Feedback - Miss Spencer

Second Cut Feedback
This is a much better version, although we are still in danger of this looking too much like a Trailer. You have made great strides to add interesting effects and sound effects.
However it is still missing a narrative, I would like you to think about how to tackle this, possibly adding a voice over to start to explain some element of narrative.
I would also like to see an animated logo and of course the titles.
I think it may look more sophisticated if you were to cross fade some of the images and add some interesting 'glitchy' transition.

Second Cut

In our second cut of our film, we added a translucent distorted video over our film to add a sense of mystery and to incorporate features from the film 'Se7en', starring Brad Pitt. We had to find out how to do this ourselves which made the editing time a lot slower than we would have liked. We tidied up some edits and cuts and we have still got to add titles and do some colour correction, as some shots are quite dark. We also are yet to do dialogue and add it to our film, we are considering a voice over from the main character explaining what happened to him, as we feel like this will add some narrative and story. I think that we should also cut the soundtrack down a little so it doesn't become reminiscent of a trailer, and also add some sound effects, such as a bird caw when we have the scissors going down. I think this would also help the cult links in the film become more prominent, which will add more of a horror theme and it'll really fit into the horror genre.

Our scene has been criticized by a few people saying that it has no narrative, but this is only our second cut and I think that the third cut will be much more refined and a lot better, with added narrative and definitely a sense of story. We are following the conventions of the 'Se7en' opening, so we think that it doesn't necessarily need too much in it. I think that the abstract nature of our film helps to add tension to the audience and the film overall, but I do also think that a voice over is needed for the narrative.

The First Cut

For our opening scene, we wanted to establish a supernatural element to introduce our film. We decided that we wanted to incorporate a cult-feel to our scenes, which follows the horror genre, this also helped to establish how the main character got his powers. We used a lot of imagery and abstract pieces of film in this opening, such as the chess pieces, we did this to symbolise good and evil and how the innocent can be broken and changed to evil.
I showed this to some of mine and Harvey's friendship group and a lot of them thought that it was quite bad and needed a lot of work doing to it, this motivated me to improve the editing, as I don't think that this first cut was up to the standard of editing that Harvey and I can actually do. I feel like we can really do well and make our film look quite professional.


Miss Spencer told us to improve on the following:

• Make the opening shot so it's not halfway through a zoom
• Tighten up on some edits
• Add titles with a suitable font
• Add a vignette
• Add a cinematic feel
• Add transitions
• Add sound effects

The Art of the Titles

Role Allocation

Director - Cathy Maddox
Writers - Cathy Maddox & Harvey Perry
Editor - Harvey Perry
Starring - Harvey Perry
Camera Man - Cathy Maddox

Casting

For our film opening, there is only one role, the demon who cursed the protagonist with his supernatural abilities. We thought that we should have this as a man, as men generally seem stronger and more capable than women, especially in the film industry, and so we had Harvey be the main role. I personally thought that by having Harvey instead of someone else play the role, it would save a lot of time getting another actor to get into character or understand what drives the character.

Recce