Evaluation Question 3

Q. What have you learned from audience feedback?

My group was fortunate enough to get feedback at all stages of pre production, production and post production. When we were presenting our original idea to the class we asked them for their thoughts and opinions on the idea and they told us what they thought. For our original idea we were going to have the main character being born with blindness and the setting would be within a school. They told us that there wouldn’t be anything to build up from if we started the narrative with him being blind. So we changed this to him having a car accident and losing his sight through that. Also, they told us that by using school as one of our main locations wasn’t very unique and was fairly ordinary. So we thought to change this to being set in a house and on the street. Also, we learned that it would have been very impractical if we set our film within the school. This was because we would have time issues, for example when students would be walking around our location. We would have to plan around this which would give us limited time. And also, the time we were filming was within school holidays. This would’ve meant that certain areas of the school would have been locked and for us to gain access to them would’ve been hard. From this feedback we learned to keep our locations simple, practical and realistic to our filming. We also learned to start the narrative off with a big shock. Thus changing our idea from him being normal to having an accident and losing his sight.

Another time we got feedback was when we wrote the script. Originally, our script was about 6 pages long and the dialogue was excessive. After presenting our script to the class the feedback we got was that we were ‘making it difficult for ourselves’. Peers said things like we included too much dialogue which wasn’t needed as our film was to have minimal dialogue. So we cut a lot of dialogue out of the script and shortened it. For example, when Kieran’s friends were at the door talking to his mother the original conversation was very long and included the mother calling out to Kieran and telling him his friends were here (which as you can see we cut out). If we had kept it at its original length it would have meant that we would have a lot more to pay attention to. We would’ve needed to redo takes over and over again as sound would have been an issue. By cutting down the dialogue meant we could focus on our mise en scene a lot more than have to worry about dialogue.

We also got feedback when we produced our storyboard. We showed the class what we had done and explained why we had each shot where it was. We also showed a cameraman who also gave us feedback. The feedback we got was that we needed to add more cut away shots in. Which are shots that flow one shot to the next. One piece of feedback we got was that our first shot which was intended to be a 360 degree pan of the room was very good and creative. Also, we decided to use tracks for some of the shots which also got positive feedback for being creative and exciting. We used tracks when following the girls’ feet as she was walking down the road. Also, when the mother was walking toward the front door. So upon redrafting the story board we made sure that we included more cut away shots which allowed the shots to flow from one to the other easily. Some examples of the cut away shots we included were the boys walking away from the house after the conversation and the boy walking back to the house after saving the girl. Although in editing process we had to cut out 3 minutes worth of footage as our film was too long. From this we learnt that after creating each shot we had to make sure every single shot would flow easily to the other and make sense to the audience without breaking continuity.

Another time where we got feedback was in the editing process. When we were using Adobe Photoshop Premier we did several drafts of our film. At each stage of our film we showed our film to the class and asked them on their thoughts on various things like sound, transitions and credits. We were originally told that we hadn’t included enough creative transitions. This was because we were trying to use minimal transitions so that we didn’t take away from the film itself by over loading it with transitions. So after that feedback we improved and added more fades where we thought they would be necessary. This added more interest to the film and made it more exciting by keeping audience interest. Also, when editing sound we got a lot of positive feedback. We were told that the music complimented the film very well and made it more emotional to the audience. Overall, we got excellent feedback for the film. We were told that the shots fit perfectly, the amount of dialogue we had was perfect and came across very well to the audience. And also, the title of the film was very creative and relevant to our film. As well as this we were told the credits we had at the end of the film were the perfect ending to our film.

I also got feedback when producing my review and my poster. The feedback I got from the review was that originally it looked like a review but didn’t exactly look like a review from ‘Empire’ magazine due to the colours not being exactly similar. I then spent time on adapting the colours to try and make them an exact replica of the review. It then looked as close as possible to the actual ‘Empire’ magazine review. With my billboard poster I got excellent feedback with the blend of the images and the title of the film. This was because the title of the film was almost transparent and linked to the actual film and loss of sight. Also, the title block of the film got great feedback as well for looking very realistic. I also got good feedback that the blend of both images was very contrasting. It showed how the main character was before hand with his sight and the change to what he’s like now when he is blind, unconfident and on his own.