Evaluating Feedback

 When we had finished our short film's editing process we held a focus group, we asked some people to come watch it with us and give us some on site feedback then and there, asking questions like "What did you like about the short film?" or "What do you reckon we could have improved upon it?", to gather just some feedback to note down, but we ended up even getting a comment about our choice of visual effects, to which the audience within the focus group appeared to like it and think that it suited it. Additionally the audience also mentioned was about Elijah's acting skills and how he portrayed his character in a way that actually seemed befitting for the context of the story, as well as how the story itself was quite unique and was structured quite well.

However it isn't all sunshine and rainbows, there of course being negatives to go along with the positives we were given, such as: The ending seemed a bit rushed, it skipped large chunks of the story and plot and essentially hit the audience out of nowhere, confusing them, sometimes even the sounds of the camera being zoomed in and out were audible to the audience. 

To improve the short film we would probably need to go back and re - film a couple of our shots, and build majorly more on the story as to create a less confusing ending, or just re - do the ending entirely in a manner that is still fitting yet isn't as confusing or sudden. Though our Limit of 3 - 5 minutes is the brutal factor that holds this back from being accomplishable, because either way if we want to re - film it, it wont fit perfectly in sync etc.

Overall based off of the feedback we had managed to gain, I believe our short film is actually quite decent bearing in mind the parameters we had to follow and stick to etc. The story was easy to interpret up till the ending, and it had a clear effect on the audience, the montage especially held a great effect in showing off to the audience the setting and establishing the base atmosphere, for the rest of the story. The inspiration of course for the short film was the long period of isolation and lockdown that most people had to undergo when Corona Virus 19 first hit the UK. Convention wise for the genre we had chosen ; psychological thriller, we tried to keep a basic story with bits eluding to the psyche of the character, such as the slow deterioration of the quality of the shots (the filter) and other mediums. We kept the story in a situation where anyone wouldn't expect to end up, so that it catches the audience off guard and keeps a sense of slight unease about the character's situation. As for the short film conventions, we kept the story as mentioned prior, pretty basic, limiting dialogue as much as possible however not too much that it confused the audience or kept them completely in the dark,  in addition we gave no background information about the character and ended it on a cliff hanger. 

On an individual level, I would probably have improved my editing knowledge prior to filming, to make sure that I'm fully up to such a task and have at least a bit more knowledge on techniques than I had beforehand. Though as a group both my and my peer could have improved on our timing some more, as the filming did take a fair while, we could have arranged it to take less, which overall could have made our lives a lot easier and given us more time for editing.

Focus Group Feedback

 

Focus Group Questions

 

Focus group questions

These are the questions that will ask the audience who have watched our film:

What did you like about the film?

Did you think our film fits the genre of a psychological thriller?

In terms of following short film conventions, do you think our film follows them?

Were there any scenes that you didn't like?

In terms of the effects used, do you think they were appropriate?

Were there any shots that weren't clear?

Were you able to understand what was going on in the film?

Do you think our film will appeal to our target audience, which ranges from 12-to 30 years?

What do you think we can improve on?

Task Allocation week 10

 

Strengths and Weaknesses feedback evaluation

Based off of the feedback we had managed to gather we feel as if there were some things here and there that we could use to improve, in terms of what made our film good in places as well as what bits didn't look the most appealing or fitting etc.

For strengths, our film had a great and thought out narrative that the audience were able to follow easily. The emotions that was conveyed was very clear throughout the film and the audience were able to understand what was going on and also to connect with the character effectively especially when it came to his emotions. The film was structured very well overall and it was clear when the scenes were transitioning from one to another. Music was a really good choice and used in appropriate times to properly invoke an effect on the audience. There were also some decent visual effects used, though mainly at the beginning of the film and the slow change throughout. 

