The type of audience who would watch our short film would be the younger generation and short film fanatics. They are people who are into thriller and are interested in the plot.
When we first asked our teacher to look at our film, the type of feedback he gave us was mainly about the sound editing as it wasn't our strongest point. He helped us understand sound bridging and create cleaner cuts on some shots. This improved the continuity and audio of our short film. With this improved version, we then uploaded the draft onto YouTube. I then created a Facebook post which included links to the short film and the survey I created. The results are on this slide share below:
After looking at these responses I have learned that the majority have watched short films before therefore they may have compared our short film to others. Most of my responses were females aged 12-18 and because our short film was about the death of a loved one, their views on it may vary from experience. However, they all said that the title described the short film very well. I think these positive responses to Q4 made me realise how much a word can create impact and it can also make the audience remember the name because it is just one word. After looking at the cinematography responses for Q6. I have found that some liked the shakiness of the camera but others didn't. This links in with Stuart Hall's encoding theory. I think that the third and fourth answer had a negotiated reading response because they had different views on what the director's purpose of it was. Originally, we wanted to have that shaky camera effect to show that Derek's on edge, or that he doesn't know what's going on and that he is basically delusional. However the fourth answer to Q6 suggests that we should've focused on him more so that we could see him and all our attention goes to Derek. What I have learned from this response is that people have different opinions and that it can be difficult to clearly show the purpose of why we added that shot or that sound effect etc.
On the other hand for Q7, the responses varied from good and bad. This question focused on the audio of our short film and the bit that affected people's opinions were the bird sound effect. One said it didn't make sense for it to be included and the other person said that the overall soundtrack was okay. Looking at these responses, I have learnt that we may need to improve the sound editing in the dialogue scene and make sure that the sound is kept at the same volume at all times so that there's no confusion and better continuity. In addition, I have also learned that this may be a skill that needs to improve and to better understand the effectiveness of sound.
For Q9, I had many different approaches to the ending. Some said it was good, and others gave me points on how it could've ended. What I have learned from this is that many people wanted it to end differently. For example answer number 5 said that the brother could've faded away whilst Harry's character Derek smiled as he came to terms with his brother's death. In my opinion, the ending could've finished with a shot like that but that wasn't our purpose. When we were producing the film, Harry came up with the idea that once he looked up he finds that he disappeared so suddenly. This then suggests that he was never physically there and that he had been following a fragment of his memory instead. However, if Eric were to fade away and Harry smiles it would've made sense and it would have had a positive ending but we wanted to leave the audience confused and we wanted them to question what actually happened. Answer number 3 supports this.
In relation to the Narrative theory, Roland Barthes' enigma code links in with this. From the beginning we wanted the audience to question what was happening and ask questions like why does he look pale/ out of character/ a little bit dazed. This was shown throughout the bathroom and dialogue scene when he didn't know what was going on. He wasn't ready to be part of the society again because he's still in mourning. We added these scenes so that it made the audience want to keep watching and to understand why he's following a ghost and be part of that journey as to where he ends up. If we didn't add these enigma codes the audience would've felt like the plot's not progressing and that it's a little boring to watch. We also included symbolic codes to let the audience instantly think that this is what it represents e.g. flowers and in memory of poster suggests that there was an accident. To sum it up, these responses vary depending on how well the audience caught on and I have also learned that these opinions could have only been generated through influence (e.g. things that they have seen before) and personal experience.
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