Evaluation Part 4

Evaluation Part 4: What Have You Learnt From Audience Feedback?

What praise and criticism did you receive during the focus group screening?

We had a mix of praise and criticism during the screening here were some of the positive feedback:

 “The blood effects work well, especially onto camera.” “Good shots, like the walking scenes of feet”

“Text was good” “Good soundtrack, it is cut at places really well” “Great sound effects”

“Sets narrative well” “Love the text/font” “Nice sound effects” “Good jump shots”

“Good shots – canted angle through mask” “Good location – creepy”

“Nice blood FX” “Good violent scenes” “The gore and the effects” “I like the inter-titles on the background of the mask”

“Jump scare at the end was sick” “Great gore effects” “Good blood effects, good camera angles”

“The end was really effective, and the sound effect went really well with that part” “Spitting on the screen was cool” “Really good pace” “Good camera angles”

“Nice shots” “Good lighting” “Lots of angles” “Good blood shots” “Good gore effects, jumpy, good titles & text” “Gore & close ups”

And here is some of the negative feedback:

“The audio of speech isn’t very clear and is hard to understand” “Music was louder than speaking sometimes” “Shots could be darker” “Almost exposes too much of storyline – we see all the characters get killed”

 “Hard to hear talking” “Soundtrack wasn’t horror enough” “Very action oriented” “The lighting and the music, music did not go with the dialogue”

“Narrative isn’t too clear” “Music was a bit too loud at the start” “The music didn’t make me feel scared, and it could be more mysterious”

“Not very eerie because the lighting is very high key” “Can’t hear some of the dialogue” “Couldn’t hear the voices – sound too loud”

“Soundtrack didn’t really fit the horror” “Didn’t like the music, was too loud fort speech” “Picture was a bit bright, just didn’t seem scary”

 “Speech wasn’t clear”

Here are my comments on this after talking to my group:

We agreed with the speech being hard to hear so we decided to change it so the voices where louder than before. We also used the ‘pen’ tool to make the soundtrack quieter at certain points, especially when Aaron and me discuss whether the story of the killings are true.

We also changed the lighting of the trailer so it  wasnot so high key. By using the contrast/brightness filter on Premier we made it a lot darker and more eerie.

However we disagreed with the music not being suitable because we thought it suited the action horror style we were going for and reminded of soundtracks that were similar in horror films like ‘Resident Evil’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (2004).

In addition we also disagreed with it exposing too much storyline because we don’t show the order of the deaths as they may be in the full film. It’s clear that two of the teenagers have survived and this would encourage the viewers to watch the film to see what they are like.

What last minute changes did you make because of the focus group screening?

We changed the order of events in the trailer to keep the deaths until further in. This meant we could build the tension more.  We also changed so the shot were low key and lot darker, which also made it more dramatic and similar to the ‘visual mix’ of real horror films and trailers.

We also added a few additional shots after a reshoot. These were mostly of Ryan with the mask on, as we wanted to make him the main selling point of the film just like in ‘Halloween’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ where the creepy killer appeals to audiences.

We also took out shots we felt slowed down the narrative in the trailer and finally added the YOU WILL BE REAPED TEXT which was similar to the text used at the end of the MARTYRS trailer.

Are you have happy with the final trailer?

I am really pleased with the trailer for I feel it is a strong interesting and horror trailer because it has interesting shots, an almost sympathetic but also evil villain, good gore effects, and a good soundtrack with works well with trailer. These pack together to give an eerie but exciting atmosphere with the characters and the stereotypes being set up so the audience can easily understand all the different characters quickly.

I definitely think ‘Harvest on Crepsley Hill’ appeals to our main target audience and our audience research in class showed this idea would appeal to our target audience of teenage action horror fans. It has a good pace and has interesting villain that hasn’t been done as much as other student films. Also it has really great sound track that befits the trailer and the genre and finally the main cast are about the same age as the target audience and so people can relate.