Rough Cut - Miss Georgiou

Audience feedback is essential within media production as the audience are responsible for bringing in the revenue and make a person's work credible as well as the feedback determining if a film is popular or not, the more people enjoy a particular film, the more publicity it will gain therefore meaning it will become successful resulting in profits. The crew roles within the production of a film i.e. Producer, director and editor are significant as they need to ensure that the film pleases the audience as well as exceeding their expectations as the audience is mainly the purpose behind a film. However regarding short films, it is sometimes not about making the money and number of people who watch it but rather expressing it as a hobby although audience feedback is still valid in some cases as a successful film will still need to be created in order to entertain. A rough cut is important to carry out beforehand because this is the first time that all of the clips would have been edited together combined with the other micro elements such as sound and effects and then checked thoroughly for continuity. This allows for revisions and new ideas to be tried and tested to enhance the appearance of the piece as a whole and make the product more successful and appealing towards the target audience.

In the planning stages, we carried out a questionnaire of which we included both open and closed questions in order to gain and overall idea of what is to be expected from a thriller which would appeal to a potential audience. From this, we also learnt about the codes and conventions of the genre in more depth as well as knowing what type of content to include in order to create a sequence that is conventional and thrilling for our target audience. This audience feedback was then put into pie charts  and we were able to calculate the most popular answer for each question of which we responded by ensuring that the most popular answers were evident within our media production. We also uploaded the rough cut version of our thriller opening sequence to YouTube in order to receive feedback from our peers about what they think was good about it as well as some negative comments that we can gain from and improve to boost our grade. A focus group was carried out as well in which we showed our thriller to a room of our target audience and asked questions based on what they had watched. As well as uploading to YouTube, the focus group was beneficial to Kate and I as the audience were the people we were specifically aiming our thriller at and it therefore useful to find out what they thought about our sequence as comments from our target audience are essential as to whether or not the film would be successful. This feedback would benefit the film industry as it allows for constructive criticism and are well aware of the positive and negative aspects of the film therefore if more positive aspects are present, the film will succeed more and make a lot of money.

Looking back on the comments that I have received, I have taken into account both positive and negative feedback as the positive helps me to know what I have done right as well as the negative helping me to improve on my sequence as a whole and gives me an opportunity to enhance the thriller and give it the best possible chance of becoming successful.

An example of a positive comment that I had received on a social networking site, Snap chat, was one simply stating, "I love the background music" of which was an extremely useful comment to take on board as both Kate and I had carefully planned out the different types of music we were going to use at specific points within the sequence and was therefore receiving a comment like this meant we were right in doing this and the hard work with this had paid off. Although this is a rough cut, we believe that we had finished all of the sounds completely and had to only add the slightest effects when editing for the final cut.

Another comment read, "I like the music as it is conventional to the thriller genre, however in my opinion, the transition from the room to house seemed artificial" This is both a positive and negative comment as the person included both something that went well within the sequence as well as telling us what we needed to work on in order to boost the grade of the piece and create the most successful thriller we possibly can. Both Kate and I believe that this was a fair comment as she highlighted the weak areas of the sequence that we can therefore justify and fix before submitting the final production. We both agree with what this comment said as in the middle of the sequence, a flash of 4 images is shown all at once and the narrative becomes quite confusing at this point as we have badly edited the clips of the hit man approaching the house together causing them to be seen for at least a second before disappearing off screen.

This comment also states a very positive aspect of our thriller as well as offering some constructive criticism as to what we could do to improve. It is a fair comment as it shows us that the credits were conventional and fitted in with the genre of the film. The part about the lighting needing to be dimmer at the beginning of the sequence can be rectified by using the editing software Final Cut Pro X to reduce the exposure on the images and therefore make it more darker for the audience in order to evoke more suspense and tension which are crucial elements for a thriller.

The comment below again offers some more constructive criticism that both Kate and I will work on. This is a fair comment as Harry provides us with some advice on what we should do more of in order to make the sequence more conventional to the thriller genre which is the main aim we are trying to achieve in order to gain a high grade. In order to improve on this, we will use silence with the inclusion of a footsteps sound effect in the part where the hit man is walking down the hallway and include the tense music later on in the scene when he reaches the kitchen and creeps up on the female victim. Having said this, the comment shows how our cinematography and editing worked well within the thriller which is a positive outcome as we were both determined to get the filming right the second time around.

Based on the comments that I have received, I will ensure that more transitions are placed into the sequence so that the clips are shown on screen for longer and the audience will be able to witness the hit man walking from the room in which he was being held hostage to the house where he will kill his victim. The transitions will also help to pass the pace of the sequence as well as allowing the thriller to run smoothly instead of cutting into the next clip which makes the film look very unprofessional and messy. I will also make sure to slow some of the clips down so that we can add more timing on as we had only achieved 1 minute and 51 seconds where the minimum required is at least 2 minutes. This will then help to establish the murder location more and make the audience well aware that this will be the setting in which a murder will take place as well as being used to create ideal elements of tension and suspense within the audience which helps us to create a thrilling sequence for our target audience. When transitioning from rough cut to final cut, Kate and I also added a focus effect, upon feedback, onto a majority of the images at the beginning of the sequence in order to create a shallow focus effect to divert the audience's attention onto the hit man suggesting that he is the crucial and most significant character. We also slowed down the image of the hit man walking up behind the female victim and then having the next image of him grabbing her at normal speed to achieve a slow timing of shots effect and prolong the surprise and tension elements which would keep our audience on the edge of their seats.