What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My target audience is mainly females, but some males, aged 15-20 and gained audience research through surveys. See my target audience feedback.  I had a group of peers from the target audiencewatch the trailer and make comments both positive and negative. The responses were very similar in context of the trailer as horror genre.

Positively, there was good comments about the 'jumpy' scenes. During the screening, a few girls jumped and screamed when Cassie turned in bed only to see Helen next to her, this was frightening. The fact that this trailer had no blood or guts was good as it was effective and allowed the audience to concentrate on the storyline; the return of the repressed. The scary child, Helen, was particularly a hit with them; "it mixed  innocence with evil".

Also, a boy commented on the use of  mise-en-scene, using the mirror scene as his evidence saying that it refleted the evil in the story. Mirrors can be scary as they reflect a side of us and others that can not be seen.

The Over The Shoulder Shot in the scne where Sarah watches Cassie in the garden allows the audience to feel involved both physically and emotionally; they are worried about Cassie and feel connected to the characters.

The audience felt that the dialogue made them feel involved and part of the story; they are sharing in the horror, which is the main aim of horror films. The voice-overs,  diegetic sounds as they are "snatches of dialogue from the film", weren't allowed enough for the audience to hear them clearly and understand their meaning. The non-diegetic music that were selected for the soundtrack had a mix of comments; that they went well with the visuals, they didn't go well and that the transition between the different music was 'dodgey'.

One girl commented on the title "now she wants to play" and how the word 'play' was left on the screen for a extra few seconds emphasis its meaning to the film and allowing the sudience to understand the choice of the film's title.

The structure was very clear; the sister's move into the house where a dead child starts to haunt them. There is a good balance between the visuals and text to allow the audience to get a mental picture of the story.
The pace had different responses, but the pace at the end with the heartbeats needed to be faster inorder to create tension. But it was said that the pace at the beginning worked well to get the audience into a mood where they think everything is going to be ok and then 'boom' there is a disruption. Some people liked the pace while other did not.

From the audience feedback, I along with Amy were able to improve our work taking in all the points about the pace of the editing and the sound both diegetic and non-diegetic.

The audience thought the trailer was a good as a trailer; an advertising for the film as it made girls in the audience jump. But negatively, they thought it gave to much of the story away.