The document provides feedback and evaluation from test screenings of a student film trailer called "Delirium". The initial screening received positive feedback praising the unique narrative, clear plot, and realistic gore effects, but also noted the beginning was too long. In response, the student shortened scenes and added more transitions and jump scares. A second screening received similar positive feedback about the editing, acting, and two unexpected jump scares, though some felt it was still too long. Overall, the student was pleased with improving the trailer based on feedback and felt it effectively conveyed the psychological horror genre.

1. Anna Blackman
EVALUATION 4
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

2. SECTION A
From the focus group screening of “Delirium”, we received both praise and criticism to help us achieve the best grade possible after altering
specific parts.
For the focus group screening, each class member wrote down positive and negative aspects and gave us a score out of 10. On average,
from this, we received an 8, having been given one six, three sevens, six eights, two nines and two tens. From this response, I was
pleasantly surprised and was happy to have such a great score despite the trailer not being completed yet. For the negative feedback, we
were told that the trailer was “too long”, with the “beginning dragging on a bit too much”. Having been told this and being aware of this
beforehand, our group acknowledged the issue and shorted the beginning sequence by 30 seconds as addition to other shots throughout
the trailer. As other negative responses, we were told that adding more transitions, jump scares and more “killing scenes” could make the
trailer flow more smoothly. Having gained this knowledge, we began by adding more fade to blacks between scenes, adding a second jump
scare after the first and in between the “Delirium” text and collision cutting all of the psychiatric action to make the trailer seem as if the
killing within the film is fast paced, constant and frightening.
When focusing on the positive aspects of our trailer, we received quotes stating the narrative
is “unique”, “clear” and “realistic”. Other positive aspects mentioned include how our music
worked appropriately with the action on screen and how the action was always “interesting”
and kept the spectator engaged. The gore effect of Sophie slitting her throat was one that
many people thought was realistic and clever, which promoted our psychological horror with
the partly gore sub-genre feature. Linking in with this, our sub-genre of psychological was said
to be illustrated well by the “excellent” jump scare of myself turning into a “monster” with a
sack on my head.
Having received all of this feedback and more, I felt that I strongly agreed with the fact we
needed to shorten specific parts of the trailer and how all of our action was easily understood
and captured well and cleverly. As a mixed response, we received feedback stating that the
trailer needed some dialogue. Having acknowledged this, we also had feedback stating that
they liked the fact we had no dialogue. With this mixed response, I felt that I strongly agreed
with the non-dialogue due to this not being a typical convention and felt that this added
tension and a unique element to our trailer.

3. SECTION B
After the focus group screening, as mentioned, there were many aspects that we needed to alter or develop. Having taken 30 seconds off
the beginning of the trailer and shortened any other shots that could be smaller or enable the trailer to flow smoother, the length of our
trailer was now perfect and the music timed itself right for the jump scares and other pieces of rhythmic action.
With the transitions, we decided to add more fade to blacks and kept the contrast of scenes to a darker, low-key shade. For the music,
we knew that shortening specific scenes would make the jump scare out of sync and so had to play around to get the music to match the
action perfectly.
After the first jump scare of myself being changed into a “monster”, we added a second jump scare of me jumping towards the camera
with a knife. This second jump scare is unexpected and makes the ending memorable.
With all of the action of the three girls in the psychiatric hospital, we edited all shots into collision cutting from slow and quiet to loud and
fast. By doing this, all of the action builds up, becoming tense for the spectator and visually engaging.
Having edited these specific parts of the trailer, I feel that it has all helped towards our end result and having had the focus group
screening, have learnt a lot about our team work, gained new knowledge and was able to distinguish positive and negative aspects of
our trailer for improving.

4. SECTION C
For the evaluation screening for our trailer, I was happy with the results, although the overall ratings was similar to what we received for the
rough cut trailer screening, receiving two tens and predominantly eights. Within our feedback from this screening, we received a lot of
positive feedback stating that our trailer was imaginative with a clear plot and “super acting”. Other comments included how effective our
editing was with collision cutting and the two unexpected jump scares at the end. We also received a few negative comments including how
they felt our trailer might still be slightly too long and some shots could be shortened with it being in total two minutes long. Despite this, we
discussed as a group that we felt it was a decent length trailer when linking it to real life trailers such as “Sinister” that is two and a half
minutes long and “Cabin Fever” that is two minutes long. When focusing on whether I believe that our trailer would appeal to our target
audience of psychological fans of horror, I feel that we have succeeded due to a lot of the class favouring psychological horrors which we
discovered and illustrated through a pie chart beforehand and the class enjoying our trailer and felt that we have illustrated our sub-genre
well.
My favourite aspects of my own trailer have to be the music, the rhythm in general, the plastic bag over my head, the collision cutting of
each character becoming insane and psychotic, Sophie’s death by slitting her throat and the final two jump scares. These are all of my
favourite aspects of our trailer due to the effective use of cinematography, lighting, editing and general mise-en-scene, all of which creates
the psychological, tension building, exhilarating plot.
The music we chose fit perfectly with our sub-genre and all of the action on screen. By introducing collision cutting through intertwining all
of the characters turning psychotic together, the pace of the trailer increases as the action on screen becomes more serious and scary. All of
this builds up until the end where the music dies down as the titles of “Delirium” appears on screen. After the music has died down and the
title has appeared, a jump scare of myself turning into a sack monster appears, fooling the audience into believing that’s the last shot
shown, proven by multiple people in class jumping with fright. After this shot, another jump scare is added of the sack monster stabbing a
phallic symbol, a knife, into the camera as a sign of killing the audience.

5. SECTION C
(CONT)
Other shots hat I felt were effective and that I am proud of, as mentioned, include Sophie slitting her throat and myself suffocating in a plastic
bag. These shots were difficult to film and had a lot of time and effort into making them as perfect and realistic as they could be. With Sophie’s
shot especially, she ended up with fake blood all over her college clothes and felt that although this was difficult to film, looked effective and
didn’t have to re-shoot at all due to me continually filming and choosing the best shot from the whole scene.
As an overall conclusion to our trailer, I am very pleased with the outcome and feel that after hours of hard work, we managed to produce an
imaginative, clearly defined narrative for “Delirium”, even down to the film title, and planned and organised everything thoroughly for the
production, making everything easier to film and prepare for. As a group, we worked together extremely well and each took different parts and
roles to share the work between us all. When working individually on our ancillary product, I felt that although we were working alone, we were
still willing to give advice to each other and help with photograph taking and using tools on Photoshop.