What have you learnt about your audience feedback?

Overall I am generally quite pleased with the outcome of our horror trailer. When it was shown to a group of peers, who would be our target audience anyway, we got some really good, constructive feedback. Our test audience generally thought that the audio worked well, the music in the beginning was loud and sudden which grabbed their attention. With the visuals, the dreamy, surreal beat worked in time and created a warped atmosphere, however, there is no build up in speed and tempo of the music which doesn't give any sense of immediate urgency or danger.

The general response to the mise-en-scene is positive, the use of low lighting is consistant and really sets the mood, the red filter which was used in several shots, was particularly effective in the high angled point of view shot, looking down at the monster, connoting that the character is trapped, there is danger and blood. Another successful shot is of the extrem close up of the monster's eye at the end of the trailer, there were mixed reactions to the shot drifting from the close up of one eye to the other, that it would have been better to cut the shot after only a close up of one eye. There was also a split reaction to the tinted red shot of the hand and head drag, I agree with that they don't quite fit into the theme of the forest environment, however, they are good examples of conventional horror shots, where there are extream close ups being dragged into the darkness, this includes the shot of the hand appearing from the black and pulling the characters head into the dark. The point of view shot where the character is running reflects that of The Blair Witch Project, It was effective and appropriate, it put the audience in the characters position. The trailers inter titles weren't clear for the audience to read, the font was too bold and squashed together, they also didn't supply enough information and there was no unique selling point or even enough of a narrative structure to make viewers want to go see it at the cinemas. I didn't like the structure of the titles either, they didn't seem to really fit with the overall theme of the trailer, it seemed a bit random.

We didn't realise this till we got our feedback, our initial trailer which we put together was more structured like a story in the beginning, we saw the characters going to the woods and got a vague idea of why they were there, but we cut this because we thought it was too much and a bit monotimous, the shots of Ben were a bit much as well, it didn't seem right when he looked both ways then suddenly ran. The trailer overall didn't fit the conventional horror theme, it didn't follow the starting with normality leading to some bloody or scary shots then ending with either a shocking final scene or final title which makes the viewer want to see it, and I think that it works both ways for our trailer. Although it isn't a typical, gorey trailer which tempo picks up for the horror shots, it is very mysterious and I think quite orginal.