LO4: Evaluating Feedback

 After finishing our film, we shared our film the film in a screen test and sent the viewers a Survey created using Surveymonkey.co.uk. The feedback that was given back to us was precise and informative, each question asked in the survey was made with the purpose of showing us how we can improve our product, if we were to re-shoot scenes again and also to gather praise if the viewer thouhgt neccesarry. 

Q1. How was the acting?

Most people who answered this question stated that the acting from Ellis, Me, and Toby the was great and elevated the narrative of the film. This proved to us that our choice of casting was exceptional for the film. However personally I do believe that it isn't perfect, as there were many times where the actors broke character within a scene. To combat this when filming, we filmed multiple takes of the shots and used the best take from each scene. However, even with this there was still some scenes that had characters moving or talking when they shouldn't have been. example could include Toby's charcter death scene as he moves slightly quiet a few time which is quiet noticable if you pay attention to the scene.

Q2. What did you think of the narrative?

A lot of people in the survey stated that the narrative of the film was unpredictable, and hard to follow, some did say that alothough the narative was hard to follow at the start it did start to piece back together at the end. To help make more people understand the film from the get go we could made our film more clear and little shorter to trim the shots down to the bits that show most of the narrative to help the viewers understand. Also, when writing our script, we should include less improvisation and instead write character conversations that will pace well within the film. 

Q3. What did you think of the special effects within the film?

Most of the viewers all agreed that the special effects within the film were great and really help move the narrative along.

Q4. What do you think of the genre of the film?

Any viewers enjoyed the parody of certain genres that we portrayed in our product and stated that it was good for its target audience, this shows how our use of film theories, miss-en-scene, and writing were able to create a product that engaged our target audience and made a film that they could enjoy.

Q5. Was there anything you didn't understand about the film?

In the survey many people were confused with a certain scenes in the film. This may be because of the lack of planning for certain scenes which may have caused it to be hard for some users to understand the narrative. 

Q6. Is there anything about the film you would change?

Some viewers stated that they would change the audio within the film due to the fact that it wasn't consistant throughout the whole film for example certain scences being too loud and some being too quiet. This was because some sounds were too quiet or were covered by background audio that was picked up when filming. This was mainly because when filming, we struggled with recording audio and used a multiple different microphones when filming different scenes and shots. This made the audio inconsistent and also allowed unwanted audio from the wind and cast to be picked up on the audio file. In the future we will ensure to plan out our endeavours to the fullest extent so that we do not struggle when deciding what equipment would serve best for our product. 

Q7. What did you think of the audio?

This is similar to the last question in which most of the viewers answered that we should take more care when recording audio. When conducting research for future products we will ensure to look at how we can use some equipment, and which equipment would be best for use when working on a certain project such as high end microphones all of the same quality in all shots too keep it all similar and consistant so that the viewers would enjoy the film more.

Q8. Is there anything that needs improving?

Other than the audio, many viewers also stated that the transitions from certain scenes could have been better. This could have been fixed with more planning as we could have easily taken some establishing shots that showed the audience what was happening, rather than telling them via the fade to black screen texts we included.

Q9. Do you think the mise-en-scene methods were effective?

All of the viewers replied to this question stating that they were effective and added to the genre and narrative of the product. 

Q10. Did you enjoy the film?

All the viewers answered yes

Strengths and Weaknesses.

The main strengths were the special effects used in the film this is beacause it really helped add to the narrative as the feedback states such as the changing the atomosphere to a colder colour whenever Ellis's character and whenever Toby's character was in a shot we would make the scene alot more brighter and warmer to help move the narrative along. One main weakness of the film is the inconsistant audio this is because we used multiple devices while recording and this resulted in some of the audio being quiter in some scenes and louder in others and that is the main things that needs to be adressed.

After reviewing the feedback from our survey, we saw that our product had some areas of improvment, through spending more time planning and writing a story. We could have improved our script to know more about how the characters would interact. Plus, we could have made a more effective storyboard that would have explained more about the camera work and shot type seen within the product. Using low angle and high angle shots could have elevated the power dynamic between Ellis and Toby's characters, and would've shown a lot more of their friendship within the film. We should have also shot more establishing shots when filming, this would've helped direct the audience  and help them understand the narrative more easily; scenes like this would've helped expand the narrative and character drama seen within the film. Furthermore, by trimming the product of unwanted shots and scenes, we would have shortened the length of the product, and help pace it more consistently so that viewers would be more engaged with the product.