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

Our teaser trailer was aimed at a young age group of teenagers to young adults, so 18-24, both genders. We targeted this audience, as we knew from previous research that our type of production would appeal to this audience. Before our production process, to gain apsects into what our audience were interested in, we used Survey Monkey, an online site that allows users to create their own survey for others to access and complete via a weblink. The questions are shown below and their responses are displayed in the form of a bar chart, giving my group and I, visual feedback. By posting links to our survey on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, we were able to gain a large number of responses, giving us a good insight into what would appeal to our audience. 

Most of our audience wanted our film title to be called "Knock Knock". Our film name ideas were "Knock Knock", "The Unexpected" and "Who's There?". 11 people (55%) voted for "Knock Knock", 8 (40%) voted for "The Unexpected" and 1 person (5%) voted for "Who's There?". From my research into film names, I found that film titles from slasher films tend to be short and sharp. This makes them catchy and identifiable for the audience. We used "who's there?" as our slogan as this fits in well with the film name "Knock Knock", forming the commonly known joke of "knock knock who's there?". People would be familiar with the phrase "knock knock" and so using this for our film title would establish our film's name.



When we asked what characters the central focus should be on, 13 (65%) voted for a group of teenagers, 5 (25%) voted for a family unit and 2 (10%) voted for a single character. Having a group of teenagers is a common convention in the slasher genre which we conformed to. Below are images which reflects this: 








When we asked what weapon our killer should use (a classic convention of the slasher genre), 12 people (60%) voted for a knife which was the most popular item as opposed to an axe, a chainsaw and a rope. This was helpful was for us, as a knife was easily accessible and also allowed us to mirror styles set in renowned films such as "Scream".

After my group and I had filmed some footage, to gain more feedback, we conducted a focus group. Through this focus group, one thing we found out was that our lighting needed to be improved on. After carrying out some deconstructions on lighting used in slasher films, this is what we found out:

• Slashers tend to use warm colours such as yellows which is evident in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" which could be used to visually signify the hostility the characters live in.  

• Slasher films also use lighting to often reflect the narrative. Below is an image from "A Nightmare On Elm Street". The red tint may have connotations related to the narrative (Freddy Krueger is burnt alive by the parents of the children, so the red lighting can represent flames).

From our research, it appeared that slashers use lighting to either reflect a theme or a narrative. So, my group and I made use of different lighting in our teaser trailer. Below are images which denote different types of lighting.

We used high key lighting at the beginnings a means of establishing an equilibrium. High key lighting connotes positivity which conforms to stage one of Todorov's theory of narrative, a state of equilibrium at the outset.

This image shows a slight warm tint in lighting ,which reflects the climax of the scene after there is a disruption of the equilibrium.

In this shot we used under lighting which gave our killer a sinister look.
  

Through our focus group, we also discovered that a more diverse range of shots needed to included to keep our audience visually stimulated.

 

This is a head on shot of the killer grabbing the girl.

This is a close up shot of one of the victims. The close up effectively denotes her facial expressions. The audience can see the that the victim is terrified. If you look closely, we have also integrated a two shot, as the killer is behind her.

This low angle denotes the killer. The low angle makes him appear dominant, thus signifying his dominance over the victims.

What did I learn?

• Audiences like short, sharp film names for a slasher.
• Teenagers tend to be the preference of the ideal victims. This could be due to the change in how nowadays adults are not often used in slasher films.
• Lighting can have a significant impact in the way one can interpret a film's meaning.
• Having a range of shots and angles keep an audience visually stimulated, as they are invited to watch footage from various points.