What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The ORIGINAL first cut trailer for 'Dead End' was screened in front of the class and we got a lot of feedback.

Soundtrack

• They thought the music wasn't powerful enough and didn't seem to grip them.
• The music didn't build up to the end.
• They thought the trailer would work better with dialogue as it lacks it.
• In the chase seen it would be more successful to hear heavy breathing and footsteps to make the audience feel more like they're there.
• On a positive note they liked the heartbeat effect.

Mise En Scene/Filming

• Some people mentioned how they liked the setting of where we filmed the trailer.
• They liked how it starts off in a forest then when the lead girl is captured it cuts to a basement/boiler room/unidentified place.
• Tey liked the idea of isolation.
• They liked the shadow on the wall featuring the villain about to hit the girl.
• They like how a girl was used as a lead as a female victim/final girl is very effective in horrors.

Cinematography/Editing

• They like how the shot distances were very varied showing closeups and long distances.
• They liked the colour editing and how we made it darker.
• There is a glitch where the soundtrack makes a random bang while flashing to white in a shot. I think this was an accident made when moving the tracks around and wasn't noticed before rendering.

Overall the audience thought the original trailer was alright but the soundtrack let it down a lot as there was no climax and they were left not feeling very interested. Yet the version that was screened was only the first cut, not the finished piece so there were bound to not be things finished and finalised. The soundtrack was defiantly not finished at the time which is quite obvious when watching. Click here to go to the first cut group teaser of "Dead End".

Using this feedback I created my own version of the trailer which I personally think is more successful. After showing my friends they also agree with me that it's an improved and more finished than our group version. I found that my group was really hard to work with as when I would edit something, somebody after me wouldn't take notice then just edit over it again and then I would edit it again. Because we aren't the same person we had different ideas and seemed to edit it with our ideas in mind not noticing they all clashed. Click here to see my version of the teaser.

For my final cut, I have used some out-takes that where captured when filming, for actual purpose in my teaser. I found that these parts looked more real because they actually were, so they didn't have a fake acted feel about them. I added a texture throughout the teaser as I thought this added a much darker and distressed feel as the footage we had wasn't strong and dynamic enough.