1. HORROR TRAILERS
BY ALEX DALTON
EVALUATION ANALYSIS
PART 4

2. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE
FEEDBACK?
Audience feedback was vital to improving our trailer for Lullaby. Once the class had been shown my horror trailer they
then gave us feedback telling me what they enjoyed about the trailer and what could possibly still be improved.
Positive responses were given with classmates stating that they liked the scene where my hair was being pulled up
into the air from a mysterious source while the lights were flickering within the room.
They found the sinister lullaby music suitably troubling, showing
it to be effective for the horror genre. One person commented
saying they also liked the scene where my reflection within the
mirror changes to become that of Caitie and how this being
sped up led to a more impressive effect. One person also
particularly liked the jump scare at the very end of the trailer as it was quick and also accompanied by a rather
loud and unpleasant sound
When looking into the criticism of the trailer someone said they did not entirely
understand the narrative it was based upon. I agreed with the criticism as I had the
same problem in our rough cut screening. In response to this, I changed a few things
around in the trailer to try and make it more understandable such as adding a close
up of a piece of paper with text. The changes made showed to work as more of the
class understood the narrative the second time around, however more improvement
could obviously be made. I chose not to change the narrative trailer anymore after this comment though as I
feel if I were to make any more alterations to introduce the narrative this may make the trailer drag.

3. CONTINUED…
Some last minute changes which were made to the
trailer were things such as changes to the lighting, this
was done through the brightness and contrast tools on
Premiere Pro for each piece of footage. This was done
in order to add continuity throughout the trailer
It was helpful that my classmates were of a similar age group
being older teenagers and young adults as this was primarily the
group that the trailer was aimed at. As the majority received it well
this shows an achievement in regards to appealing to the target
audience. When looking at my favourite aspects of the trailer I
would have to consider one to be the hanging scene.
allowing it to flow well and
come together as one piece.
Also as was mentioned in
the evaluation screening the
lullaby music and jump scare
music carried on after any footage was on screen and
stopped quite suddenly. This was edited afterwards in
Premiere Pro by altering the timings of both the footage
and music and also the sound levels. Now the music
stops earlier in sync with the footage and also fades out
nicely towards the end. This gives the trailer a more
finished and professional feel.
Overall I am extremely happy with all the comments I
received during our evaluation screening. The
majority were very positive with only one
improvement being suggested. I feel this reflects that
people enjoyed watching the trailer showing it to be
successful towards what I was trying to achieve. The
trailer fitted well into its horror sub-genre of being a
psychological horror as we added typical generic
conventions of this form, enabling it to reach its
targeted audience.
Here I was able to add close up shots
to show emotion, using restricted
narration of keeping the actual act off
screen but audible. The use of
the slow montage up to this point
transfers into a quicker montage
Here is a bar chart to illustrate the scores i had been given by the
rest of the class.
you are able to see no-one gave me a below average score. 2
people gave a score of 5-6 out of 10, the largest proportion gave
scores of 7-8 out of 10 with a few also giving scores of 9-10 out of
10.

4. CONTINUED…
afterwards and rather harrowing sound effects to accompany this. Another of my favourite moments would also be the
jump scare at the end. The villain is presented to us in a close-up making us feel claustrophobic playing into the theme
of the fear of being trapped. Having her eyes rolling around she gives off to the audience the representation of a
psycho serial killer and also gives the audience a direct mode of address. It feels as if she is in the room with us. The
parallel music added to this increases our heart rates and gains the desired effect of a jump scare. There is also low
key lighting and dark shadows in this shot connoting evil, darkness and mystery. This leaves an open ending to the
narrative leaving the audience wanting more and entices them to watch the full film of Lullaby.