Evaluation 3 (Writing)

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our feedback was mainly positive however, there were some comments about our chase scenes, performance shots, strangling shots and colour correction. These suggestions pointed out some new errors and some that we were already aware of however, it helped to see how an audience approached these errors and their feedback really helped us to improve our work. Some comments included that our chase scenes needed to be choppier to create more tension and to avoid repetitiveness and that our performance shots needed to include more close-ups to give more variety to the sequence, especially as the performance had all been filmed in one location.

In order to improve our piece, we took this advice by blading shots in final cut to make them shorter and to catch the actors in the middle of their action, focusing specifically on the chase scenes to increase the tension and fasten the pace.  We also included more unused footage of close-ups as we felt this too exaggerated the speed of the footage, which in turn, created a sense of urgency.

Moreover, we also cropped certain performance shots so that the footage included more close-ups of our performer as well. As we wanted to have subtle pattern to run throughout these shots, we only did this on shots where the lyrics are supposed to be screamed into the camera. We found this increased the intensity of the lyrics, creating a more diverse sequence and a sense of continuity throughout the interchanging strains of narrative, abstract and performance.

To improve the other issues, we filmed more footage of the strangling sequences so we would have more useable shots to include. In order to create a sense of variety we also flipped some shots so that they looked as If they had been filmed separately. This was particularly useful for giving a different perspective and elaborating on the narrative.

Our feedback also suggested that colour correction was our main issue and that we needed to work on this to improve the quality of the video as a whole.  Scenes that were badly effected were shots filmed in the bathroom and outside as they had constantly changing lighting.  We also decided to lessen the saturation on the strangling scenes as the red wall in the background was too bright and attention-catching.  Similarly, we felt that to stick to rock conventions we would have decrease the golden lighting seen within these shots and lesson the expose throughout to create a darker light.

The effect of colour correction was perhaps the most significant thing we learnt from our feedback, as the other issues were small and easily solved whereas editing the colour slightly could lift the whole product to a more professional level. With hindsight, if we had more time to film our piece, we would have liked to re-film more shots with the tripod as we found the footage from this came out clearer and, like the colour correction, lifted the professionalism of the whole piece.