Evaluation Pt.4

When screening our horror film trailer to a focus group, both positive and negative points were given along with constructive criticism to help with improvement. The part of the trailer, which was enjoyed and highlighted most was the last shot of trailer at the end which includes the generic jump which is built up through out the trailer to the point where the main character Keith takes off the persons mask, this created a lot of suspense as you don’t know who is behind the mask leaving a cliff hanger. Another shot which was highlighted and praised for being successful was the dripping of the dark red blood onto the white snow, this shows a contrast between something associated with being soft and gentle, against dark blood which would connote as violence or horror, elements like these in our trailer made it very rememberable. Our choice of soundtrack was praised as feedback suggested it fitted well with the pace of the trailer and added to the gradual build up of suspense, which helped sequencing the trailer. Small details within our trailer were pointed out as being successful, putting all the elements together worked very well, examples of one of these elements are our choice to use black and white effects when in the transition between flashbacks and the scenes, this helped to clearly distinguish between what was a flash back and what was happening in the actual scene, making the trailer easy to follow and understand, and the inter-titles we used to help make the trailer easy to follow along, it also built up the narrative of the trailer. Although there was lots of positive feed back on how clear our trailer was to follow, criticism was given to parts of the trailer, which were slightly unclear or difficult to understand. For example, the part in which the man was having a heart attack was criticised as not being clear enough to follow. Another element which was criticised was the lack of gore featured in our trailer even though our trailer was categorised under the ‘Red-Band’. Contradicting with the positive feed back we received, some criticised the choice of ending to our trailer, suggesting that it may have been more fitting to our film if we had chosen a jump scene at the end aimed to scare rather than a slow shot which built up tension. In response to the criticism I agree with most points, as there are improvements which could have been made to make the trailer stronger, especially in terms of adding more gore, this would have made our trailer more fitting to the category it was placed in and made it clearer to the audience the genre of film we were intending, especially as it was pointed out how successful the shots of the blood contrasting on the snow were, we could’ve taken full advantage of this and added more gore shots to the trailer. I feel that to make the narrative of the film stronger, it could have been beneficial to take more advantage of using inter-titles as we could have added more detail and given more background information, particularly on Keith the main character, over all this would have made the narrative a lot clearer to the audience. The overall rating of our trailer was 6.5/10 from the rest of the class, this rating is lower than I would have liked and I feel it was strong as a trailer, although from the constructive criticism I can see the points where it could have been stronger and the reasoning for scoring 6.5.

As a group we took the criticism onboard and decided to make changes to our trailer. It was said that we needed to show Keith attacking somebody to further give clues to his motives and actions, so we filmed a new scene and added that at the end in the style of a flashback (to keep in with the other flashbacks). We filmed this scene in one lesson and we used different camera angles and quick cuts to make the scene exciting. We also used fake blood to add gore to the scene, a factor that was highlighted as being missing from the trailer. As a group we added this towards the end of the trailer, so it would stick in peoples minds as the last image f Kieth.

Overall I am happy with our final trailer. There are some aspects that I don't like such as the fonts used on the intertitles and the soundtrack, but overall I am happy with the finished product. I feel that this would appeal to our target audience, the film is supposed to be very gritty and bloody and our target audience would enjoy that type of horror movie (they would be fans of Henry:Portrait Of A Seriel Killer etc.). Our target audience is people who prefer shows such as Breaking Bad, Walking Dead rather than TOWIE or Geordie Shore. They would also fall into the C1 demographic profile so they would probably be a skilled labourer such as a plumber/builder. our target audiences also fall into the 'outsiders' psychographic profile. I feel the character of Keith would appeal to the target audience because of their preference in horror films, and Keith fits into this catergory. My favourite aspect of the trailer is the colour filming. In my opinion this series of shots look good, and contrasted with the snowy conditions, Kieth seems like a more believable character because he is out in daylight, which makes him a more scary and threatening character. i also like when Kieth takes the cloth of his vicitms head, we positioned the cloth on the camera itself so when Kieth pulls it off, it looks like the shot is from the point of view of the victim. We also took advantage of the dark conditions of the shed, so when Keith peers down towards the camera, his face 'emerges' from the darkness and becomes visible. the dark light makes his face seem sinister and scary and leaves a lasting impression and image in the viewers mind. I like these aspects because they ensure that the trailer seems scary and mysterious which matches Kieths character, and they make sure that our trailer ticks all the right horror boxes.