Violet on YouTube for Audience Feedback

Reflection on Audience Feedback

I have recieved a lot of feedback, for my thriller. Some of it is very postive, and well there are things, that are slightly negative, this can be seen as constructive criticism, that I can use to build on in the future, if I make future films.

Many of our comments have made reference to our use of children:
'children was a good horror convention to use'
'Good use of children, as a convention of horror films'
'I thought the idea of children was interesting to explore in the thriller'
'I thought the idea of using children is a very interesting theme to explore in thriller'
These comments show, that it was a good choice to use children in our thriller as it was one of the areas, that people commented most positively about. This made our thriller more unique than others as most of the other thrillers, stuck to the use of adults, rather than exploring the convention of children. While it was more difficult to shoot with children, I think it paid off in our final product.

There were also comments that reffered to sound:
'Good use of sound to create atmosphere.'
'I thougt the sound is pretty effective. It helps to create tension through the whole piece.'
This shows that we had a good use of sound, that fitted in will with our shots, to create an effective atmosphere. I think the sound added a lot to the thriller, as without it, the film was very flat. I think there is an effective mix of digetic and non digetic sound.

The most widely commented area was in shot types and composition:
'Well shot, especially with the focus shot and some of the handcam stuff.'
'The close ups of the statues are particularly effective, as the create a freaky, mysterious air to the sequence'
'The use of Depth of Field and focus changes are really well done.'
'the cut away where the mother is with her daughter and the other child disappears is effevtive.'
'Really like the shot looking through the stone ornaments (not sure what they actually were) - the in and out of focus shots were really interesting.
also like the comarison between the steady shots of the girls and the frantic shots of the mother.'
'There are sevaral cool shots of the girls in the wood.'
'Like the scary shot of the isolated girl at the end'
The comments about our shots, show that the audience were overall very happy with our range of shot types and composition. A couple of people commented on the use of the statues as effective shots. The composition of this shot was well thought out and its sucess is shown in the feedback. Someone was also commented on the contrast between the slow shots of the girls, and fast paced, frantic shots of the mother, postively. I think his contrast gives the thriller more dimension and depth than if the shots had all been the same pace. The other element which was commented positively on, was the different focus, and I also think this worked well.

Some comments making reference to the ending:
'I do think more could have been done with the ending and with the girl, but it looks good'
'The ending was a bit of a cliche, but still looked effective'
The comments about the ending of our thriller was fairly negative, and the comment show the audience thought this was the weakest part of our thriller. I agree with this view and I looking back on it, if I had had more time, I would have put a different ending on the film.


Comments with reference to the location:
'using the disconcerting wood as a location works well too, maybe other locations could have added to the atmosphere'
'perhaps more locations could have been used'
These comments show that the woods was a good choice of location, however we should have perhaps used a more different variety of locations to offer contrast in scences. All of our thriller was shot in the woods, apart from a few shot taken at the house as establishing shots and I can see why our audience would not think it offered enough diversity.

Comment on mise-en-scene:
'The mise en scene of the girl's outfits and the mother's coat is a nice contrast.'
This shows, that we used good, suitable costume for our thriller. However I personally thinks that the ghost child would have been more effective, had she been dressed i all white, as originally planned in pre production, rather than a brown gilet, which she is wearing in the thriller. I was happy with the costume of both the bother and the 'normal' child.