First Draft Feedback

After finishing the first draft of our 'In The Shadows' thriller trailer, we showed it to the class and got both positive and negative feedback to help us improve it.

'In The Shadows' First Draft

• Firstly, we were advised to include intertitles as the narrative wasn't portrayed clearly enough in the trailer. However, after discussion it was decided that there was nowhere appropriate to insert them and it would only make it look messy. We also felt that as our film aims to deceive the audience into believing it is supernatural until a reveal towards the end, including intertitles would either give away the twist or cause confusion for the audience. Overall, the class decided that although the narrative isn't clear, this is effect in creating the mystery and portrays the feeling of the unknown to draw in the demographic so no changes were necessary for this.
• Another improvement that was suggested was to either change the first music track or make the two music tracks fit together better with editing. The beginning of our trailer is slow in order to create an eerie/ghostly atmosphere, therefore it was important we used a music track that was slow and haunting to fit with the footage. We originally chose a song called 'If She's An Angel' by Charlotte Campbell, an unsigned artist whose permission we got to use the song, however the class thought the track didn't fit with the next fast-pace song which it fades into. To improve this, we tried removing If She's An Angel and replaced it with a track similar to the second fast-pace one, but slower and without drums. However, after putting it in we decided that it was too similar and didn't portray the ghostly feeling we were aiming for. Therefore we stuck with 'If She's An Angel' and slowed down the pace making it more effective in creating an eerie atmosphere and fades much more smoothly into the next track.
• The class also felt that the transition in the middle of our trailer needed to be smoother. This is where the trailer moves from a slow pace with long shots to a fast pace with quick cuts between shots. For this transition the music and footage fades out and a voiceover of a character saying "what do you mean?" is played before the fast pace music and footage comes in. It was suggested that instead of the first song cutting straight to the next, the fast pace music and shots come in after a few seconds to emphasise the urgency and panic catching the audience by surprise and drawing them in. After playing around with different methods and techniques, we found that by overlapping the fades so that the second track is playing as soon as the first track fades out sounded best and made the transition much smoother too.
• On the other hand, we received positive feedback for the fast pace editing during the second half of the trailer as the class felt it effectively builds tension and suspense to draw in our demographic. We also got positive feedback on our final shot used to end the trailer. We decided to use a close up of our main character whispering "help me" after the institutional information to leave the audience feeling tense and wanting to see what happens to her in the film.