Film Review: Long Days Ahead

 Peer One:

    Good day! Welcome back to my group's journey with this project. The general project has been clipped together so far, complete with transitions and some eerie music! My personal peer review for our product so far was conducted with a couple peers from my study hall, and I asked them to be critical, as I didn't want my peers being lenient because they know me. To start off, she thought that the beginning scene felt unnecessarily long as an introduction. She understood that the beginning scene provided background information about the character, like establishing that he does have a mother, but it didn't provide to the story like the rest of the scenes may. Other than edits we could make, she critiqued the clips as themselves as well. As for the cross-cut action between Ronnie and the mother, she said she found the camera switches awkward, and the line delivery itself to feel awkward, though it was implementing varied visual perspectives. Her suggestion on what we could have changed when filming itself, was to keep the camera focused on the main character while his mother continues to speak in the background. The camera could have focused on the main actor’s face to highlight his frustration and inclination to not pay as much attention to his frustration. I explained to her what we were trying to achieve with our shots when I mentioned cross-cut action. The examples I gave my classmate from Google showed we had the right general idea, and she got why we did what we did. It did not change her viewpoint at all, it's not like I expected it would anyways though!
     

     Next, I received a couple of suggestions regarding Ronnie's infamous trash can scene, in which he complains about eating an apple being gross and then discards it in a trash can. She advises, "The apple provided a lovely shot, but the idea of this apple having a strange taste, a “wrongness” to it, was something that could’ve been expanded upon to provide another layer to the main character’s dimensional travel. It was just there, wasn’t really used for anything, I think it could do with being cut. That sucks though, because that trash can shot was really nice." Her suggestion, editing-wise, is to try putting the apple-scene after Ronnie's conversation with his mom.

     Lastly, from this peer, a problem they had with my project was discontinuity near the end. She said, " While it was established that the closet is a portal, the consistencies of this form of travel aren’t solidly established. The lights flicker five times when the closet’s portal is first activated, yet flickers only three times when the closet is used a few moments later. I did enjoy the visual cues of the film that indicated dimensional travel, with the character’s name change being a fun addition." She expressed to me that some shots felt like they were drawn out too long, while others could have been possibly too short. She also added thatThe dramatic pauses implemented should be more finely placed in order to set a suspenseful pace fitting of a horror short film, rather than just dragging on in a continuous slowness as a form of suspense. Some of her views were more finetuned since she assumed it was horror rather than a thriller, which is why the long pauses might have been confusing to her. I appreciated her feedback and I will utilize it well.

Peer Two:

     I caught my second peer review on a whim with a person visiting my study hall that I've never seen before. He couldn't talk for long as he had to visit another teacher, but he made very similar suggestions for editing as the first classmate I spoke to. He added, "“If you cut out the whole first scene in the beginning where he’s biting on the apple and throwing the apple away, and just start it at the computer with his mother telling him to go see the uncle, I think a lot of time could be saved.. Because he’s sitting at the computer and goes to get his jacket anyways regardless if the apple was there or not, so the apple being bad doesn't directly relate to the story, you get what I mean?” After hearing we were 7 seconds over time, Eric laughed and wished me luck.

Conclusion:

     The consesnus is, people would like us to cut out our apple scene to save time. It's also suggested we fix some speeds and timing of some of our clips. This is going to be quite a process, but I see last base from here, and we're almost home baby!!