ROUGH CUT - Miss Georgiou

ROUGH CUT

Audience feedback is important to a production because it helps us as a group identify the strengths and weaknesses of our opening sequence. Another reason why it is important is because we can then think about what is the most important parts we need to change and can help us plan when we will re do these.

Our group received various amount of feedback in various different ways.

We as a group screened our production to the class so we could receive feedback on what worked well and what improvements we needed to make. We received verbal feedback from the class and found this was very effective. We received feedback of our focus group which meant from ages of between 16-17, which was good for us as our opening sequence was rated at 15+. With this feedback it means that the target audience was hit and we would be receiving accurate feedback. We also received feedback from YouTube, this was after posting our opening sequence. Any member of the public could watch our post, like and comment, giving us as a group feedback. We found that all these ways were helpful for putting new ideas into our minds and highlighting to us what does not work so well and what does.

The public giving me and my group feedback meant there would be another set of eyes analysing the opening sequence and maybe seeing things that we don't. This also shows to us that one small change could make a large difference.

From all three ways of feedback we found that there was many positive amounts of feedback. The first main positive piece of feedback being the editing; the audience found this was very good and stood out. The editing was a huge part to our opening sequence and too get good feedback was great. The large amount of editing which we gained good feedback from was the section in the opening sequence where the mask appears. The lighting was just right for them to see the mask in a quick flash on the screen. However the music behind this section could have been bolder and louder, catching the audiences attention just a little bit more. When adding these filters we made sure that they were all in timing and were the right brightness and opacity so there was a constant flow throughout and you couldn't notice any small blips in the camera angles or that all the scenes were filmed on the same day. Another positive we received from screening our production is the amount of conventions of a thriller that were used, for example; low key lighting, female victim and hidden identity. The female victim meant there was more suspense and tension brought towards the audience and they found that a larger relationship was created between the two, which is what we intended to happen, and found as group from the feedback that we was happy and it was the right choice to make. Mine and my groups peers found that the low-key lighting left them waiting for more and in suspense about what was going to happen next, as not much evidence and clues were shown on screen. The class also liked the fact that the opening sequence was left on a cliff-hanger, from this they found that the concluding narrative was interesting and wasn't boring for them to watch. All of these main positive pieces of feedback has shown to my group that the story boards when planning was important and helped to maintain the good narrative that was noticed, as well as editing skills and conventions.

The main constructive feedback we received firstly was the title frame which was shown half way through the opening sequence. Me and my groups peers found that the title worked well and the music fitted in well, also blending in and out well to match the next up coming scene. Although some improvements could be made on the opening scene after the title, we as a group found that the lighting was quite dull and needed to stand out more to the audience, as well as adding some more dramatic music to show to the audience that the scene is concluding soon. Although apart from this, us as a group were happy with the ending scenes. The feedback about the opening credits we received was varied, although as a whole we received feedback that they wasn't on screen long enough and were just a little too small to read quick enough, although we had already discussed this as a group and were happy and conclusive with the feedback given. 

When receiving comments and feedback, positive feedback is useful and helpful to as it has given our group an insight of what elements do not need any additional changes and why they have helped to make our production successful. We have taken these comments from both the screening of our production and the comments left on the YouTube video that we uploaded of our thriller opening sequence rough cut. Firstly our feedback suggested that our transitions were well selected, in the way it wasn't too obvious that we were transitioning into the next scene and swiftly changed into the next scene keeping it professional looking. Another comment made was the fact it was clear in what our narrative was. I personally think we spent alot of our time making sure it was clear for the audience to understand the order of our thriller and what the narrative was, so this feedback was very helpful showing that our work in trying to reach this has worked. Another positive comment from our feedback from our YouTube video was that the sounds that we ended up using on our opening sequence, which were many overlapped created a good effect. 

The changes we make to our thriller opening sequence will be based on the comments and amounts of feedback given, we will make sure all pieces of feedback are taken into consideration are taken and changes in places we as a group feel is right. We will change the font sizes throughout and think more closely about our music; changes in the right places e.g. more dramatic and concluding music will need to be used. Overall asking for feedback from varied places has helped us see from different perspectives, looking from a different point of view on what does and doesn't work well.