Media Evaluation - Part 4

Question 4: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Praise and criticism was highlighted in your focus group screening

One of the big praises we received was the jump scare at the end through collision cutting. In the feedback a lot of people spoke about it saying that, for instances “The end was really effective”. I agree with this as I feel it works well to make the trailer memorable for the audience. The final scare sticks in the mind of the viewer, because the scares stay inside the head of our audience after the trailer has finished. This would hopefully lead to a positive word of mouth about the trailer, a vital form of advertising that can lead to "viral marketing" that can elevate a low budget film (such as "Paranormal Activity") to mainstream success.

One of the big criticisms was the music. I can see why people spoke about it, saying things like the- “Soundtrack wasn’t horror enough”. I agree with this as the music doesn’t make you feel the emotion of horror. It is not suspenseful or match the action on screen. However, I do think the rocky feel of the soundtrack ties into action horrors like “Resident Evil 4” and “Doom” and is not against the conventions of this sub-genre of horror.

Another criticism we received was the trailer was “Very action oriented”. I can’t agree with this being a problem with the trailer because of the sub-genre of “Harvest on Crepsley Hill” was specifically an ‘Action horror’.  If we didn’t show all the conventions of the action genre, then people would be annoyed by our final product.  The Day of the Dead trailer is a good example. It annoyed people because the trailer was nothing like the actual film, and we knew how much, our target audience would be annoyed if we didn’t establish exactly what the film would be like. I was happy the trailer had enough action and horror aspects to achieve our aims. 

Another piece of widescale praise was the “Great gore effects”.  I do agree with this because we worked a lot of these effects during and after shooting to get these effects in. We all feel that they work well with the conventions of action horrors. The moment Richard spits blood onto the camera with the help of the ‘After Effects’ program is just a great moment in the trailer and, it was satisfying to hear the audience react to it so positively.

The last minute changes we made because of the focus group screening

One of the biggest complaints from the focus group was the volume of the music, and the dialogue of the actors. So after the group screening we adjusted the volume contro, and deleted almost all of the dialogue. The trailer didn’t feel professional until this problem was addressed.

We also added a few shots to the trailer, just to explain the narrative better. The best example of this is when I (Aaron) am running away from Ryan. It cuts from a shot of me running to me on the ground. So we went back and added a shot of me being knocked out. This helped to explain my character’s fearful emotions in more detail, while also allowing us to add another convention of the horror film with the use of collision cutting. There is now a slow shot of my reaction, before I am suddenly and shockingly killed by the machete.

The text also needed improvement. We changed the basic inter-titles look to make it look more professional. Other computer effects helped too. We added a filter to the footage, the simple change of lighting changes the whole feel of the trailer to a night-time diegesis.  Again this change allowed us to add another convention of low key lighting, giving an atmosphere of mystery within our trailer.    

Are you happy with your final product?

Now I have finished the trailer I can say I look back on it with great pride. I feel that it went really well in creating a product that wouldn’t look out of depth on a cinema screen. I feel that the group worked to each other’s strengths; With myself and Richard primarily on acting and filming, and Ryan and Frazer on editing and After Effects. It was a great team effort.  

Obviously there are certain things that I think went really well in getting across the horror conventions to their fullest potential. For example the music that Ryan developed worked really well within in the trailer. It twists on conventions to have almost contrapuntal music, but getting across the sub-genre of action horror. The music is metal, which is rare in horror films, but it also shows the action on screen of people getting killed to music you listen to. We felt that the traditional suspenseful music would feel out of place in our modern feeling trailer.

The moments of collision cutting, from slow to fast montage, work well in the trailer and delivered a jump scare. While juxtaposing the two halves of the trailer makes them far more extreme. The slow build up to the frantic finale works well in defining the true essence of “Harvest on Crepsley Hill”

Some of shots within the trailer work really well in delivering the body horror. The close up of Richard delivers body horror and works well in showing the emotion of the character in the scene and builds emotional connection, something that all good horrors need to do. 

                                                                                 
Looking back at the target audience we set out before we started I feel that we would appeal to them. We also had ideas of having a female heroine in our film (who is the only one who survives unscathed in the trailer). This shows how we stick to the forward thinking style of the modern horror genre. We feel that this film fits our target audiences perfectly, and would have matched the success of films such as “Resident Evil 4” and “Dawn of the Dead” (2004).