Evaluation Question 3- What did you learn from your audience feedback?

To recognise importance of audience feedback in the planning stages of our production, we carried out a number of surveys and focus groups to determine what would make our media product more appealing to the ending audience.

Analysis of Survey to Determine the Name of the Film Trailer

Before beginning the production of our trailer, we created a surveymonkey questionnaire in order to allow us to question our target audience on what name we should choose for our film trailer.

The original survey produced was in aim that we would be able to determine a name for our film trailer. Explaining what our initial idea for our film trailer was, we gave our audience a choice of five different names, or another, that would be appropriate for our film trailer. Below is a screen shot of the user input data entry for this:

And this was the end result of the survey:

Taking the three names Hail Mary, The Deserving and Subsequent of Sin (SOS), I carried out another survey, again, trying to determine the name that we would use for the film trailer finally. The reason for choosing to use Subsequent of sin in this next survey was because Raman and I had realised that we could turn it into an anagram, SOS, which related to how the demonic Priest in our narrative was "saving the souls" of those who had carried out one of the deadly sins. Below was the results of this, clearly showing that our idea for this was good and that we should use this name and anagram.

Audience Feedback Improvements Carried Out

special effects transition added

black eye effects applied

From verbal responses during the end stages of our project by people we asked advice from, we added more supernatural visual effects and cut down on unnecessary shots, cutting our trailer down to one minuet rather than a minuet and a half. 

Here I have changed this shot to be of a darker lighting than
the original harsh bright lighting that looked too
different to the rest of the trailers footage.

Some of the shots were also edited so that they matched the darker toned shots using a tool on Final cut Pro called "colour matching".


Results from a focus group on the sound that we had at that point also. The overall consensus was the voice overlays were a bit shaky and not demonic enough. To resolve this, we recorded new voice overs, matching them up with the footage already shot.

We then collected audience feedback at the end of developing our production, carrying out a focus group using YouTube and also putting our product on social networking sites such as Youtube, Tumblr and Facebook to determine what the audience think of the end product, learning what went well and what could have been improved.

Audience Feedback of Final Edited Teaser Trailer

Uploading our trailer to social networking sites

Screen shot of our trailer posted on Tumblr

Screen shot of our trailer posted on YouTube

Publishing the final edited version of our teaser trailer on YouTube, Tumblr and Facebook, accompanied by a few further questions based on what we had produced, allowed us to understand the reception we would receive from audiences now that we had submitted it as our final coursework piece, using convergence to collate these reviews. Collating a focus group, we used the YouTube video to answer the questions that we wanted to ask, collecting feedback ready for analysis, learning what was good and what could have been improved in our final product of our teaser trailer.

Questions that we asked our audience included the following:

1. How identifiable was the genre, can you tell that it is a supernatural horror?
2. As a teaser trailer, does it give you a sense of the narrative?
3. Was the typography created and used effective?
4. How persuasive is the trailer to entice you to watch the film?
5. What are your favourite moments of the trailer?
6. Any overall comments?
7. Even better if?

The responses were given to us in hand written form. A range of the responses that were received are shown below with scans of some of the hard copy evidence.

1. How identifiable was the genre, can you tell that it is a supernatural horror?

• Most of the responses that we got were that yes, the genre was identifiable, and that it was a supernatural horror.

 Others made more detailed comments as shown below:

• Yes, mise en scene makes genre very clear that it’s a supernatural horror
• Clearly horror

2. As a teaser trailer, does it give you a sense of the narrative?

• Varied shots and location used to explain narrative
• Yes, serial killer
• Yes, murder, seven sins etc
• Yes, from the typography, it was about the seven sins
• Yes, use of editing and mise en scene explained it well
• Demon person goes out to kill those involved in the 7 deadly sins
• Yes, the religious scenes propose a “spookiness” throughout the trailer. It is very effective at the bit where the priests voice is deepened and supernatural- giving the narrative to the audience.

screen shot of a response

3. Was the typography created and used effective?

• Yes, the red colour linked to the idea of evil, etc.
• Very, colour red and repetition of the sins are effective.
• It went in time with the sound. The usage of colour was good too- black and red.
• Matched the genre really well.
• The typography was done really well- matched genre well
• The SOS at the end was so good! Really effective.

4. How persuasive is the trailer to entice you to watch the film?

• What's the cause of him hurting the other characters about? Makes me want to watch it more.
• The special effects were detailed and realistic
• It kept you on the edge of your seat- was quite disturbing: weird special effects
• Made the audience intrigued in what would happen next- it was very tense
• Horror fans, there's a lot of blood which attracts them.
• There was blood and gore (appealing to horror fans)
• It has a mystery about it and the blood/music means that it appeals to horror film fans
• Very engaging
• The final shot montage is highly effective and engaging.

5. What are your favourite moments of the trailer?

screen shot of a response

• Effective special effects and sound
• The montage of sins, bathtub
• At the beginning with the arm and blood pouring out of it
• The special effects make up was really good, typography and sound as well as fast paced editing
• The typography at the end, the shots of blood and bodies
• The lighting was effective(in the shadow scene)
• Range of shots

6. Any overall comments?

• Loved the make up, looked creepy and realistic
• Whooo!! That was AMAZING! I really want to know what happens next!
• Original and interesting, special effects are really good
• Make up and blood, voice-over, the shot where the eye goes black is very effective.
• Special effects make up

7. Even better if? 

• Lighting of shots bit brighter, slightly unclear. Sound could be improved, build more tension
• The sound was clearer
• Some of the voice overs sounded a bit strange
• Sound could be improved
• Two righting parts where they go too fast
• Some shots could have been darker to create more tension
• The camera angles- maybe more variety

Below are images of some of the responses:

Analysis of Responses and what we have Learnt

Analysing the responses of each question, overall, it seemed that the audience thought that the final product was very successful with minor things that could have been improved. Below is an individual analysis of each question asked, highlighting responses and explaining what our group learnt from them:

1. How identifiable was the genre, can you tell that it is a supernatural horror?
Every one of the responses agreed that they could tell that the trailer was advertising a horror genre, which was the desired effect, however they didn't all state that it was supernatural.

2. As a teaser trailer, does it give you a sense of the narrative?

Every response for this question indicated that each person who watched our teaser trailer could get a sense of the narrative that it depicted.

3. Was the typography created and used effective?

All our audience viewers commented that they really liked the typography and that it matched well with our choice of genre.

4. How persuasive is the trailer to entice you to watch the film?

Each response indicated that people would want to know what happens in the rest of the film, enticing them to want to watch it. They also commented about how the blood and gore aspect would entice horror fans.

5. What are your favourite moments of the trailer?

People had a range of favourite moments in the trailer, but most involved the special effects makeup and the typography, the two features of the teaser trailer that seemed the most successful.

6. Any overall comments?

Most of the overall comments referenced the special effects and visual effects of the trailer- the supernatural aspects- saying that they were really effective and realistic. 

7. Even better if? 

The overall "even better if" comment was on the sound over-voice, saying that it sounded a bit strange and crackly. This was an issue for us at the time of editing, of which we optimised to the best of our abilities with the technology that we had. This, however, was something that they mentioned could be improved upon to make the teaser trailer even better.

What we learnt
Our group has learnt that the trailer produced for our final product was very successful, highlighting aspects such as the typography, special and visual effects and the anagram SOS which was commented to be clever and memorable. The only major point stated, that could have been improved if developed further, included the voice over sound being slightly strange- due to the recording not being of the highest quality.