Audience feedback and Self evaluation (draft 1)

Self evaluation of draft 1

The version of 'The Pursuant' in which can be found on my blog, is very much the first draft. From this first production of the film, I am now able to see where are strengths lay as a group and where there is room for improvement.

A major flaw of the film in which is due for improvement, is the transition designs. I feel that the non-diegetic music and mise en scene complements and establishes the tone of our opening, however the transitions in which are used to progress the film from shot to shot, negate this unsettling atmosphere and create almost comedic and 'slideshow' infliction on our film. As well as this, another area in which was in need of development was our lack of shot variation. Our initial plan for our film insisted in having extremely tight shots and fast paced editing in order to create a sense of disjointedness for the audience. However this was not achieved in our first draft, our production contained little diversity in shot variation, something which is going to loose us a substantial amount of marks in our final production. Therefore, we are keen to include a lot more footage to further our ability. 

Once we add titles and our borrowed footage of the institution, the cinematography of our film will immediately look more professional.

In contrast to the negatives, I think that my group and I's hard work in preparing the props and the mise en scene has paid off and this is palpable in our first draft. 

Audience feedback

I found the feedback session with my target audience beneficial as I was able to get a clear understanding of what they liked and didn't like. In order to find out these views, i asked a variety of questions. As this is our first draft of our edited footage, the titles are yet to be included, therefore the first question I asked was 'where do you think the titles would be most appropriate?'. After discussion and a variety of different opinions, the majority of the audience thought that if the titles were over the top, this would take the importance away from the mise en scene and consequently the titles should appear separately on a background in order to give the titles and what is going on on screen equal appreciation. 

The second question asked was 'what are your opinions on the transitions?' Immediately the constructive criticism rose to surface and all of the group shared their dislike for the transitions!! (Which is understandable as after reviewing the film myself, i am aware that they do not meet the conventions of a horror film). Therefore this is something i will immediately change as soon as I get back in the editing suite.