Feedback is vital to the production of our opening sequence; it gives us an insight into how our target audience might react to the sequence and if it has been sufficient in the way we convey certain key thriller conventions. It gives us an experience on the certain reactions we may get from the release of our film so we can therefore prepare ourselves correctly. Most importantly it gives us a clear view on the inprovments we need to make in order to make our sequence as successful as possible.
We recieved feedback from the audience in various different forms. This consisted of a focus group of people with a knowledge of what is needed within the thriller genre, a questionaire helping us see what the public felt of our ideas and mainly the use of youtube and the comments of which viewers left on the video. The feedback from the focus group gives us a deeper insight into the effect of our micro elements within the sequence. They told us what was effective and what may have been needed to help convey the various thriller conventions. In addidtion to this the various comments left on youtube give us a clear, unbiased view from the general public. This is very helpful as this will be our target audience, we can therefore take and use the opinions of the viewers to appeal to a wider target audience.
Feedback comments:
positive
- 'Highly conventional to the thriller genre'
These are conevntions conveyed within the sequence through the various different micro elements. The way in which we emplified the thriller conventions through the use of mise en scene is by exaggeragting the conventional girl/man antagonist and victim relationship. We did this through costume; elaborating on the girls innocence and the antagonists dominence. Cinematography was used very effectively in the building up of conventions. evidence of this is shown through the camera angles used, further more adding to the presentation of the conventional victim/antagonist relationship. We do this through the use of high/low angles when showing the characters. We used sounds like an emplified cracking twig sound as the victim is followed to add to the tension within the sequence. Tension being a key convention to the thriller genre. In addition to this we based the film around the central theme of death. Death being key to the thriller genre, adding to the shock and fear factor of a film.
- 'Good use of lighting to highlight focal point of the sequence'
This is incorpriated into the editing of our sequence. It is clearly shown towards the end and start of the sequence. Mostly when we use a zoom to highlight Caras emotions; during these shots a spot effect is added in order to lighten her face in contrast to the rest of the shot. This highlights our main character and her facial expressions therefore adding to the relationship built between her and the audience, plus the sympathy felt towards the girl.
- 'Effective plot twist engaging the audience'
This is seen at the end of the sequence when Carol, the innocent, likeable prtagonist is killed by our antagonist. It conveys a sense of shock to the audience as we do not expect to see this happen. In addition to this it adds to the enigmatic theme of the sequence as we do not know the reasons behind the death and the antagonists motives for it. This is vital to our opening sequence as it creates a cliff hanger for the audience forcing them to watch on.
to improve
- 'The plot is seen to be too complex and maybe too much like a trailer'
- 'The camera work was slightly unproffessional and jagged, maybe due to the camera itself being insecure'
- 'Could do with a sound track running throughout the sequence'
How we will incorpriate the constuctive critism...
- Ways in which we may simplify the plot of the film is by cutting out various parts of the sequence, only keeping key moments. This will highlight the key moments in the sequence making it far more easy to follow for the audience.
- We may also include another sound track running throughout the sequence to make it flow smoother and allow a story to unfold within the sequence.
- In addition to this we may improve the transitions inbetween shots, again creating a more of a flow throughout the sequence and highlighting the past/present tenses that switch in the sequence.
