Question 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I used a lot of feed back to adjust the trailer, magazine and poster to make it more professional and to make it adhere to what my audiences considered a good horror trailer, magazine cover and poster to have. We took in a number of questionnaires from all our friends and family who watched our trailer and we tried to make adjustments were we thought we agreed with the feedback. I also took in my own feedback from friends and family who I showed my poster and magazine cover but in the form of aural feedback.

Overall my feedback was very positive and my audiences really liked the trailer, magazine cover and poster a lot. They felt that they would definitely go and see the film for a number of reasons:

The Trailer:

The fast tempo; My feedback told me that the audience really enjoyed the thrilling speedy tempo of the trailer through the fast editing- things happened fast and it really added to the scariness.

The suspense; We used music to great affect of building up the tension and then would cut to a quiet scene and then bang! A quick shock to the audience. An example of this would be when Alex is breathing heavily and then suddenly screams or when the flash of the attacker suddenly appears.

The Magazine:

The cover line quote; The use of a quote was a favourite because it gave my audience an idea of how they’d react to it- the person is saying how scary it is and it looks like a genuine quote so it helped my audience feel like the film would definitely be good to watch and get scared by.

The tag line; The use of a rhetorical question for a tag line was seen as a masterstroke by much of the feedback. They liked being included into it and they wondered what it was they’d have to survive and if they could and it really made them want to see it.

The image; The audience liked the use of the attacker against the quiet suburban home and it made them feel like it could happen to them and it could be their home. This is exactly what I was looking for.

The Poster:

The layout; The feedback was very positive about the layout I chose to use; they liked having the main image of the killer in the centre, being bigger than the others and really grabbing their attention. They also thought it was good having the victims either side as it showed the key characters involved and who the film would be about.

The images; The exact images I picked got very good feedback too with the audience saying that the killers image was very captivating and scary as he has his face blacked out and is in a very menacing position. Furthermore, the audience liked the victims images as well, the screaming image of Alex made them want to know what was so scary and if they’d be scared too and the image of Dean tied up and attacked made them want to see it even more as it seemed so brutal and savage.

However, there were changes to make.

The Trailer: From the questionnaires and from what people told me I edited our trailer accordingly;

To put in music; we knew we had to put some background music and our audiences totally agreed. The music we added really helped make the trailer a great piece of work and made it look like a professional horror film teaser trailer.

To take out the knife scene; although we had some feedback commenting that they liked a particular scene where a knife was dragged along a brick wall, creating an eerie sound, the overall majority of my feedback suggested that it wasn’t necessary and it slowed down the rest of the high tempo trailer.

To add a shot of the attacker; audiences felt that to justify having the attacker on my poster and magazine, they needed to see him during the trailer and they were right. I added a scene where the attacker flashed from darkness to darkness before the credits.

To change the attacker’s flash; So I added the attacker flashing just before the title- it goes pitch black and then the attacker flashes up on screen and back to black. However, it flashed a blood red and audiences said they would prefer if it wasn’t like that. I changed it to a normal shot and the feedback was more positive- it didn’t need the colour to make the figure more demonic.

To cut the dragging scene: Another scene that, like the knife scene, slowed the high tempo of our trailer was a scene of the killer dragging Dean into a dark room; audiences didn’t like how much it slowed everything down so we cut it.

The Magazine: From what people told me I edited my magazine accordingly to make it look professional and to be something that would sell them the film.

The main image: The main image of the killer on the front wasn’t a great image; it was too blurry and at first people asked why he was in a dressing gown because it looked so fluffy. The picture wasn’t a good enough quality so I found one which was good quality and would fit to my idea and blacked out his face. I much preferred the new image.

The banner: I’m using a clacker board for my magazine title; the name of the magazine is Take 1 is on a clacker board as they’re used on film sets to show the take i.e. Take 1 and its also telling a potential buyer to take one. But I also had a banner over the clacker and audiences thought there was too much crammed into the top. So I then thought that I could use the clacker board’s stripped top as the banner to put text on and it worked brilliantly.

The board: Another issue was the size of the board and title because at first it covered a third of the page and audience feedback showed that they felt it left the rest of the magazine far to squashed together and it took a lot away from the main image.

These are images to scale of each other, and the chosen piece on the final piece of work. Clearly the original would be far to big for anything else to survive on the page.

The Poster: From what my audience told me in their feedback, I edited my magazine accordingly to make it look professional and to be something that would really sell the film to them and other movie goers.

Add in credits: I was reminded by my feedback that posters generally have credits on them detailing actors, production teams and direction teams etc. So I hastily read up on the names for the professional positions people had filled and then credited them.

Add the knife: Feedback of the poster also showed be that I’d forgotten to edit in the attackers knife. The feedback with the knife was much more positive and the attacker looked even more

menacing and scary than before.