First Draft Trailer Feedback

Upon finishing the first draft of our trailer, we decided to publish it on YouTube.  This would act as a useful service for receiving constructive criticism from the public, allowing us to improve our product further.  We have also shown our trailer to our media teachers for the same reasons.

After receiving audience feedback and reviewing the draft ourselves, we have created a list of the trailer's strengths and weaknesses to work from.

Strengths

• Sticks to the conventions of a teaser trailer:  1 minute and 24 seconds in length, begins with showing the film’s production companies,  has been created intentionally for marketing/to build anticipation for the film’s release, ‘teases’ the audience with short snippets from the film (establishing the concept and genre of the film but without revealing too much of the plot), ends conventionally by informing the audience of the film’s title and stating that it is 'coming soon' rather than providing a specific date.

• Sticks to the conventions of the 'Action-Thriller' genre: has the concept of a male protagonist fighting for survive, a government body act as an adversary, use of enigmas, striking establishing shots, multiple chase scenes which use tracking/panning shots, urban setting, effective use of both high key and low key lighting, fast paced editing, variety of transitions (mainly jump cuts), dramatic climaxing music, use of a tag line, edgy typography.

Weaknesses 

• The trailer does not contain any reviews or awards it has received, a missing feature which would generate more interest in our impressionable target audience.

• The trailer does not include a 'billing block' of film credits at the end, with only the words 'coming soon' being shown.  This is unconventional for any teaser trailer, as it is often considered an essential feature.   

• The footage used forms too much of a coherent whole, potentially spoiling the film's plot by being too chronological.

More Problems and Solutions

After reviewing our initial problems and solutions post, which can be found here, we have created a new table with the new problems we came across, and what we did to solve them.

Problem	Solution
WEATHER (SNOW) Due to the snow, there were disruptions to travel and we didn’t feel the aesthetic fit with the conventions of the genre.	We had to postpone our filming and continue with other elements including the blog, poster, website and editing the footage we already had.
ILLNESS One of our group members became ill and was unable to attend school for a number of weeks.	We ensured our whole group were informed as to what was going on and did as much as we could with two of us until her return.
ACTORS Our actors had a hectic schedule and were unable to attend some of the filming sessions we had planned.	We eventually planned a day where all our actors were free to film and in the meantime, we continued with our other elements.

Problems and Solutions

Whilst planning the construction of our film trailer, we discovered several problems which we may encounter in the future.  To ensure these issues were eliminated as quickly as possible, we organised a brainstorming session to create potential solutions.  Overall we were able to produce a practical solution for every problem that may occur in future creative processes, and below is a photograph of said list.