Documentary - Feedback

Yesterday we showed Helen our updated rough cut to get some feedback before our fine cut deadline on Wednesday. We had changed quite a lot in the edit from what we showed Zoe, making the edit less linear in the sense that we were no longer focusing on the trip, but focusing more on the interviews, finding the most suitable place for them to be and the storytelling aspect of the doc. 

We showed it to Helen and received more critical feedback and suggestions for changes that we thought we would since we were all very pleased with the edit and thought we were nearing a final cut. 

Things that Helen said need fixing:

• More atmos in the beginning. The sound is a bit off. She also felt that the images shown in the beginning don't work to the voice over that we’re having. 
• Cut out some of the pre-title sequences. She pointed out that we have at least 3 starting points in the beginning so we need to find out which one is the best one. 
• Slow down the part at Kamran’s house. Try to have him speak more laid-back. We won’t be able to redo the V.O since Kamran is on vacation, but we can see if we can cut some of the audio up to make a bit more spacing, creating some room to breathe. 
• At the Memorial: Go straight to the PTC in the beginning. Cut the establishing shots. With the VOX pops we should start with the couple, not the Asian guy.  
• Helen also didn’t like some of the commentary and suggested us to get a voice over artist for the commentary and have our presenter only talking at the PTC’s. We’ve talked about that as a group and we all disagree as we want to keep the commentary as it is and work around it to make it work instead of getting another person to do it. 
• Work on the way we are introducing Shahak. 
• There’s some lack in signposting in the documentary which makes it easy for the audience to get confused/lost. 
• Not having an as linear structure as we’re still having. 
• Make the interviews less sync heavy. Show cuts that underline what they’re talking about. 
• Have the Museum guy coming in earlier. We’ve talked about this but can’t find a spot where he fits better/ someone else that fits to be at the end. 

Today we went back to uni to get some feedback on our new edit and our title sequence. We spoke to Sam and showed him the edit. He pointed out some technical stuff, such as some of the clips didn’t have right frame size which we hadn’t noticed. He praised us for having a strong body of work but said that the biggest downside was the dibs in audio which we already knew about and will be working on tomorrow. 

He suggested having either the VOX Pops appear more than once in the documentary or the Survivors, change the font in the title sequence and add text showing who the presenter is talking to.