What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We presented our trailer to the class to get some feedback on what they thought was good, bad or what was maybe missing from the trailer in terms of horror and advertising conventions. Asking our class mates for their feedback was ideal as they are of a similar age to our target audience (15-25ish) and there is a mix of both males and females. Our Trailer is targeted at this audience as statistics show they are the most likely age group to want to see the film either in the cinema or at home on DVD. From this feedback we were able to modify our trailer to meet the needs of our audience.

One point that was made was to do with the glitches at the end of our intertitles. Should there have been more? We discussed this as a group and tried to add in more glitches, however, they looked forced and unessential and so came to the conclusion that more glitches would have been overkill. It was also mentioned that there were maybe too many static sounds and static beeps in the trailer. These sounds were in conjunction with the static effects seen on screen, and when we took some of them off the it seemed to be less flowing. We decided to keep these sounds in in order to maintain flowing continuity through the trailer. Without this continuity the viewer may 'drift-off' as they are not being kept engaged.

As we shot during daytime, our trailer broke the usual convention of horror being at night. Our audience picked up on this and suggested we do something to improve this. To resolve this issue we went back onto Final Cut Pro and added a gradual grading filter witch made the shots darken to look a little more like night. Overall this helped our trailer to look like a more convincing and scary horror trailer.

Another point that was made was the similarity between 'The Blair Witch Project' trailer and our own trailer. Admittedly we did use 'The Blair Witch Project' in our research and used some of their ideas. However, after discussing with the rest of the viewers we came to the conclusion that although the trailers were similar, 'Braeden Forest' had a more defined story line because the audience was able to see more of the plot, but still not too much so as to give it away.

Following on from this point, one of the viewers mentioned the police tape and said there was not enough police involvement seen in the trailer. However, from discussing this point with the rest of the viewers we found that they actually liked the small amount of police involvement - enough to intrigue the viewer and get them thinking about the film, which is exactly what a trailer should be doing. Also, it is conventional of horror films to portray the police as invariably ineffective as this connotes the magnitude of the horror; beyond what our society can handle, thus striking fear into the viewer.

There were a few shots at the end of the trailer that were commented on. It was mentioned that the shot of Jake (the main protagonist) crying into the camera in fear may do the opposite of what it was intended to do and actually appear more comical than fearful. However, when I showed the trailer to a few people outside of college to see what they thought they disagreed and said the shot worked. I think it was the fact that the people in the class viewing knew Jake and that is what made it appear funny to them.

The following shot of the hand coming towards Jakes face was also criticised. Originally the shot was longer, with a close up of Jakes face and the camera then jumping forward to the hand. Our audience said this shot looked too set-up. In order to fix this we shortened the amount of time on Jakes face at the beginning thus making the shot jolt more and appear less deliberate. We also included an impact sound for when the hand appears to create more intensity in the shot.


As well as receiving some constructive criticisms, our audience told us what they particularly liked about the trailer...
Several people mentioned the overall soundtrack as being very effective in building tension with the use of heartbeats, impact sounds to match shots and the increasing strings that built up the intensity of the trailer. The impact sound matching the stomping foot was mentioned in particular, it was said that this gave the footage more impact. Our viewers also enjoyed the flashing running shot sequence witch had the heart beats to match the visuals as well as the shot of David's eye shot where we used a jump cut and impact sound to scare the audience.

We also received compliments on our clear inter-titles and effective glitch effects.

From this feedback I now know what this audience particularly likes and/or dislikes. This will make any future media production projects of a similar context easier and hopefully more successful.