HORROR TRAILERS

BY ALEX DALTON

EVALUATION ANALYSIS PART 4

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Audience feedback was vital to improving our trailer for Lullaby. Once the class had been shown my horror trailer they then gave us feedback telling me what they enjoyed about the trailer and what could possibly still be improved. Positive responses were given with classmates stating that they liked the scene where my hair was being pulled up into the air from a mysterious source while the lights were flickering within the room.

They found the sinister lullaby music suitably troubling, showing it to be effective for the horror genre. One person commented saying they also liked the scene where my reflection within the mirror changes to become that of Caitie and how this being sped up led to a more impressive effect. One person alsoparticularly liked the jump scare at the very end of the trailer as it was quick and also accompanied

by a rather loud and unpleasant soundWhen looking into the criticism of the trailer someone said they did not entirely understand the narrative it was based upon. I agreed with the criticism as I had the same problem in our rough cut screening. In response to this, I changed a few things around in the trailer to try and make it more understandable such as adding a close up of a piece of paper with text. The changes made showed to work as more of the class understood the narrative the second time around, however more improvementcould obviously be made. I chose not to change the narrative trailer anymore after this comment though as I feel if I were to make any more alterations to introduce the narrative this may make the trailer drag.

CONTINUED…

Some last minute changes which were made to the trailer were things such as changes to the lighting, this was done through the brightness and contrast tools on Premiere Pro for each piece of footage. This was done in order to add continuity throughout the trailer

It was helpful that my classmates were of a similar age group being older teenagers and young adults as this was primarily the group that the trailer was aimed at. As the majority received it well this shows an achievement in regards to appealing to the target audience. When looking at my favourite aspects of the trailer I would have to consider one to be the hanging scene.

allowing it to flow well and come together as one piece. Also as was mentioned in the evaluation screening the lullaby music and jump scaremusic carried on after any footage was on screen

and stopped quite suddenly. This was edited afterwards in Premiere Pro by altering the timings of both the footage and music and also the sound levels. Now the music stops earlier in sync with the footage and also fades out nicely towards the end. This gives the trailer a more finished and professional feel. Overall I am extremely happy with all the comments I received during our evaluation screening. The majority were very positive with only one improvement being suggested. I feel this reflects that people enjoyed watching the trailer showing it to be successful towards what I was trying to achieve. The trailer fitted well into its horror sub-genre of being a psychological horror as we added typical generic conventions of this form, enabling it to reach its targeted audience.

Here I was able to add close up shots to show emotion, using restricted narration of keeping the actual act off screen but audible. The use of the slow montage up to this point transfers into a quicker montage

Here is a bar chart to illustrate the scores i had been given by the rest of the class.

you are able to see no-one gave me a below average score. 2 people gave a score of 5-6 out of 10, the largest proportion gave scores of 7-8 out of 10 with a few also giving scores of 9-10 out of 10.

CONTINUED…

afterwards and rather harrowing sound effects to accompany this. Another of my favourite moments would also be the jump scare at the end. The villain is presented to us in a close-up making us feel claustrophobic playing into the theme of the fear of being trapped. Having her eyes rolling around she gives off to the audience the representation of a psycho serial killer and also gives the audience a direct mode of address. It feels as if she is in the room with us. The parallel music added to this increases our heart rates and gains the desired effect of a jump scare. There is also low key lighting and dark shadows in this shot connoting evil, darkness and mystery. This leaves an open ending to the narrative leaving the audience wanting more and entices them to watch the full film of Lullaby.