killer in the trailer. It was stated that he didn't look terrifying enough, and that they wanted to see cuts and bruises on his face as it was normal and conventional to see that sort of thing within the horror genre. We weren't sure whether we entirely approved of this piece of feedback as we wanted our trailer to be a psychological horror, without gore and blood being a feature.Killer appearing too much
Further negative feedback was given regarding the killer, in that the demographic were saying that he appeared too many times within the trailer making it non-scary. They said they liked certain shots with the killer; for example, the medium long shot of him from behind getting ready to hit one of his victims over the head with a bottle. They didn't however approve of the shots where they could see his face as there was nothing mysterious about it and his identity had already been given away. After hearing this feedback, we agreed immediately; however at the time of filming we took a "this is a horror" attitude, therefore always wanted to include the scariest protagonist character in most of the shooting. Recently, after taking the audiences feedback into consideration, we have cut out 3 shots of the killer to decrease his time on screen.
Too many fast paced shots
Although a great deal of the people watching our trailer stated that they liked our use of fast changing clips to create a climax and to get the heart racing while watching it; others disagreed with this idea to a certain extent. A few members of the demographic said that we had used too many fast paced shots, therefore they couldn't really find where the climax within the horror trailer was. They wrote that it was difficult to completely tell what was going on in the story-line as a cause of this. They wanted to see a few longer shots at the start to get a better view of the protagonist characters and of the different locations, and then see the climax of fast paced shots about three quarters of the way through.
Music and sound too repetitive
Although some of our demographic stated that they enjoyed our choice in music and sound, others that it was too repetitive as it stayed pretty much the same throughout and there were no clear alterations with the dynamics and tempo. Before screening our piece to the audience, our main concern was in fact about the sound effects and music as we had had so many issues getting the sound to work on Adobe final cut pro. We therefore had to work with what wasn't in fact refusing to play; potentially compromising our overall grade.
Not enough locations
Further criticisms arose, regarding the lack of different locations within our horror trailer. I would say that approximately 90% of the demographic who watched and scrutinized our trailer said that there was a substantial lack in locations and that it was mainly just filmed in the woods. We didn't entirely agree with this feedback as we thought that the woods were key to the story-line, as it was loosely based on the teddy bear's picnic.
Inter-titles and no voice over
Widespread criticism escalated over the inter-titles we used during the trailer. The audience thought that the font we had chosen was very boring and didn't have a 'horror' effect to it with blood dripping off the letters or any kind of distortion. In conventional horror trailers, they had been used to seeing more unique styles in font which caught the eye more. They also said that there were too many of the inter-titles and it bored them having to read so much in the trailer as they preferred more visual and audio aspects. A number of people followed on from this with a suggestion that we add a voice over to deliver the text instead. Our group had mixed opinions about this due to our problems on the 'Adobe' program with audios. Following further audio problems, we then decided to stick with the inter-titles but tried making them look more interesting for the final draft. Furthermore, the audience stated that although we used so many inter-titles, they still had issues with following the narrative of the piece as what was being said in the inter-titles didn't seem to have 100% relevance to what was happening on the screen.
Our demographic response overall was not the most pleasing as there was clearly wide scope for improvement on the trailer. I think that if our group had seen eye to eye a little bit more and everyone had put in the same amount of input into the creation of the horror trailer, we would have achieved something a great deal more aesthetically pleasing. The group, as a whole became somewhat unorganized and began to lack in motivation due to others trying to take over and make it their own trailer. I couldn't agree more with a vast quantity of the audiences feedback; for example I feel that the aspect letting us down most was the narrative of the piece. I don't think we really knew what was going on in the story line enough; therefore we didn't let our imaginations run away with us like we should have done through the editing part of the horror piece. We were possibly trying to be too safe in the editing stage. I feel that this audience feedback has been of substantial help for our group. We have been able to listen to the opinions of the demographic and make improvements to match the specific needs and interests of our target audience. With regards to fitting in with the conventions of the horror genre, I believe our group could have included some more 'jumpy' shots which would take the audience by surprise. Using the killers face too many times within our horror got rid of the whole shock factor and could have possible led members of the audience to feel as though they had watched a whole film in a single trailer.
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