Rough Cut
To any production, audience feedback is important. This is because it allows any strengths and weaknesses to be identified, allowing for acknowledgement as to what needs to be altered to improve the production. Having an audience's view and opinion of the production allows for the makers to improve on making the production more appealing to the target audience and therefore, creating a more successful product. Audience feedback not only outlines the faults in the production, but also the strengths. Knowing the difference between the two helps the makers in knowing what is good to keep in the production and what would need to be improved on. So generally, audience feedback helps the makers of a production know what to improve and allows them to think of the different ways in which they could improve the weaknesses especially from the constructive feedback.
We received audience feedback from our target audience from a screening of our production in class where the age range was our target audience. Having our target audience view our film and share their opinion with us allowed us to have a higher level of confidence in knowing the feedback in which we would get would be relevant, representative and valid. Furthermore, this feedback would ensure that we would be meeting the needs of our target audience once taking the comments on board and acting on them. Direct feedback from this specific age range gives us a great opportunity to act on what they particularly want to see in and from the sequence we have created. Moreover, it also makes sure that we are monitoring response in a way that we are able to witness reactions and feelings towards the sequence. For example, from just getting comments through a cyber experience, it restricts us seeing the reactions the audience may have to our sequence. From us being able to see the reactions, we are able to analyse where certain reactions occur, when certain reactions should occur and what reactions we want to occur.
This feedback benefits not only our production, but also the film industry. Our production is benefitted from the direct reference to our specific sequence, feedback points out the particular parts of our sequence that stood out - whether that be in a good or bad way. This then allows us to improve our production and therefore we benefit as our sequence is then more successful and conventional to the thriller genre as well as being appropriate for our target audience. The film industry benefits because the feedback provides further research into how this target audience feels about a opening thriller sequence and what they would like for it to include. This helps the film industry, especially thriller films in the industry as they are able to use the research to reach the expectations of the feedback to ensure that the film is achieving the goals that are set for it to achieve - for example, staying conventional to the thriller genre and being appealing to the target audience. Other genres also benefit as the feedback from a thriller sequence shows what they expect from a thriller and so makes the makers of the other film genres to ensure that their genre consists of conventions that are not thriller ones. This benefits them as their criteria for their particular genre is heightened from the definite conventions that are included in that criteria that will not be the same as the conventions of a thriller. Overall, both benefit as it improves the knowledge and research into what the target audience expect from thrillers and what can be improved to make the film more impactive and appealing to the target audience.
Positive comments really help when receiving feedback as they outline the elements that stand out for being good and we managed to retrieve some from our viewing. One for example was 'the use of a dim filter makes the atmosphere more tense and also is conventional to the thriller genre'. As a group, we were happy with this comment as this is what we were intending to create for our sequence - a tense and eerie atmosphere that leaves the audience on the edge of their seat. Knowing that this has been created through the use of dimming the lighting down using a filter we have applied, is a satisfying element that we know not to change as it is doing it's allocated job. As well as the fact that from this comment, we know that we are sticking to the conventionality of the thriller genre, which is part of our aim. Another positive comment from our feedback was, 'I like the way that you have included different types of shots, it keeps it interesting'. We decided to include a variation of cinematography to make our scenes not appear repetitive and boring, so knowing that our audience finds our use of shots 'interesting' is a satisfying thought. Some shots took more effort than others for example, the high angle shot was filmed by holding the very end of the tripod at a height and on a tilt so that it could be filmed precisely and at the angle we wanted, so it is good to know that the audience have appreciated this effort. A further positive comment was 'The credits are good how they appear on screen over the shots and don't manage to restrict any view of the focus of the shot'. When creating our opening credits we tried to ensure that whereabouts we included them, they wouldn't block out any of importance in a scene. Luckily, at the beginning we planned our shots so that we could have space for names/credits for each shot we filmed. This therefore, made sure that credits wouldn't stop certain parts of a shot from being seen and so we are glad that our audience has noticed this. We will use these positive comments when editing our rough cut, as it allows us to keep the positive elements present in our sequence.
We also received some constructive comments which are really useful when we come to improve our rough cut as, constructive comments explain how we can improve certain parts that may need to be in order to make the sequence more successful to its needs. One of the constructive comments that we received was 'the sound was good but not consistent, so maybe to improve there could be an eerie soundtrack to play underneath to create more tension'. This comment was very fair as we had noticed this after watching our rough cut ourselves. The sound did not create the tense and eerie atmosphere we aimed it to and with the including of a long, developing, tense soundtrack, this could resolve this problem that we are having. Having consistent sound throughout a thriller sequence is vital in creating suspense, surprise and shock which are three main thriller elements that should be included in order for a thriller to be successful. Ours was not consistent and so decreased the conventionality to the thriller genre and so we will take this feedback on board and improve in the best way possible. Another constructive comment we received was 'having the antagonist at the beginning created a lot of suspense but when the second antagonist appeared it made the narrative confusing and was quite difficult to follow so, maybe having just the one antagonist would improve this problem'. We really want our narrative to be easy to get into as this is an opening sequence and so to gradually introduce the narrative, it needs to be easy to follow at the beginning. Knowing that our audience are getting confused addresses us of a problem that we will need to resolve. If having two antagonists really confuses the audience we will just have the one as, having one still makes it possible for the rest of the narrative to make sense as well as everything in the scene. A further constructive comment in which we got was, 'the way the girl faints and has a blackout is really good as it shows this happening from the evidence of her falling but the blackout is quite long making it seem like it's the end but then you realise it isn't, so having the blackout slightly shorter would resolve this'. We made our blackout quite long, to create an unexpected appearance of the antagonist looking over the victim. We did not intend however to create a definite sense of finality and so, if this is how our audience are feeling we will ensure that the blackout is made slightly shorter. However, we are happy that the audience likes the use of a blackout (from the comment) so we know that taking it out altogether would be a wrong decision to make.
In the development of our rough cut, many changes will be made to ensure that out final opening thriller sequence is the best it can possibly be. Based on the comments we have received, the sound in our sequence will be improved. We have found that it hasn't created the tense and eerie atmosphere that we intended for it to create and so a dark and eerie soundtrack will be inserted to build up suspense to the climax where the victim is faced with the antagonist. Sound that compliments the actions of the scene, we have found created more impact such as in our sequence at the end where the victim is feeling faint and lost, there is the sound of a heartbeat that beats each time the clip changes. From the screening of our production, we witnessed that our audience felt on edge and tense as they found it was more captivating to watch as they felt more empathetic towards the victim. Furthermore, in our rough cut we had two antagonists but from the verbal feedback in which we received, having two antagonists made it confusing and not as effective as one would be. From this feedback, we will remove the second antagonist and just have the one to ensure that our target audience's preferences are met. It will also make sure that the narrative is clear, gripping and easy to pick up as this ensures that audience stay fixed and engaged in what they are watching, keeping them wanting to continue to watch. As well as this, we will edit the blackout near the end so that it is not so prolonged to make the audience feel as if it is the end. The blackout will be shortened to create a less sense of finality but still manage to create the unexpected appearance of the antagonist looking over her at the end.
