Main Post 12a Evaluation - Audience Feedback

Once our group had finished editing the opening sequence of our film, the next step for us was to find out what our audience thought about it. We gathered small groups of people together to sit down and watch the opening sequence and tell us what they thought about it. We asked them questions about what they thought the rest of the film was about, what they thought of the music and what they thought of the overall opening sequence. We recorded their feedback and this is what's shown in the links below.

Audience Feedback Rough Cut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UltDP81oOEQ&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q

Audience Feedback 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv9xa9d4eos&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q

Audience Feedback 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqFsWCSLVeI&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q
Audience Feedback 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D8w-ln-sgg&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q
Audience Feedback 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrpnbXdXUmU&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q
Audience Feedback 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7JkPprAVEQ&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q

Audience Feedback 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcmtVe2_DCo&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q

Audience Feedback 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZkfZnGHI08&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q


After watching all the feedback clips of the audience’s views after watching our opening sequence we now have a better understanding of what they thought and ideas on how we could improve it if we were to do it again. The majority of the people who we got feedback from commented on the shots at the beginning of the opening sequence when the camera was panning across the math equipment.

They said they it made them want to watch on as the music and the different images intrigued them as to what the film was about and what would happen. Along with this, one person commented on the fact that the equipment might be there to signify the pressures of school that the main character could be going through. One of the other key points made in the feedback videos was the use of the music in the opening sequence. The feedback we got said that the speed of the music and the opening titles at the beginning of the opening sequence went well together, they also said that it helped set the mood of the film and create emotion among them. The music we have chosen made the audience 'intrigued' and was 'dark and misleading'. Another group that watched it said that the beginning of the opening, the panning, was spooky and the attention to detail was very good. This shows us that we established mood well as the audience felt a sense of fear and anticipation. Another point several people made was the fact that once the girls got into the car, after seeing the male look out the window and then the interior mirror, it made them slightly uncomfortable to watch because of the thought of the short skirt and loose tie shown in a shot before. It also made them conscious of the fact something bad was going to happen to one of both of the girls.

When the audiences were asked about where they thought the rest of the film would be about and what was going to happen, they had a mixture of ideas.  We found that the women watching the opening sequence thought the rest of the film would be about either 'grooming', 'sexual abuse' or a 'rapist'. Whereas the men weren't quite sure on what they thought it would be as the responses we got from them were 'something to do with a math tutor' and 'misunderstanding the signs'. From this we found out that the women had a better understanding of the opening sequence than what the men did. Overall the majority of the feedback from all the clips was positive and the audience seemed to understand what the film was about and would want to watch the rest of it.

Main Post 11 Final Opening Sequence

Due  to problems when trying upload our video clip from youtube onto my blog, it didn't work. Therefore below is a copy of the link that will lead straight to the video on youtube.

However when we put the video onto youtube the size of the screen changed to 4:3 (this normal size for television) but when we shot and edited our opening sequence we used the size 14:9 (the size of a film screen) so at times it may look stretched but this would not happen if the audience was watching a film in the cinema or on DVD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOvWz14PI3M&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q&index=1&feature=plcp

Main Post 9 Production

Whilst filming and editing of Behind Blue Eyes our group had to make decisions about how we were going to present our final opening sequence and what should go into it. These decisions were made as a group and we made them in order to insure the outcome of our opening sequence was at a high standard.

One decision our group made when editing the second half of the opening sequence was to take out the scene in Paige’s bedroom with Sophie and Paige doing their homework and another scene with Sophie getting out the car and walking towards her own house. We felt that these weren’t needed and just made the overall opening sequence longer and repeated what we had already established in a previous scene. We also decided on this as we thought that by having the scene of them both in Paige's bedroom it would make the audience feel as if the opening sequence had ended and the film had begun and but we that we had missed out linking a scene.  We instead put in scenes with Paige and Sophie walking away from school and getting into Alan's car and with them both inside the car, beginning to drive away. These decisions were
Even though the shot of the girls getting into the car outside Paige's house was cut, we kept the shot of them getting into the car, this time outside the school instead of Paige’s house. This decision was made because it kept the continuity from the previous scene. The added scene shows the girls walking towards the car, and we can therefore still show Alan looking out the car window at them and still highlight the fact he's looking at Sophie's short skirt and loose tie.

I personally think that it was a good decision as the end result of the girls walking to the car and then the shots inside the car look really effective and contribute to building the tension for the audience.

We also took out the from inside the locker where we would've seen Sophie getting her books out and shutting the locker door, leaving a black screen for 'Behind Blue Eyes' to appear. However we decided to take this out was because it was difficult to keep continuity, as we couldn’t put the folder in the locker laying at the same direction as it was in for the shot before hand, this was because the camera took up more room than we had initially planned. It was also because we had trouble keeping the camera at a flat angle whilst filming and when editing we discovered the title looked better on a black screen anyway.

Another decision our group made was about the beginning of the opening sequence, with the math equipment. We decided to film the different pieces of equipment at different angles all of which had a black background, making it easier in the editing phase to put them together. We also made the decision that because when filming, we captured lots of different shots of the colouring pencils to use more than just one shot of them and instead we put several shots of this in from different angles.

I think that using the different shots of the pencils has improved our opening sequence as it gives it more colour, compared to the plain colours on the black background and also gives it another dimension, with the different angles.  

During the editing of the opening sequence we had to make several decisions, these being where to put the opening titles, what font to put them in and how many we should have. From our research, watching the openings of several drama films, we found out that there are a lot of opening credits, as they mention every main job in the creation of the film, and from this to keep to convention; we put the majority of them in to ours.

Another decision we had to make was about the opening credits and where to put them as our opening sequence doesn’t have space in the shots, for this reason some of them may differ from what we have put on our shot list. We spent a long time deciding where we should position the credits as we wanted them evenly spread through the title sequence and in places that looked visible yet not taking up the entire screen or taking the focus off the action. However we found that when we were adding the credits in, because there are so many we couldn’t keep putting our four names on every single one of them as it would look unprofessional so, for this reason we made up names meaning that when the audience watched it they felt that it was more realistic.

Overall all the decisions we made as a group during the filming and editing stages, I think, have been good ones as they have meant that they film not only looks more professional but mean that we have managed to give the audience just enough information for them to carry in watching.