Rough Cut

Rough Cut

When making a production like our opening thriller sequence it is important to gain feedback. Feedback is information and reactions to a product or a performance of a task, which helps to create a basis for further improvement. Feedback can help to identify strengths and weaknesses within the product to help with knowing what needs to be done in order to improve. This could be anything from minor small errors that need to be altered slightly, or a dramatic change within the product which is beneficial to dramatically improve the final result of the product. Our rough cut was the best that we could achieve in the time and with the resources that we were allocated in our opinion, however by getting audience feedback from peers, and comments on our YouTube with the rough cut uploaded, this enabled us to get constructive criticism and feedback of small things people have noticed to help improve the production further. Furthermore, feedback is not only about what is wrong or could be improved with the final product, it is also about what is good with the product you have made, this is so this part of the product is not altered as the peers and people giving feedback think this is an essential, and good part of the production.

Once we had completed our rough cut of our opening thriller sequence we received audience feedback from our target audience by the class screening our production in class, including our teachers which have helped us throughout the process. By showing this to our target audience, we know that the feedback that they have given us would need to be taken into consideration, as this is what they would like to see in a thriller opening sequence and is representative of other people in their age group. The group gave us verbal feedback on what they enjoyed and what worked well in our thriller opening sequence, and what was conventional to the thriller genre. Next were suggestions on how we could improve our opening thriller sequence. This included suggestions such as we need to make the brightness lower on specific scenes to match the rest of the sequence. This is easily done when we go back to editing our opening thriller sequence as we can simply turn the brightness down on the screen which will make the scenes look like they were all filmed continuously on the same day. Another feedback comment was that we should take into consideration the transitions. This is because some of the transitioned moved to quickly into the next seen and seemed too quick in some peoples opinions although the actual transition worked well with the scene. Again this is easily changed as we will adjust the time of the transitions of Final Cut Pro X, I think this feedback is very helpful as not only will it slow down the rate of the transitioning to improve the sequence, but it will also add to the suspense and tension building as the audience are waiting to see what will happen next.

The feedback we received from the screening of the production to our class benefits both our production and the film industry. This is because we had an opinion from a different point of view of what our opening sequence was like when somebody watches it for the first time. Once you have watched your own sequence so many times, you begin to become oblivious to any slight errors or minor mistakes as you forget to watch out for them and focus on main points of the sequence instead. This is helpful to have someone else watch the sequence as they can point out any of these errors that may have been missed out. Overall, the production and industry both benefit as any good or bad comments are pointed out, allowing us to improve our production making it more successful and conventional to the thriller genre.

Here are some comments left on our YouTube video of our opening thriller sequence "Obscurity":

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 person giving this feedback suggested that the overlay of all the different sounds and effects really help to build up the tension in the seen and created an eerie sense that made the audience want to continue watching. The selection of the sound effects that we used took a long time to decide on as we wanted to create the right effect for the audience when they were watching the sequence. To hear that spending a long time on choosing the right sounds is beneficial to us at it has proved it was worth spending the time doing so and has made a good effect for the audience which is also conventional to the thriller genre.

Alongside our positive comments which we received, we also received constructive comments which helped us to reflect on our opening sequence rough cut, and helps us to decide which changes should be made in order to improve our final product. The first piece of constructive advice we received and the main piece, which more than one person commented on was to add more credits to the sequence. I think this is a beneficial comment towards my groups opening sequence as we have many more credits that we can include. To improve from this constructive comment we will add more credits along the course of the opening sequence with roles of the crew and the casts names. This will help and improve our product as this will ensure it stays looking like an opening sequence rather than a short film. Another piece of constructive criticism given was to draw out the protagonists journey on her way towards the forest. I do slightly agree with this, as it can help to build more tension and anticipation for the audience, however myself and my group will have to carefully decide on how to improve this as we do not want to have the audience watching alot of footage of the protagonist simply walking towards the forest as this may be uninteresting to watch. However, to improve this we could have more significant events of the protagonist walking to the forest that are giving her signs not to enter, keeping on building the anticipation and keep the audience wonder whether the young girl will actually enter the forest or not. Lastly, another piece of constructive feedback which we received was we could extend the use of footsteps and the heart beating sound effects to build more tension. I agree with this comment because by extending these sounds we could build up the tension even more then we have already created, this will then add to how conventional our thriller is as we have created one of the main elements which is needed.