Evaluation Question 3 - Audience Reactions

As well as conducting an interview, I was also lucky enough to get permission from a friend to record their reactions to our short as it was being played.




Coming into the viewing, Barney did not know what to expect. When I chatted with him afterwards was impressed with the visuals, but confused in a few parts of the narrative and misinterpreted a few things. Whilst our short film is a thriller, intended to keep the audience guessing, what became clear during the interview was that the transition from diegetic world to his thoughts was probably not as pronounced as it could have been. Apart from that, the viewer noticed no particular editing, which is possibly a sign that use of basic media camera and editing concepts such as the 180 degree rule are used adequately and without major flaws.

Of the elements of the short film I had creative control over, I had creative control over, specifically the title sequence and the music, no major individual issues were voiced. However the title sequence was rated in general as being satisfactory, but lacking in terms of visual interest, with the main title "After Thought" appearing like "an intro to a TV show".

The music, however, was deemed suitable and of good quality despite the repetition of motifs which I was worried about. Fortunately this viewer believed it to suit the style of the rest of the project well, and did not leave anything to be desired.

A few hints were needed to understand the importance of the reflective objects throughout the film, such as the lighter, mobile phone and piece of broken glass. Initially, Barney thought that the mobile phone did not possess any relevance and was simply product placement. To continue, he raises an eyebrow in the final show of broken glass, because he assumed that the protagonist was going to use it to stab his assailant.

In the above video, As you can see, he struggled to maintain his composure at some points of dialogue, this he explained to me as a result of the voice over leaving the impression of the main character being whiny and full of angst in a way that appeared almost comical. For that very reason, he did not like the addition of the voiceover, but recognized the narrative and plot of the short film would be harder to understand without.

I also showed Barney our previous project, an opening sequence titled "The Unbeliever" and asked for feedback in comparison, to see where our group has improved over the course. In this case, the less confusing narrative was greatly preferred over the circular, reality jumping structure our A2 project presents. The style of The Unbeliever was also deemed more suitable, the use of strong yellow grading in our A2 short film was brought into question as having a symbolic meaning, which I had to explain as being used to denote events taking place in the main character's mind.