What have you

learnt from your

audience feedback?

-What was the praise and criticism highlighted by your focus group screening?

Overall, the audience in our focus group screening responded positively to the rough cut of our trailer, but also gave us some ideas for improvement which was really valuable.

Our audience seemed to appreciate that the “Intertitles were slashed which matched the theme of the trailer” (x10) and I agree that this does work well within the trailer by keeping to a common theme and subtly complimenting the narrative. We received a compliment in that the “dialogue and acting was done well” (x3) which although is not an essential part of this coursework, I think that this helped to create a more professional looking trailer. Both Jordan and I put a lot of effort into delivering the dialogue in a convincing manner, which resulted in us doing many takes of a shot before we were happy with it.

The audience also liked our “good variety of different shots/cinematography” (5) which I think was a result of us planning out our shots before the day of shooting so that we knew what we wanted to capture and why. For example, at certain moments such as when we first see the hair protruding from the drawer we needed to have close ups in order to highlight the tension/emotion, whereas other times such as when the female protagonist is driving through a country lane it was important to show the location of the shots.

One member of the audience suggested that we “Add blood to knife shot for effect” which resulted in us deciding to reshoot these shots at a different angle using fake blood to add more drama to the shots. I think this was a good suggestion because it makes it more realistic and fits horror conventions by using body horror. Something that came up repeatedly in our notes after the focus group screening was that our trailer “needed music” (x12). This is something that we knew ourselves and were fully prepared to hear from the audience.

The average score for our rough cut from the focus group screening was 6/10, which was a good starting step before we made all of the improvements.

-What last minute changes did you make as a result of your focus group screening?

After our focus group screening, our main priority was to finish getting the trailer to the final length so that we could get our music recorded. The reason that we didn’t have this before the focus group screening is that my brother - based on instructions I gave him - offered to compose a piece of music for us that would fit exactly to our trailer and emphasise moments in the trailer that we wanted to make an impact. If we’d have had this music recorded before we had our final cut of images, we risked losing that niche because timing of the trailer could have made the music unusable. I really think that this was worth the wait because having this music has made such a difference to how effective the trailer is for the horror genre.

As a result of the focus group screening, we filmed a few extra shots that the audience felt was needed, for example a jump scare at the end to leave a lasting impression on the audience. This is a convention of horror trailers, as shown in the trailer for Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) below and something which I think has made our ending stronger. We also filmed the car wheel screeching to a stop which was a shot that we’d initially found on YouTube and put in to show the audience what we intended to do but hadn’t filmed it ourselves yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7Xn2JqH5ng

Another change we made was to add more gore effects into the trailer, and a suggestion was made to show the hair being cut from the scalp which would also help to explain the narrative. To do this we used latex and fake blood to create a wound on the hairline and then film Jordan pulling a set of hair extensions from the wound making it look like the woman was being scalped.

I think that this is a really effective shot which made the audience in our evaluation screening visibly cringe. We also added sound effects onto certain shots such as the car wheel screech because we wanted a sense of exaggerated realism in our trailer.

-How did the evaluation screening go?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X89XgKYANRQ

I’m really happy with how the evaluation screening went and seeing it all come together on the screen. There were points during the creation of this trailer where I dreaded watching the final product because I was so scared that after all the hours spent on it, I’d be disappointed with the final product. I’m glad to say that I don’t feel like this at all, but I feel proud of what we created as a team by pooling all of our creative ideas and bringing our own individual skills to the group. I think having the music really made the trailer come together on the screen, it emphasised all the right points and built up the tension and just generally supported the emotions in the shots.

Minor adjustments that I think could be made is to tweak some of the sound levels, for example to make the sound effects (such as the blade dropping to the ground) even more jumpy. This will be easily solved, however.

The swearing in the trailer caused no controversy during the evaluation screening, however one teacher suggested it was unwise due to BBFC regulations. We left the swearing in because we envisaged the trailer being shown on YouTube rather than on TV. Although the “red band” classification applies to American films, there are “red band” trailers of British films such as Trance (2013)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Daf3plVRooc

Our average final score was an 8/10, which I am definitely happy with. I think I have learnt a lot throughout the process and remained focus throughout which is why we achieved a high score. It really was a team effort with everybody bringing in their own ideas and skills to produce a successfully conventional horror trailer.