Any sort of feed back is important in pre or post production, but when we receive feedback from our target audience that is valued very highly. This is because they are who we are producing our film for and if the like, understand or believe something should not be included in our film, it must be removed, improved or made clear immediately.
1st we pitched our initial idea of the story of the Red Rose Killer, which is about a serial killer confessing to his crimes to one family member of each of his victims on his death bed. After we pitched this idea we got a lot of feed back, they said that was no character motivation to confess, why would anyone sit there and listen to a man who just killed their relative, the story had no middle, how would we show flash back, how would we establish the difference between the past and the present, the story was too predictable, it had no logical causality and there was too much dialogue. They also said that that we had a very good narrative idea but it was just a matter of tying up a many loose ends that is the problem. After reviewing all this feed back, we learnt to correct all these things and other feed back we have received on this pitch, that it would make our film longer than 5 minuets which was our limit, and there was a lot of things against us, like creating a believable hospital scene, making a teenager look like and elderly man and creating a realist past look in the flash back. From this feedback I learnt that we have over complicated things, with the location, setting, dialogue and even the story line. So we decided to change out idea to a much simpler one.
So we changed our story to Monster. This was about a girl that had to write a fictional story about a fear. But what it actually turns out to be is a fictional account of her life but hidden in her story, she describes a monster who is actually her father. We got a lot of positive feed back from this and many suggestions about how to show up set in contrast to her happy times. Such as that they liked the way the story is constructed, as you don’t know what she is talking about too the end, then found it interesting and they thing they would be kept thinking throughout the film, the also said that it has a strong good message in relation to child abuse, and if we got it right it could be a very powerful film. We also got called up upon two things where would be find somebody for our climax when she is hit and where are we going to get someone to play the lead role well. We learnt a lot from this feed back, which was that simpler ideas are easier and can be more effective. We also found from our criticism that we had to chase up the drama department in our school to propose suitable actresses who we would later audition to play the role.
We scripted our story and it was very short, not with much dialogue between characters just between the teacher speaking to the class and Lilly’s voice over. This made our script short and simple. The feedback we got from this was very positive, they said that it is good because it is short and the voice over will be really good with telling the story as it allows us to focus on what’s going on, they also said they like the was we don’t waste time before we get into the story of our film .But the only thing we were asked to improve was to describe the flashback in the actually script. What I got from this feedback is that lay out every detail because it is better to over plan that to not plan enough and by doing so it helped us a lot in the actual production when we were filming and even editing we knew which piece of sound matched the action on camera.
We then had to set the mood for our film by collecting images that will display the themes and set the mood for our film. So we went to collect a series of images and made a collage. And the feedback we received was that it only showed one side of our film , the bad side , the child abuse side , the nasty side and that is not what our film was all about there were some happy times like in the class room in the park with her friends. They said, “I Thought parts of your film was happy and that she has some friends what’s happened to them. What I learnt from this is that you have to hear your story form more than your own point of view the way I may seem things is different from the way my target audience sees things, so with this in mind , we made another collage. This one got a lot better reception.
After this we then did drawings of the world of our film after learning about cinematography. We were asked to draw up 2 scenes from our film exactly how they would look in our actually film. When I received the feedback it was that it was very good for the one in the park because the bottle was in the water just as it was in the script and the girl was in the park and the scenery was good, but when I presented the picture of Lilly in the classroom it received criticism, mostly saying that it looked very plain and that the classroom should have some sort of decoration or posters of some sort. From this I learnt no detail is too small and that everything in your Mise en scene is very important into making your final picture.
After we finished our story board we again pitched this to our class and teacher and they were able to give us a lot of feed back, a lot of it was positive but the main thing that was the problem is that there were hardly and cut away shots and action and reaction shots, after we received this feedback we redid our storyboard and again pitched to the class and it was met with no criticism. But what I took away from this feedback was the importance of these particular shots, which was to show all the action going on everywhere at a particular moment and to show the reactions of characters to the action of another. But I also came to understand that having too many shots is better than not having enough, even when it came to filming shoot a couple more shots extra will help when it comes to editing because you have more to pick form.