However as for our weaknesses, the ending of our film left some of the viewers a bit confused as to what was happening, we feel as if we could probably have built more onto this if more time was allowed so we could actually build the story up a bit more, rather than having these massive cuts. The noise of the camera also was heard once or twice during some scenes and was noticeable clearly by the audiences. This came to be a rather serious issue, as its something quite annoying to hear.

In order to address the aforementioned weaknesses, we had decided to re-film some additional shots at the end, such as the character changing moods to display his emotions changing in a more gradual way rather than immediately from one to another. Also, a voiceover towards the end of the film explaining what the character is thinking as he kicks the chair down, to shed some light upon why he's so angry all of a sudden.

Camera and Lighting Evaluation

 

Exposure control is the way you would determine how the camera should appear, in terms of lighting. It's pretty easy to utilise and set up, as with most cameras you can just go to the settings, navigate to exposure and set it to your preference. We used this as it was hard to determine how bright or dark some shots were bearing in mind the days we filmed it was rather Bright and it made it hard to determine it properly. Though during our editing process, we decided to put a colour filter on the video to slowly show the change of the character's deteriorating mental state, at the beginning however we used it during our montage mostly to show age, and the change of these once populated areas into a ghost town essentially. With this choice in mind however, we still kept the brightness from the real footage to keep it clear what time of day it is, (Day time) which helps to further aid our goal with the exposure and lighting, in making it seem much more abandoned and different to what it might normally have been.

One of the features that were used in the short film is the camera lenses feature. To do this effectively though, we made sure that the exposure of the camera was clear enough to capture the image on the set / scene. As for Editing, we changed the colour of the video by adding a filter to give it a distorted look and much more aged look. This editing choice enhanced the camera setting as the colour change makes it look as though it were taken after a much longer time after the prior scenes.

Shutter speed is another camera setting that we had utilised. This determines when the camera sensor will be open or closed to incoming light on the camera lens. The shutter speed specifically refers to how long this light is allowed to enter the camera. For the footage that we filmed, there were some shots where it was 1/50 - 1/100 seconds. This was used for a variety of our different shots. Same with the change that we implemented for the exposure control, we also added the same colour filter to convey a form of distortion and also that aforementioned age. This enhanced the  effect that it gave off, making it look as we had intended and also show how unpredictable things can be within the future.

Natural lighting was one of the main lighting techniques we used in the short film. In a way for us to achieve using this lighting, we simply refrained from editing the lighting of the scenes at the locations; we didn't use any features or settings to edit the lighting, keeping it natural and completely unedited. But when it came to editing for the montage scene, we changed the colour of the video, placing the "combat" colour effect over it. We kept the brightness of the video as we wanted to present what time of day it is as well. 

Ambient lighting was another lighting type that was used in the short film. This was another lighting technique that was achieved easily as we used the light that was already there with only minor tweaks to the settings. When it came to editing the final version, we kept the lighting the same as we wanted the audience to be able to sympathize with the character. In terms of the speed, we sped up some of the shots slightly, mainly when the character was picking up the notepad as to save some time as well. This was when filming, as I was acting out the character, I did take a bit of time doing some certain actions and as the brief required the film to be between three and five minutes, we wanted to make sure that we had enough time to include all the significant shots in it without error, and ended up filming a lot of extra that we later removed.

Key lighting is another lighting that was used in the short film. This was a lighting technique that was used in the film mainly for the last scene. In order to achieve this lighting, we turned off the lights on the backside of the room and kept the lights on at the front side of the room so that when it came to editing the final version, we could the colour of the visual to the same "combat" colour effect, in which we could display how the character's mind has gone out of control and how he has gone insane. With this choice, I felt the enhanced lighting would convey the character's state same with how the lighting effects slowly seemed to deteriorate as each scene passed, especially due to the character being alone for so long.

Focus Group Video

 

- The film was very well put together

- Acting was really good in the film

- Good choice of background music

- Nice visual effects used 

- The ending wasn't clear enough to the audience (we explained this to them)

- Noise of the camera shifting heard at times

- Appropriate transitions used