We presented our short film, Countdown, to a small audience of six students in our class. We then handed out a questionnaire to each of them to fill out so we could collect some feedback. We wanted to see how the audience felt about the narrative, what they liked about the film and what they didn't like. This allowed us to identify any areas or parts that may need improving.
Due to our audience feedback we decided to re-do our final scene. Some of the shots were rather blurry, the ending also we felt, was not strong enough in relation to the genre. The final scene before we got our audience feedback, was Kate (female character) walks through the park and receives a text off her boyfriend asking where she is. She walks through the park and finds him sitting on a bench. He then drags her off into the woods and she begins to get a little worried as to what he is doing. He then presents her with a nice watch and says 'Happy Anniversary'.
When we got both written and verbal feedback from the audience we got the impression that the ending was not strong enough in building up the tension. Before we started producing our film we were told that point of view shots would strengthen the theme of a stalker. We took this into consideration and used the techniques within our updated version of the last scene.
Kate walks through the entrance of the park whilst on the phone to Peter. She says, 'yeah I'm just walking home now just walking through the park, what are you doing? Oh you're just at home? Okay I'll see you soon.' She carries on walking but quickly turns around and observes her surroundings as she gets the impression she is not alone. We then see a point of view shot from Peters perspective watching Kate from a distance, from behind a tree. A point of view shot from Kate's perspective sees her looking around the trees. The scene then cuts back to Peters point of view. The camera then moves behind the tree when Kate walks in his direction and we did a close up shot of him hiding behind the tree. We did another point of view shot from Peters perspective of him watching her as she walks alone through the wooded area of the park. She again, looks around which is shot with a point of view shot. When she turns back around Peter is standing right in front of her which shocks her. She says, 'what are you doing here you said you were at home?' He then drags her off to the side which strengthens the idea that he is going to harm her in some way, because he has been watching her and is now acting rather forcefully. The pair then walk into a shot near a wooded area and Peter has his hands over Kate's eyes so she cannot see where he is leading her. 'Where are we going you're scaring me?' The shot then returns to a point of view shot from Kate's perspective. Peter removes his hands from over her eyes and reveals a lovely picnic with wine. There is also lighting and tinsel in the surrounding trees. The props used help enhance the romantic element within the final scene. Peter then walks into the shot and says, 'Happy Anniversary'.
We felt that re-shooting the scene and changing the storyline slightly was beneficial to the overall film. For example the use of point of view shots help to add tension as you can see what is going on through the characters perspective. We also felt that having a picnic and lighting rather than just a watch made the moment more significant. It reveals to the audience why Peter has been acting suspiciously throughout the rest of the film and why he was hiding things from her. He was not stalking her but in fact was planning a surprise for the anniversary of his and his girlfriends, and wanted to surprise her. This is the reason that he was acting suspiciously, so that she didn't find out what he was planning for her.
The audience feedback we received was extremely beneficial because it allowed us to make changes to our film before releasing the final product. The changes we made helped strengthen the theme and genre of our film and brought the ending together nicely. Audience feedback is extremely important because after all, it is the audience that the film is aimed at, therefore we value their opinion as we want them to enjoy the film.
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