FOCUS at the film Pool

After conducting an interview with Ed Cartledge of Sort Of Films he invited me to attend one of the FOCUS groups held once a month.


Me and the Producer decided to go a long to one last night where we talked about our film and also showed our last 5 minute one to the rest of the group as they were very keen to see it. They all had a lot to say about it - positive and constructive criticism which I found was a real boost that they were enthusiastic about it and therefore believing it had potential.

I thought it was really helpful to get outsider feedback from people who are professionals themselves and get another perspective on things outside of university.

From the feedback came a few suggestions, one person said that their interest was mainly on the animals so we need to focus on them rather than the people so much. They also asked would I be able to make the film entirely through imagery rather than interview and said that sometimes that can be more powerful, the audience getting every they need from what they see rather than someone telling you what's happening. Someone else disagreed with this point though and said they like to see contributor interviews as it tells you a lot about them - how they come across on camera, they're body language and what they say and that he finds this interesting.

I don't think I will cut out interviews altogether because I think it's good to get that information sometimes and also to hear the individuals thoughts and feelings as that is where the emotion can come from. Saying that though it has given me food for thought and when constructing the edit I will be telling the editors to only use interview if it's needed and if they think the image does the job on its own then don't put talking/interview in just for the sake of it. It was also mentioned that the refuge is visually a very interesting thing to film and I think that is important to remember because the animals are exotic meaning they are colourful and intriguing to look at and this needs to be taken full advantage of. The audience isn't going to be focused on the talking when you have got these interesting animals to look at.


We then started talking about technical things and cameras, I told them we were going to use a DSLR instead of an XF100 and we got a mixed response to this as one person thought an XF was a much better camera to use as it is a proper video camera but someone else thought the DSLR as it looks a lot better and shows more of the depth of field whereas the XF is more flat. They then suggested using both - the XF for interviews and then DLR for animals to bring out the colours. I told them we had thought of doing that previously but we then came to the conclusion it would be too much for us to take on since we are already having camera issues and that it could also visually look a bit weird and noticeable to the audience switching from one to the other.

We also got mixed reviews about one particular shot which was the gory one of the chick being cut up. One person said it was good because after seeing it he thought we were going somewhere interesting with this but someone else thought it could potentially put the audience off and that we didn't want to lose or alienate the audience and also put them off the refuge and not see it as a good thing because this image is a negative thing. This was interesting for me to hear as my thoughts had been that by using this shot we're going to get the audiences attention and show them that this isn't just a cute fluffy animal film and also show them the gritty reality of caring for these sorts of animals. I had actually not thought of the potential of losing an audience because I had be so set on trying to get their attention but I guess there are a lot of people out there that don't want to see something like that and also by showing that it makes it not very child friendly.