Response to Feedback.

Overall, I’d say that the feedback we received for this project was fair. There were positive points picked out, but there were also some areas that we were given constructive criticism for. What I thought was good about the feedback, was that it was mostly issues we had already identified ourselves, so it shows that we’ve gotten to a point where we can be objective about our own work.

One point that was raised was that some of the shot choices seemed a bit odd. There’s a shot in the film where two of the characters are having a conversation in the corridor and we’d decided that we were going to shoot it handheld. Now I’ve already spoken about some of the troubles we had on the actual production day for this shoot, so that isn’t something that I’m going to talk about again, but it definitely had an adverse effect on this scene as we just didn’t have enough time to get it done right. The criticism was that the shot was just a bit too shaky, which when I look at it now I can see and I appreciate the opinion. What was interesting here though was that one of the tutors completely disagreed and liked the way that that scene had been shot. It was interesting to see differing opinions between two people, both of whom’s opinion you respect, not agreeing on whether something was good or not. I did appreciate the feedback, but I think it showed me more than anything that you aren’t going to please everyone, and as long as you’ve got a reason for something being shot a certain you shouldn’t really have anything to worry about. Just make sure that you’ve really thought through what you’re doing.

We also received feedback about the script, and the structure of the story. The pointed out that there were some bits that didn’t quite make sense on the screen. One of the main points for this was the use of the original dialogue from Shakespeare’s script. We used in two different ways, for when the politicians were debating, as we wanted to convey this idea that everything politicians say is sort of made to sound really clever. And we also used it as an internal monologue for Romeo’s character when he’s falling in love with Julian. It was pointed out to us that using it in two different ways as well as mixing in contemporary language could become confusing to the viewer. At the time it wasn’t something that I’d really spotted, but as soon as it was pointed out to me it became very clear what they were talking about. I think in the future we just need to make sure that just because something is clear to us, doesn’t mean it’s going to be clear to the audience watching it. We knew what we were trying to do, but to someone who has no idea what they’re about to see I understand how it could be confusing.

I think the main point I took away from this was to plan, and then look back at what you’ve planned and make sure it makes sense. It’s quite easy to get carried away with an idea that you like without stopping to think about what anyone else will think, but it’s really important to do that.