DW - Audience feedback for Black Nightmare Rough cut 2

We showed our media teacher our rough cut and recorded the feedback he gave us, which we can then go on to improve our film opening with.

Title

Firstly he noticed that with our subtitles at the start they're out of time with the scene with the killer walking down the stairs, and also some spelling mistakes in the actual credits so we need to go back and edit these, and he also picked up on the font we used as there wasn't much thought given into these credits so when we go back and edit these we should think about whether to use san serif font or serif font and why we've chosen to use this font, also at the start we didn't include our idents which we should of done. Then at the end of these subtitles the title of our film 'Black Nightmare' is shown but there wasn't much editing done for our title and it doesn't provide any exposition for the film genre which we were trying to so we should go back and change this so it looks more like a slasher genre title, and at the end of these titles our media teacher suggested we should have some sort of transition to the next scene to provide some continuity so it doesn't look odd, and we could use a distinctive noise or action to audio bridge from the credits to the next scene. Also the titles can be stretched out throughout our opening they don't need to be all at the start so we can experiment with this and see how it works.

Long Take

Then he thought that our long takes needed cutting down and shortening so they have more of an effect so we'll need to go back and edit this, and when we cut back from the stalk scene to the killer's room we could edit it so the cut back scene are distort to distinguish the difference in time and place. Also he noticed at points where our actors look at the camera so we need to cut out these so it's more realistic.

Then instead of re-shooting the chopping up of the meat where it's too slow we could speed of the chopping motion with the swing and add a loud bang on each chop so the aggression is more realistic from this killer, and we need some more continuity with our scenes so for example link up the chop with the closing of the door.

Also we need to work on our sound and cut out the wind interference so to replace this we should record ambient sound, and add all the sound that we're going to include in our final piece, for example we're going to re shoot the scene with the chopping up of the meat and include squelching noises of the meat and repulsive sounds to make the audience feel uncomfortable.

Violent Scene

And to make our violent scene more dramatic we need to break it up more and make it quicker with fast pace editing, and skip from where the killer picks up his victim to putting her into the car with the door on the car shutting with a final swing of the chopping up of the meat.

DW - Target audience

Black Nightmare is targeted at the teen audience, 15- 24 years, with a BBFC rating of 15 because this is mainly what the slasher genre is aimed at. A good example of this is Friday The 13th, where the teen audience would find it easier to relate to the characters as they're also mainly of the teen age in this film, and with our film Black Nightmare the casting are also of the teen age so our audience can relate to it as with Friday The 13th.

A good example for our film to relate to is Scream 4 ( Wes Craven, 2011 ) as it also has a BBFC rating of 15 and has characters of the teen age just like our film Black Nightmare. Also the protagonists in this film are the teenagers which is like in our film where the teenagers are the protagonists also , and the antagonist being the killer just like in our Black Nightmare film. This film also contains high levels of violence involving a lot of blood which is what the slasher genre audience expecting with this genre and with Black Nightmare we've tried to include these with violent scenes and lots of blood.

We didn't want to restrict our audience to just female or just male so our casting was chosen to provide interests from both genders, and we did this by having 2 female character and a male , but also our killer is of an older age and this helps to appeal to our secondary audience which is just older than our primary target audience and is form 24-34 years of age.

DW - Final cut audience feedback

After we released our final cut on to Youtube we invited some of our target audience in to watch and give us instant feedback.

Firstly they thought that the opening sequence worked well with the titles and the build up of suspension with the non-deigetic soundtrack because they said they felt the tension build up. Also with the point of view shots  from the killer they thought that it did well at giving a different perspective , because we didn't just get the view of the teenagers instead it allowed us to understand how the killer would see things. Then they thought that our violent scene was a much better improvement from before where it wasn't believable at all because this time it was more realistic with the short takes and the cut away shots, they thought that the slow motion of the violent scene worked well as well because it gave this weird feeling for them.

However they thought we could of done more to reassure the audience who the main characters were, for example we hardly showed or final girl on screen but had the scream queen's boyfriend on screen for longer,  whereas we could of had more shots of the final girl as she'd be the main character for the rest of the film.

This is some evidence from 1 of our target audience that gave us feedback.

DW - Audience feedback for Black Nightmare rough cut 1

We asked a group of teenagers, ages 16-17, to watch our rough cut and give feedback as it'd be useful to know what they think because they're in range of our target audience ( 15-25 ), then from this feedback we can see what worked and what didn't,  which we can then go on to make improvements to our film.

