What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

After presenting our trailers to the class, we all received some feedback for what was good/bad for the conventions of horror and what was good/bad for the conventions of a teaser trailer. After hearing our feedback we can summarise that the successful features of our trailer consisted of the effects we used for some scenes ('bad tv' on Final Cut Pro), the spinning shots in the woods which came to a sudden halt and an inter-title. Our class said that this was a good representation of disorientation which is a convention of both horror and a trailer. Another successful convention of horror which our class commented on was our use of children in our trailer. Children are a good convention of horror because they connote innocence and therefore create more fear when they are seen in an opposite light perhaps and if they are seen as a victim in a horror film, it creates even more fear because it is a natural feeling to want to protect a child because they are seen as vulnerable. Similar to this, the class also felt that by mixing the bad tv effect with the scene of children playing gave them the feeling of them being watched through the fence. Our class also thought that our use of both day an night scenes in our trailer was very successful because it helped tell a story without giving away too much of the narrative. In addition our use of a 'radio broadcast' in our trailer was also seen as a successful convention of a trailer because it gave the feeling of a 'national crisis' and that there were many people involved in the narrative. Our use of silence also created fear which the class felt was a good convention of a horror trailer along with the background soundtrack of a heartbeat because it influenced them to become quite tense. I believe the most commented on for a successful convention of both conventions of horror and a trailer was our use of laughter and lullaby music at the end of the trailer with children's building blocks presenting the name of our film 'Childminder' as our class felt this was 'creepy' and made them want to go and watch the production.
On the other hand however, we received some criticism for things which could be improved on to make our trailer even more successful. For example some members of our class felt there was some confusion over the narrative of our trailer and it wasn't very clear. However some other members of the class felt that this was a good convention of a trailer because it was mysterious and left them asking questions and wanting to see the film to find out more. Similarly, some of our feedback showed that there was too much time spent at the beginning of the trailer watching the children play and not enough spent of the horror parts of the trailer. However others felt that this provided a good contrast of things being 'normal' at the start and then turning horribly wrong once they witnessed fear and gore. This was also praised as our class feedback showed our use of latex was very successful and looked realistic. Furthermore some members felt that some of the scenes were too long and that the trailer could have been more 'jumpy' overall. However as a group, as well as other members of the class felt that the overall pace of the trailer was successful because it created tension and followed a similar rhythm to a heartbeat, which we provided in the background. Finally another criticism was that some of our scenes needed dialogue but going back to an earlier point about what was successful with our trailer, other members of the class did feel that our use of silence was successful because once again, it created tension and fear.