What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We showed our trailer to our media class (who of course fit our target audience) and the trailer seemed to go down pretty well, with plenty of positive comments and only a few negatives. However, it is the negative comments which are the most important as they are the ones which we can learn from.

To the right is an image with some screenshots representative of some of the positive comments we got. Generalised, the comments were as such:

•Music is good, in time, pick up at the right points, worked well

• The Crash Site title at the end was good, fitting font/smoke

•Conventional Setting

•Good range of shots

•Isolation of words in intertitles, eg 'Vanishes'

•Specific shots such as night vision shots, camera drop were good

•POV shots were dark/distorted

•Good effects/colour correction

•The fuzzing/static shots worked well.

•Used something from the past, masks/planes etc (See my Freud-  return of the repressed piece)

It was very nice to see many of these things picked up on, all of which were discussed as a group at various points - none of these positive points came from accidental things or luck. There were certainly a fair few horror conventions which we stuck too - the fact that our trailer was part 'documentary' style, supposedly with the characters cameras meant that we tried to make the quality a little grainy for those shots, and made use of the static and fuzzing on certain shots which you often see in films such as Paranormal Activity. As already mentioned, we also stuck to a more conventional setting - that being a sort of wooded area.

The music was also something that we worked hard to find - whilst real horror movies will often compose their own score specific to their film, we were obviously left trawling through royalty free websites in order to find suitable music and sound effects which would fit the style and feel of our trailer. Whilst of course it could have been better, I feel that our sound worked out very well with the resources we had. Many of the positive comments related to the music.

The negative comments we got were a lot shorter list and thus I can list them as individual, un-edited comments:

•Could be more jumpy sections

•Was only a couple of jumpy parts

• Inter-titles could be longer

•Narrative lost with all the different build up shots

•Music was fitting but could have differed at some points

•Not enough close ups

•Too many running shots, not a lot happens

I feel that there are some very important comments there, and if we were to go back and re-film and edit our trailer, I am sure we could vastly improve it. First of all, the first two comments:

"Could be more jumpy sections"
"Was only a couple of jumpy parts"

This is something which I very much agree with. During planning, we had 3 different 'jumpy' parts, but it was difficult to shoot and edit them as we could imagine them in our head (In our head we obviously imagined very professional versions) which ended up leaving us with only one main jumpy bit right at the end of the trailer, whilst other bits were only slightly jumpy, or just tension building. Upon reflection, the trailer needs to be a lot shorter with a lot less build up, and there needs to be at least 2-3 jumpy parts to make it more of an entertaining trailer.


"Inter-titles could be longer"

After watching the video countless times during editing, it can be hard to judge the length of inter-titles because you know exactly what they will say, allowing you to read it quicker that anyone who see's the trailer for the first time. I especially think that the first inter-title was to quick for some people to read. As for the production company titles, I personally don't think that these were a problem since you often see trailer in which the production company's flash on and off the screen really fast, as people are not interested in the companys - they want to see the trailer - and so spending to long focusing on the people who made the film can really distract from the trailer itself.


"Narrative lost with all the different build up shots"

This is a comment which I think I actually learnt from once we had a small discussion afterwards, where it was mentioned that not enough of the 'monster' was shown. Whilst I don't think any narrative was lost because of the build up shots (Other positive comments included "Very clear narrative - chronological" and "Story telling was good") I do feel that we did not show quite enough of the story because we did not show enough of the enemy/monster. This meant that some people were left feeling a little lost about what was actually happening, and what the characters in the trailer were scared of. This is another thing which can bypass you in editing - since we knew the story so well, this didn't occur to us - but to other people who had no idea about it, we did not make the main monster clear enough, and that meant that some of the narrative was lost there. Of course, this is only a trailer so there is a fine line between giving to much story away and showing the right amount, but we were just on the negative side of showing the right amount.


"Music was fitting but could have differed at some points"

I think possibly this comment tells me more about the length of the trailer if anything. They mention the fact that the music is fitting - but as I mentioned earlier, I think our trailer build up is too long. If the build up was 45 seconds less, then the slower paced music would be playing for 45 seconds less which would make it not so much of a drag, and then it may not feel as if the music would have needed to differ any more than it did when you factor in the fast paced music at the end.


"Not enough close ups"
"Too many running shots, not a lot happens"

The comments about the close up is something that I definitely agree with, and the second comment relates back to multiple things I have mentioned already such as trailer length, 'monster' shots and 'jumpy' shots. There were a few close ups which we made sure were in the trailer - such as when one character is looking around the woods by himself, and near the end when the gas mask monster is in the tent, but this clearly was not enough, and this perhaps contributed to the lack of 'jumpiness' mentioned.

Overall I think that I have learnt a lot from these comments. If we were to go back and re-vamp the trailer, I think it would be much shorter and snappier, with more close ups, more attention on the monster and those things combining to create more jumpy shots. I think that this would make our trailer a much more professional and cinematic experience to watch.