          

They thought the start worked well with the variable focus acting in away to provide narrative enigma with the killer's footsteps walking down the stairs. However, when it cuts from these steps down the stairs to the credits they noticed that the foot steps are not in time with the sound so we need to go back and edit this. Also the credits could do with some improvements so that they anchor the slasher genre because our audience didn't think they related to the genre, and at the end of these credits the title ' Black Nightmare'  is shown, but our audience thought that it was boring and didn't signify the genre so we'll have to edit this also and possibly add some special effects which signify the genre more.

Also our audience felt that some of the shots that we have are too long and that they loose the build up of tension , instead these long shots provide oppositional reading which is what we are not trying to provide instead we need preferred reading so we'll have to go back and edit these shots so that they're shorter. However they thought that the point of view shots from the killer's perspective in the bushes worked well and also provided the on going narrative enigma which is what we were aiming for, but the actually violent scene they thought could do with some adjusting because it was too long they thought so we'll go back and use shorter takes and include some fast pace editing, a good example of lots of takes and fast pace editing is the shower scene in Psycho ( Alfred Hitchcock ,1960 ) so we'll take influence from this and use it for out violent scene.



 Then they thought that the mise-en-scene for the killer's room worked well as the pictures on the wall gave the sense of this killer's stalking obsession with the victims, and also the blood on the killer's apron worked well along with his old black boots, however for the scene where the killer actually strikes his victim with the knife they thought it could of been faster and more aggressive as it doesn't look as scary it would if it was aggressive, also blood could of been used in this scene for the blows on the victim so we'll go back and re-shoot this scene.

And for the scene where the killer is chopping of the bits of meat our audience felt that he wasn't aggressive enough with the meat as a killer would normally be. Also the sound could of been more effective so make the audience feel uncomfortable, for example squelching of the meat when the killer handles it. So this will be another scene that we'll have to either go back and edit with the sounds or re-shoot.

DW - Slasher audience

The Audience:
Different genres attract different audiences, different films will attract different ages, races and cultures, and each genre's audience will hold expectations for their genre.
Slasher movies are a sub-genre of horror. The audiences will expect generally high levels of violence involoving a lot of blood, and most genres have the binary opposites with the protagonists being a group of teenagers and the atagonists the killer. Friday the 13th (Danny Steinmann, 1985) is a good example of this and in showing the narrative structure of the contemporary slasher film, with the killer with a mysterious identity who attacks the group of young teenagers.
The first box office success was John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). The film cost only three-hundred-thousand dollars to create and made roughly fifty-million dollars, and films like this persuaded Hollywood to continue creating them which is where the slasher genre was made.

Narrative Structure:
Slasher films rarely stray from Tordov’s structure of narrative, and a classic film that demonstrates this is John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). For example this structure starts with a state of equilibrium, where the couple of teenagers are being as a normal teenaged couple. There is then a disruption to the equilibrium, where a killer begins to stalk them. The disruption is then noticed when the girl is murdered. The attempt to get things back to normal is when the killer is sent to a mental asylum, but then breaks out. Equilibrium is then reinstated when either the ‘killer’ is killed or the final teenager is killed.

BB - Violent scene

For the violent scene in our slasher film opening it has had to be changed three times just to create and get the effect we want and need to create a sense of realism and to make it more believable to the viewing audience.

Fast Pace Editing

 

Fast Pace Editing on Final Cut Pro

 

To create an authentic and real life effect within the violent scene the longer takes needed to be cut up and put into an order of which the flash backs and the real time could be made to fit in. Also the fast pace causes the audience to feel that but of tension and fear build up in this scene due to the editing

 

Heartbeat Sound on Final Cut Pro

 

Heartbeat Soundtrack

 

The heartbeat was used to build up the audiences heart rate along with the heart beat of the characters on screen, this gets the audience to sort of feel some of the emotion on screen with the charcters. Also the heart beat increases during the violent scene which raises awareness of what is happening on screen at the time

Slow Motion

We added slow motion to create more of an impact for when the chopping scene is intercut between that and the violent scene so that it doesnt show the violence however the significance of the chops incidactes or signifies that the violence has taken place but is being hidden by the chop.

Stairs/titles sequence to be re-edited

With this scene we need go back and edit it all because of the font used on the titles because it's not really a serif font or sans-serif font so we will go back and and apply a serif font to signify the slasher genre more as this is a common convention used is slashers. Also the audio is all out of sync because it sounds like the killer is dancing down the stairs because when it goes to a blank screen there's an overlap of footsteps and he seems to take forever to get down the stairs so we will go back and change this by cutting it and editing the audio so it sounds more realistic