First Edit of Final Footage: Focus Group Feedback

Feedback On First Cut from morrighan humpleby on Vimeo

Morrighan and I presented the first edit of our final footage to our focus group to find out;

• If there were any errors of continuity that we had not noticed ourselves, so that we can amend them.
• If the final footage of our opening sequence is in keeping with the traditional film noir style/genre.
• If there were any camera angles/shots that they liked especially, so that we will keep them throughout our edits.
• If there were any camera angles/shots that they felt did not work well for our opening sequence, so that we will consider editing them out and replacing them with better footage.
• If the narrative was easy to follow. (We had asked the focus group this in our previous presentation, however due to the changes and improvements we have made since then, we wanted to be sure that this did not complicate the narrative so that it became difficult to follow.)

Evaluation of Feedback

From this presentation, we found that the focus group were satisfied with the idea of a monologue layered over our footage to explain the story, as no criticisms were raised from this plan. One issue raised by the focus group was the shakiness of the camera during the pan down to birds eye view shot on Pecc Street. Morrighan and I had also previously noticed this, and have applied a steadiness action on iMovie. However as this did not make much of an improvement, Morrighan is locating the additional takes of this shot that I filmed, so that we can look for the steadiest version, and replace the shaky one. It was helpful to know if the shakiness was detectable by an audience, as now Morrighan and I know it is important that we replace it.

An issue which we did not detect ourselves was the lack of fluidity with the transitions of the first and last shots. Our production company title was also accidently timed for too long so that it continued onto the first shot. We have fixed this since the presentation, however this mistake has encouraged us to study our edited footage more carefully before presenting and uploading it so that errors like this do not appear again. To make the first and last shots more fluid, we will apply a fade transition to the first shot, as this can be soft as the tension has not begun to build yet at this point. The transition for the last shot should be more abrupt and quicker than the first transition, as it is the most dramatic shot of the opening sequence; when the femme fatale is murdered. The shot should also be quick as a foley generated gun shot sound will play in time with the transition, and as gun shots are quick and rapid, the transition which accompanies it should be too. Therefore, the transition should be a quick cut to black, as this also signifies the femme fatale's death, as black is what she will see when she dies, and it is a colour related to death/mourning. The title should then fade slowly from black, as this continues the theme of mourning and contrasts the quick shots during the tension building, now that the suspense has ended.

The focus group felt that the narrative made sense and were able to follow it, which was helpful feedback as Morrighan and I needed to check that the changes we made to the opening sequence since the rehearsal footage did not over-complicate the narrative. The focus group also liked the canted still images that I photographed and Morrighan edited of the dead femme fatale. Because no issues were raised with the speed, transitions between them, or amount of images, Morrighan and I will make little to no changes to them. Finally, the panoramic shot of the wall montage could have been cut shorter, as the take is prolonged at the end. Since then I have made this change.

Our next focus group presentations will be to receive feedback on the re-shot footage and improvements/changes we have made to our opening sequence after self and focus group evaluation. We will also present our music, monologue and foley sound effects to the focus group after we record and add them to the footage to see how it is received by an audience, and to identify any necessary changes.

"Text taken from Morrighan's blog: Me and Courtney also filmed one student in the classes feedback about the footage. We didn't plan to, however when I was editing the first feedback video, she came over and complimented our work however said that the dark room scene let it down a bit, so I decided to film her and ask only her some questions. We took this as an opportunity to ask her questions we didn't think of, or forgot to to ask the first group of people. Though she isn't our main target audience it didn't matter too much as it was only about the filming and if the narrative makes sense. We will later do an interview with a few people that are the main target audience to check they like it and if it needs any changes."