Professional Audience Feedback

Soon in class we are going to have a visit from a professional filmmaker who is going to give us some professional audience feedback which should help us with our film making and help us improve with the constructive feedback he gives us. I shall write up his feedback so that I can prove what he said and what I changed because of it.

Yesterday in class we had a visit from a professional filmmaker Nick Peres who is a Video Producer for Mindmaker Productions. He individually watched our films so far and gave us feedback which would hopefully help us improve our film sequences.

We had feedback sheets so that we knew what questions we could ask him, with the hope of the receiving the best possible feedback. At the time he came to see my film, I had no sound and no narration and so it was a little hard for Nick to understand my film and so I had to enlighten him a little about the plot and the genre.

What part of the film was the sequence and how could you tell?

Nick said that he knew my film was the title sequence/opening because of the photo album and the memories. He said it was a good and classic way of showing the audience it was the beginning of the film.

Could you tell where the film was set in time and place? What made this clear (or confusing)?

He said that he could tell the film was set in modern times but that there was confusion in my opening sequence between the past and the present, with the past being shown as flashbacks he said that I could perhaps de-saturate the colour of the image a little which would define what was a flashback and what was in the present.

Who were the main characters and did you feel you could understand a bit about them? What technical or visual elements were most helpful for this?

He said that the guy was the obvious main character because his emotions were the focus of the sequence and what the audience would be looking at. He said that the fact that he was looking into the photo album and we were seeing his reactions that this also showed he was the main character. He said that we can understand his emotions because they are clear in his reaction to the photos and the letter.

Is the genre clear? How could you tell?

He said that the drama part of the film was clear with the emotion and the non linear narration but he also said that the romantic part of the genre was not clear and that I should perhaps add in some more romance establish that side of the film more.

How intrigued are you by the narrative – what makes you want to see the rest of the film?

He said that the audience would want to see the rest of the film because they would want to the guy’s plight, not only what happens in the end but how he got there in the first place which is created by the non linear narration.

In extra comments that he made, he said that I have too much movement in my shots and that perhaps I should reshoot some of them so that I have less movement which would make it more realistic. He also commented on the titles that I had just started when he arrived and so were not finished but he added that changing the colour of the titles adds character to them and this is something that I should consider doing.

The visit from Nick was very useful and he gave me some very helpful constructive feedback all which I have taken into account and have done what I can at this late hour in my film process to change and adapt as he knows what he is doing and so is most likely to be right. I have learnt from this that it is always good to get feedback from other people as what you see and what they see can be very different.