Rough cuts

Rough Cut 1: 

Audience Feedback:

Transcript:

What were your initial impressions of the rough cut?
I really liked the part where you can see the actors digging and the fact that you can see the soil on the skirt. It makes you guess the identity of the killer and victim, link the skirt to the character. The other part that i liked was the girl putting lipstick on and you can see the reflection in the mirror.
The shooting in the forest was atmospheric, you can image the smells. The first dialogue was unclear. The angles were clever, like the shot though the trees. The digging shot added to the mood. 

Are there any specific areas that need improvement?

The dialogue between the first main two actors was unnatural. No point adding more change dialogue since its unrealistic that kids would enunciate that much (verisimilitude)

Were there any elements of intertextuality you noticed?

Not really a slasher movie fan

Some of our intertextual references that you might not know are the main two character in the beginning are called Marion and Norman and the two character at the locker are called Laurie and Mandy. Is there any references that you could pick up on.

Norman Bates from Psycho

The title for our film is The Trees Have Eyes does that bing up any references for you. It's The Hills Have Eyes.
No, I haven't heard if the film

What could we include to appeal to your age group? Is anything appealing already?
The genre appears more to younger people.

Would either of you say that you are fans of horror? No

It might add depth to the storyline to have an older family member or a teacher who has connection to the story.

It's not the fact that introducing a new characters would add more depth but it would help the audience to identify with one of the characters.

What would you consider to be the target audience for the film?
The Primary audience would be teenage boys and the secondary would be teenage girls. 

Why? Because I assume boys would be more interested in the horror and slasher. 

And as teenagers what age range what would you say including certification? 

16 and higher.

What we learned from audience feedback:

Dialogue during street scene was unnatural, should be rerecorded 

Shouldn't change dialogue too much, maintain verisimilitude as that is how teenagers speak

The primary audience as teenage boys, as they are more interested in horror and violence, and girls as secondary

Teenage boys would be more interested in watching teenage girls in a film (male gaze)

Teenagers ranging from 12-18, with a certification of 16+ (BBFC 15)

Rough Cut 2: 

Changes made since Rough Cut 1: 

• Added a temporary soundtrack as a test
• Removed some cutaway shots of ground for time
• Removed all shots where actors were shaking 
• Synced footage and foley sound of pings
• Removed shot of cigarette breaking
• Stabilized footage
• Removed "slash my throat"
• Rearranged order for continuity
• Removed the zoom out from the book
• Changed MS to an ELS to show Mandy pushing Laurie 
• Changed second mirror pov shot to a side close up of lipgloss
• Removed final tracking shot 
• Added missing poster stepping 

Audience Feedback:

Transcript:

What were your impressions of sound?

The classical music was not appropriate for our target audience. Adding a heart beat would help add to the tension of the scene. The Scream was extended for too long. The audio was not very easy to understand, need re-recording. 

We should add more sound effects to the cross-cutting, and add long drawn out notes of string instruments for the slashing. More ambient sound in the forest. 

What are your impressions of the shots?

The opening shot should be an ELS according to the conventions. An alternative would be a Hand of God. The jump scare should be built up to. The first shot should have more narrative enigma. A break of the 180 degree rule. Tighten the frame when she is in the forest. 

What were your impressions of lighting?

The lighting in the scenes is not all the same. The digging scene is way too dark. At the end we should fade to black. We can't see the skirt in the burial. 

What we took away from the feedback:

• Change the instrument type
• Music not appropriate for younger target audience (15-24+)
• Element of intertextuality could be using, Halloween/Psycho music
• Only use "Killer Queen" at locker scene
• Extreme long shot for first shot, make it more menacing by having establishing shots, arial shots
• Cut to close up of cigarettes as vodka 
• Add more narrative enigma in shot 1 
• Longer jumpscare
• Make street to forest flow better
• Rearrange shots to speed up, between trees first, create ellipses 
• Shorter takes for running scene (speed it up)
• Remove awkward shots (maintain 180 degree rule)
• Tighten frame to show nerves 
• Cut to voyeurism shot (tree)
• Shorter forest clips
• Phone call too long 
• Add pov shot (Halloween)
• Include shots of slashing/blood
• Make cross cutting longer 
• Audio levels, start with the song quieter
• Speed it up by taking the shot out 
• Verisimilitude is being broke with the unnatural run
• Speed up the running
• Ambient sounds, add sounds of nature 
• Two jumps on the scale of shots, go down to medium shot instead of medium shot, 
• On the first Norman zoom in more
• Muffle the audio in the voyeuristic shot

Rough Cut 3: 

Changes made since Rough Cut 2: 

added idents

added first titles

added hand of god opening inspired by Cherry Falls (2000)

added a colour filter to the street scene

cut out shots in the forest scene for time

tightened or zoomed out shots to flow better

shortened clips when Marion was calling for Norman to follow Barthes' action codes

removed the phone dialling for time 

cross cut phone call

added a POV shot

added a temporary Psycho (1960) slashing sound effect

added the main title 

ended the locker scene with Mandy's foot stepping on a missing poster

Feedback from media students: 

