What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

I have learnt a lot from my audience feedback.  We screened our trailer to our class using a multimedia projector with all the students sat around the large screen.  We then received feedback from each student, both positive and negative that we could use to make changes to our trailer.  Screening our trailer to our class was a really good thing to do because our class fitted the target audience that both our movie and horror movies in general appeal to.  The target audience for horror movies is teenagers, aged between 15 and 25 and predominantly male.  Our classes age range is from 17 - 19 with a higher amount of male students than female students.  

Some of the positive feedback we received as a group for our trailer is:

From the comment "The use of canted angles is really good", we learnt as a group that the target audience does appreciate the expressive angles that are commonly used in horror movies and that they worked effectively in our trailer.  The comment "I really like the lighting on the house at the beginning" was helpful as it let us know that we did a good job with levels and lighting, especially as that shot was shot in darkness and it was challenging to make sure that the house was fully visible.  The final comment, "The trailer is abstract and disturbing and I like how it is scary and jumpy" was also very good because it told us as a group that we had done well to create a horror trailer with horror conventions as an audience member did actually find it scary.  It has also backed up that fast paced, rapidly shot cuts are effective in horror movies and their trailers, a feature that is commonly found in them.

We also received negative feedback about our trailer which we then took into very careful consideration and we then changed our trailer accordingly.

Some of the negative feedback we received was:

From the comments, "The font used for the intertitles is too boring and they need to be slowed down" and "The titles need to look scarier through the use of a different font and a change in colours" we realised that this was a serious issue because similar comments were brought up multiple times by lots of the students in our class.  We took some time to analyse intertitles in some real media products, aswell as some in other students work and we agreed that they were not right and did not work with the feel of the trailer that we wanted to give.  We chose a new font as a group and we then added different effects for the party scene and the horror scenes afterwards where the equilibrium was disrupted.   I strongly agreed with the comment "The sound is disconnected in areas".  I agreed with this because some of the sound effects were either missing or out of time and one particular bit of speech "quick over there", which is now removed from the trailer, was played way too early.  Comment four, "The link between how the characters get from the house party to the forest isn't clear" taught me that the audience like to have more of a plot indication so they can think through or be shown in more detail the events that are going to unfold.  However as a group we decided we were happy without changing anything to rectify this issue because we felt that as a teaser trailer the link does not need to be established and that it should be left as a question on the audiences mind so they are more likely to want to go and watch the movie to find out what happens as well as how the link was formed.  Teaser trailers need to establish the key characters, the genre and some of the narrative enigma and must not give away the whole plot.  Comments five and six, "The scene where George is dragged under the bridge needs to be quicker to make it seem more jumpy" and "The No Service shot on the mobile phone is to quick and to difficult to read" were especially useful as it gave us an insight into how long the audience felt certain shots needed to shown on screen for.  As a group we agreed that the scene where I was dragged under the bridge was to long and we did cut it down.  We also agreed that the mobile phone shot was to quick so we almost doubled the screen time it had and added a zoom in towards to 'No Service' writing to make it easier for the audience to read it.  Finally we changed the length of some of the actions shots in relation to comment seven "The running shots are on screen for too long" which I felt made the trailer seem must quicker paced and more jumpy.  From this I have learnt that the target audience likes their horror movies to be very fast paced and to keep them 'on their toes' to help build suspense and momentum.

Having made the changes from the audience feedback we received from our classmates, I then asked for some more audience feedback from my friends, all of which were in the target age of 15 - 25.  They told me that:

From the comment "I like the fonts and I think the effects on the party ones look cool", I have learnt that my the intertitles now fit better to what the target audience wants and that they vastly improve the trailer.  Comment two "I think the lighting on the house at the beginning is really good" is very similar to a previous comment we had from a student in our class from our initial class screening.  It is also very similar to the comment above, "The lighting and laughter is really good".  Therefore I have also learn that the house shot is popular with the target audience.  "The music is haunting and is timed well" has told me that we have successfully corrected the errors with the soundtrack from our first draft.  Finally the comment "The combination of partying hard and murder is effective and chilling" has told me that the general narrative does appeal to my target audience and that the storyline is effective.