What have you learnt from the audience feedback?

I had asked a range of males and females aged seventeen and eighteen to watch my teaser trailer, and asked them to say what they thought was good and bad in terms of a teaser trailer and say what they thought was good and bad in terms of the horror genre, and if they would go to watch it.

The good comments said about our teaser in terms of the horror genre was that they enjoyed the fact we used a little girl making it typical iconic horror using a teddy bear to represent innocence which was said to be more disturbing, they also liked the convention of ‘The Final Girl’. However it was said it would have been nicer if they had a chnace to interact with her more to feel connected to her. Everyone liked our music we put together, they said they liked the drum noises on the ghost and the fact we had the same soundtrack all the way through just quieter at the start with other effects to create more tension. The song ‘Happy Birthday’ was popular as it linked in to the plot and you heard the little girls voice which had a creepy effect as they didn’t hear it again. They said it had a great build up although the ending was flat they said it would have been better for a more shocking ending. One main part a lot of people commented on and didn’t like was our structure, they didn’t like the fact it went slow, fast, slow they though it would have been better if it just cut off on a more shocking note. Motivated lighting was mentioned a lot, said it gave a horror effect and the use of the match stick on the birthday cake from the past to show this is the past.

There was a lot of comments on what they though was good and bad about it as a teaser trailer. As I have said they enjoyed the load thunder claps when they saw the three characters as they were able to interact with them however they wanted to see more of them so they could really get to know them a bit. liked the pace of the trailer said it really went well un till the ending as they thought it was flat. even though they enjoyed the black and white shots some people said they did not get it was representing the past. The music was popular they said they knew it was about a ghost in the first place but it gave it a little more terror. a lot of people enjoyed the gore in it, it showed that the film would have had a lot of gore how ever there was one or two people who said that they didn’t like the fact they saw gore as it gave too much away that people were going to die vicious deaths, they would have preferred it if it was left to their imagination. Everybody really liked the broken up inter titles as it told them about the importance of the location and why it was called ‘Happy Birthday’ the inter title “Now she’s back to celebrate” was most popular as it gave a great horror atmosphere as after it was a lot of death and gore shots. Also the fact at the end of our trailer there was a website which made it look professional.

Some idea people said they we could have improve don if we had the time was, we could have included dialogue a few screams and one or two of the characters saying how scared they were as they would have felt they knew more about the characters, or something along them lines as the inter titles said everything you needed to know about the plot. And as I have said people said we should have had a more dramatic ending, they liked out middle how fast it was and the shots we used but they though the slow ending lost effect, especially the part where there was blood dripping off the ladder as it was said it didn’t look realistic.

Over all i have taken in the opinions of the people who gave us out feedback, i do believe that our trialer was good. but after listening to people i do think we could have introdced our characters more so people already felt a connection to the teenagers in it, which i think would have made people want to see it, as it would have been people their age in the film, making people feel like it could happen to them. I thnk we need get some of the narrative accross, a few people did say they would have liked to have known more with in the trailer, however i do disagree with that comment because if we wuld have revealed more, they most probably would not have seen it as they would know what it was fully about. so i believe we got the balance right in that case.