Whilst editing we was getting constant feedback every time we edited a scene.
So after we edited scene one we got feedback from our teacher and class and it was that many of our shots were too long and we were cutting back between many of the same shots, such as the shots where the girls are walking in, we had the same scene just in different shots for too long, we also cut back to the long shot of the back of the class room and the track too often, making it very repetitive for the audience and very boring. Also we should switch the scene around so it goes from the teacher to Lilly then to the track of the class room.
We then made then made these changes and got further feedback which was that the mid shots of Lilly needed to be changed, we show the clock for too long, the sound needs to be fixed because it was too slow for the video and that they like the way the students look at Lilly as she comes in and they way the teacher gets the students attention. From this feedback I learn that you do not need to drag shots to make things clear to your audience they can understand just the same if the shot was 2 or 3 seconds shorter. It is better to use a variety of shots to show the scene not just the best ones you have and cutting between the same shots gets repetitive and boring, and an audience will not tolerate off sound.
So we then made these changes and played it to our classmates and teacher and received this feedback, our pace of our film needs to be established as we are going from fast to slow and it doesn’t match because the character is walking fast outside the class room and then there is nothing going on in the class room. From when Lilly enters the class room she sits down too fast it needs to be slowed down, we got questioned about the way we showed the girls walking in and the handheld shot we used made the film look like an action film , instead of using it we should use more normal and steady shots , and cut away shots. From this feedback I have learnt the value of cut away shots, it keeps the audience clued up as to what is going on else where and that it keeps them from getting bored. I have also learnt the way in which you edit can change the mod and the genre of the film, and now I know to be vigilant of this. And I have learnt even though a shot is a very good one , in terms of our hand held, it is not always fitting to the mood or genre of film you are trying to create.
So after making all these changes we then went on to scene two when Lilly enters the class room and the teacher sets them their work. After showing this to our peers and teacher , we got the following feedback ; That the bit before she walks in looks too much like a chick flick , change it if we want to get the representations of the character correct and create the right mood, there are no point of view shots of the teacher when she is talking, also that the continuity of her walking in and sitting down up till when the teacher talks is very good , and finally that the track shots were used too often and they seem to loose their meaning. From this particular set of feedback I learnt that continuity is a very important part of film and editing and when done well, it allows the audience to enjoy your work more, it always allows them to forget its a film and get more into it because when the start noticing things that are wrong, they will start to look for other things that are wrong also. Even though a shot is good and it does match the action on screen, over using it isn’t something that you want to do, because it doesn’t carry the same effect that is does only being used once or twice. I have also learnt that the audience always wants to see more than what you are showing them, they want to see all the main characters perspective and the reactions of those they are interacting with, so cutaway shots are very important along with point of view shots too.
So after making all these changes and showing our rendered version to our peers and teacher, we then went and edited scene three and the following is our feedback received; the distilled fad effect wasn’t needed and it shouldn’t be used, we should go back to the class room more often between the flash backs to remind the audience that she is still writing her story, the tilt from the leaves down to the girls is extremely long and shout be made drastically shorter, hearing the girls laughing through the music and the voiceover is very nice as it gives the audience a nice feeling , (even though we though to mute the sound out at this point), and we also need more dialogue to last the entirety of the scene because it becomes very boring and spacey otherwise. From this I learnt that things that I don’t think would be good in our film, need to be checked up on because as you can see the audience like and idea that we was going to remove in our film. I also learnt that there are ways to keep a good shot even though it is long you can make it shorter and it will still carry the same value that it did when it was longer. Also some effects although they look good are not always necessary to have. And finally planning skills should have been employed to realises that our voice over wasn’t long enough, so we should have recorded extra just in case.
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