Psst! Hey, I got you a early release rough cut of our film.
I think the footage we filmed in this is very good and more or less complete. I felt that the lighting in the rough cut was really effective. The majority of the scenes have good lighting, complimenting each shot very well. The outdoor lighting uses natural sunlight, we chose to film at a more gloomy cloudy day in order to achieve an low key mysterious lighting effect, we further amplified this with post editing by using a hard light effect. The indoor shots make use of a spotlight which was useful to manipulate in order to create mystery and to focus more on the victim. The indoor scene also does not back light, the reason we did this was to make the location seem more ominous and threatening.
We used a variety of camera angles like for example the wide opening shot that transitioned to the over the shoulder shot, the shots used also served a purpose, in the case of the two intro shots it was to create an isolated and mysterious feeling, this is because over the shoulder shots normally convey the idea of being followed. We used quite a few close up scenes of our brilliant actor who we taught was emotive enough to convey the worried and panic sense we wanted to set for the character.We did a lot of over the shoulder shots of Joanna and avoided showing too much of her face in order to keep her character more mysterious, we also had high angle shots of Joanna to make her seem more dominant and in control. Also, Joanna lowering herself to the level of the hostage intimidatingly saying say, "Time's ticking", was both a literally and metaphorical representation of Joanna lowering herself down which creates an comfortableness which added to her intimidation .
The audio in this rough cut is not the best, it's not terrible but it's mediocrity is more present due to the higher standards of the camera work and lights. For the non-diegetic sound in the rough cut we used a consistent of a eerie background track which we choose to make the viewer feel uncomfortable and emersed in this enigmatic themed opening.The diegetic sounds, the dialogue primarily, added to the tense atmosphere but due to bad audio recording does not work as well. We had one of our actors (The man in blue suit) speak in Russian as we felt this added suspense and riddle to the film.
Moving forward we will add bars to the top and bottom of the opening throughout it to make it appear more like a thriller like movie. This technique is often applied in blockbuster films and is often associated with professional suspense filled thrillers. The title card of the film will be changed to fit more with the film theme and narrative, it will also be shortened because they are too long and break up the pace of the opening.
We need feedback! In order to improve our opening, if you could take this this survey to give your thoughts on our opening, we would be very grateful. Thank you!