• Second ident needs to be reshot. journey on my ident here
• The titles are too quick
• The opening sequence is too quick
• Opening sequence needs to be reshot as it is too dark and shaky
• The font for connecting words should be different (title convention)
• Spacing between titles needs to be the same
• Add an audio-bridge to the final ident
• Ident order should be switched in order to keep the sound

Rough Cut 4: 

Changes made since Rough Cut 3: 

• Switched the ident order and changed the font for Skyscraper Productions
• Added an audio-bridge to the final ident
• Made text for linking words smaller in the larger titles (title convention) in order for the company and director/producer names to stand out 
• Made title length longer
• Reshot the Cherry Falls (2000) hand of god, recreated shots more closely and in the daytime as previous shots were dark and shaky, previous shots were also too quick
• Recreated the Friday The 13th (1980) music on GarageBand
• Crosscut of director and producer titles with the opening of the street scene
• Re-edited the street scene
• Re-edited the burial scene to make it lighter and have longer cross-cuts
• Removed appearing effect on the main title
• Added piano recreation of "Killer Queen" for the locker scene
• Edited locker scene lighting for it to appear colder

Feedback from the media students:

- Change title wording (present not presents)

- Linking words should be in a different font 

- Titles are too stretched over the screen

- Don't show houses in shots (oppositional reading of preferred isolated and small town reading), 

- Tower should be centrally framed to immitate Cherry Falls

- Add a town sign to recreate Cherry Falls sequence, and to anchor preferred small town reading

- Locker scene lighting is too bright

- Running looks sped up and comedic (another oppositional reading)

- Norman is repeated too many times and sounds redundant

- Necklace dropping shot is shaky

- Zoom into Marion lying on the floor full of blood (background is too dark)

- Remove "the next day" from the locker scene

Rough Cut 5: 

Changes made since Rough Cut 4:

• Isolated bells for the audio-bridge
• Changed linking words for all titles to a sans-serif font to highlight names
• Made titles less stretched out 
• Changed wording (title convention), shows main producer and co-producers, as well as removing "distributed by" as it's not conventional wording for titles
• Added foley sound for opening shots
• Merged both mine and Sasha's names in order to have one director credit
• Added a fade to the titles so they don't appear as suddenly
• Isolated titles and credits 
• Added forest foley sound and snapping 
• Removed ELS of Marion screaming at the tree (comic effect creating an oppositional reading)
• Kept phone ringing and changed audio levels 
• Removed burial scene 
• Added slo-mo on final screaming shot
• Added water drips and static to the main title
• Removed second written and directed credit (was meant to be added in initial titles)
• Removed "the next day" from locker scene
• Edited locker scene lighting 

Feedback from the media students:

- Opening bells are too loud

- Make hand of god foley sound quieter

- Linking words are still too large

- Fade Friday The 13th music

- Start the titles from the opening 

- Remove cigarette shot (verisimilitude broken as she breaks it)

- Makeup and costume should be separately credited

- Titles should be smaller

- Make sure all titles are identical (size, font, tracking, spacing)

- Slow running more

- Remake foley sound of footsteps 

- Turn down noises of the birds, sounds like the middle of the day

- Add more sounds to main title

- Add movement to main title

- Play scream over main title

- Cross-cut "Norman" screaming with burial scene shots

- Add a fade to black at the end

Rough Cut 6: 

Changes made since Rough Cut 5:

• Laura (L48 Films) changed her ident
• New ident for New Heights Films
• Re-recorded the ambient sound: the church bells, school bell
• Non-diegtic and diegetic music added: Friday the 13th and singing
• Changes made to titles: made the linking words smaller and made all titles equally sized, added titles to the beginning, chaged the timing of the titles
• Added diegetic music of killer queen
• I re-recorded and re-edited the footage for the hand of God: added new water shots too
• Used Photoshop to create town sign for verisimilitude
• Changed the main title animation
• Laura Changed placement of titles to be more central and not get cut out on different devices (used tile safe zones on FCPX)
• Added second director credit at the end of opening titles 
• Foley sound of drinking (also serves as an audio-bridge) and footsteps
• Switched bird sounds to owls in the forest to denote nighttime 
• Remade snapping sound and added an echo 
• Added a voiceover for all characters
• Separated makeup and costume credits
• Made sure all speech volumes levels are the same 
• Made sure all foley sound volumes levels are the same 
• Laura Added cross-cuts of burial scene (using earthquake effect on FCPX, transformed to distort), the red lighting and static sound effect are used to clearly separate the two scenes, inspired by opening of Eden Lake (2008)
• Changed phone sound to the default Apple ringtone for verisimilitude
• Added phone ringing to main title, similar to Scream (1996)
• Added locker scene foley sound 
• Added a fade to black at the end