Monday 12 March 2012

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

When the trailer was finished we had a screening in front of the whole class at college which consists of around 20, 17-19 year olds which is our target audience, the group consists of men as well as women. After everyone had viewed the trailer we asked for feedback and opinions on the trailer to help us with little changes and to find out which parts were effected or needed to be worked on/tweaked. 


The main thing which the audience responded on was the use of CCTV effects which was probably the most significant bit of Mise-en-scene in our trailer. The audience thought that:

  • CCTV created a sense of realism which impacted very well and created a lot of suspense, and because the editing was done well it looked very realistic and didn't appear to be basic.
  • The blue tint which was applied on top of the video created an atmospheric feel and a real connection to horror and fright. 
  • The actual area in which we filmed was good because it was in a very childish bedroom and the camera was placed in the corner which gave a really clear view of the whole room but also had a slight cantered angle which connoted something being not quite right. 
  • The ending scene with the demon face morph worked very well and was effective because it popped up in different places throughout the trailer which created suspense and made the audience question what was going on and made them wonder what the significance was to the clip which then developed to be the scariest moment in the trailer right at the end and making numerous people jump. 

Another thing which we had strong responses on was shots and camera work/editing. The audience thought: 

  • There was a strong atmospheric effect with the opening scenes consisting off trees waving in the wind and swing chains crossing eachother. They thought that these were really impactive and made you wonder who was on the swings and if something paranormal was happening. 
  • There was a innocent theme throughout because of it being based on a young girl and the shots of her standing at the top of the stairs and walking up the stairs showed her looking very child like in a little night dress which looked really creepy. 
  • The morph face looked really dark and the effect on her skin was really effective. Also the way that her mouth stretched and screeched was really impactive and had a strong jump factor. 
  • There were also things that the audience think could of been tweaked or added such as more information on the narrative and story line, because they felt that they weren't engaged enough on the background of the film.

Sound was something which was also responded on quite heavily, for example:

  • The music at the start of the trailer created a really gloomy atmosphere and set the scene for the genre which was then followed on by the fast paced music for the action as the trailer developed. 
  • The voiceovers worked well but they weren't acted out in the best of ways and sometimes sounded a bit repetitive and didn't actually give out much information about what was going on and why it was all happening.
  • Another thing which was criticised was the transition between the two because it was a little bit sudden and sounded like it wasn't blended very well. 


Overall the feedback that we had received for the trailer when everyone had watched it was very interesting and helped a great deal to understand things that we need to improve on and work. It also gave us a greater understanding when giving feedback to other trailers ourselves. The feedback which was the most impactive for us wasn't necessarily the positive, but the negative because it enabled us to make changes and tweak what we had already done, and in this case there wasn't actually anything massive to change, just a few little quick and easy fixes. I feel that feedback is something which is very important for every product in the media because although something can look perfect to the person who created it, this doesn't mean that its perfect to everyone else. At the end of the day, a product needs to be made to meet the needs of the target audience, which isn't always the needs of the creator/designer. 

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