Draft no. 1 feedback

After presenting our first draft in class, we recieved feedback on the positives and negatives (however constructive criticism). Here is the feedback we recieved:

· Font? Consider changing to a different iMovie font, or making your own in Photoshop
· Positioning of titles- consider alternating between top and bottom corners? Try it and see, as opening might benefit from titles being a little more dynamic. Which corner could be decided on image framing, and where the best 'spaces' for titles are.
· Are titles in right order? Convention? Check other openings on Art of the Title to be sure.
·  Running works in time with the music.
· Music atmospheric, complementing moving image - adding to mood of desperation, despair, and slightly dreamlike/out of time/ inner turmoil feel to film (that reflects your central character's state of mind)
· Comedy where not intended? - chase doesn't work so we laugh.... Needs variety of shots (facial close ups, side angle of running etc) to be effective and conventional. Close ups of the men's faces looking menacing? Also need more meaning here, to give us a clue to who these men are (they look a little like young undercover policemen or A level students dressed up?! They do not look as menacing as you intend unfortunately- consider reshooting with older actors, and with close ups, side angle shots, over the shoulder shots from the girl's perspective. If we can be made to believe in them as a serious threat, we will buy in to her need to escape, but if they don't feel threatening enough, we won't care enough or believe in the scenario. I think it is crucial you have another look at this part and plan a new shoot.
· Welcome to hell- Cut more to the beat of the music throughout the opening
· Sequence in warehouse needs more to grip us in terms of the story- flashbacks, voice overs that let us into her state of mind, and offer us clues (enigma codes) as to why she is frightened, running scared, losing her grip on reality.
· Are you sure you don't want two sound layers during the VoiceOver part? (For example, foley sound effects of heavy door closing, perhaps giving the impression that someone has entered the warehouse or her mind as she drifts into restless sleep- you could leave this ambiguous for the audience, with both meanings remaining possibilities. The warehouse section basically needs to draw us into her world further, but at the moment we learn very little about her there, and this is a problem in terms of audience attention.
· Camera work suits genre gritty realism
· Blurs when she's in the warehouse- gives a sense of her perspective- blury, confusing, unsettled, etc
· Cutting to the sound
· Pan around character at beginning, be careful not to cut her face
· Shot of her running when you are shooting her - variety of shots needed for that to have proper impact, audience to feel her fear, their menace.
· Darkness, no bright light, reflects her dark state of mind
· Font to reflect something about her- handwritten, text style font? Or design your own?
· Welcome to hell, works well to have long shot and then close up alongside titles
· Ellipsis could be used in warehouse sequence- to reflect her perspective, like she hasn't realised it's real yet, bad dream,etc.
· Montage of head shots of that person giving that message

We reffered back to our feedback whilst editing our second draft. However we were not able to have a re-shoot, which we wanted to do as we were aware that a criticism we recieved was that maybe a variety of more shots especially in the chase would be effective. We are currently working on this and already preparing for draft no. 3.