Pitch to our Secondary Audience

Once Alex and I had completed the moodboard which was a method for us to begin establishing some ideas down for our short film, we then went ahead to make a short pitch in front of our secondary audience explaining our ideas to them about what we would like to achieve in this short film which we are making for our Main Task. The slideshow above is the presentation we used to pitch our ideas to our secondary audience.

Successes and Flaws of Opening Sequence at AS:

• In the beginning of the pitch, we both felt it was necessary for us to explain to our audience what the successes and the flaws of our Opening Sequence at AS and discuss what aspects we would like to improve at A2 to make this short film the best it possibly can be. With the successes, we stated that first of all the narrative of our Opening Sequence was simple but very easy to follow. By not over complicating the narrative, we were able to tell the story of our Opening Sequence through the excellent use of camera work which we were complimented for hugely at AS and the excellent performance by our very talented actors. We wish to use these same actors again for our short film at A2 who will essentially form the story for us if they continue their acting performances to the same level as they did at AS; the same aspect goes for the camera work too. We both felt that the editing of our footage was also very clean and professional, despite the footage at some times being too dark for the audience to really see what was happening. The editing is another factor we wanted to improve even more for our short film as this was one of our strongest points during post production. The last aspect we were both very encouraged by after receiving outstanding audience feedback about this last year was the extensive use of camera work and camera angles. We both wanted each shot to be framed perfectly and to captivate the emotions of our actors through the variety of shots we experimented with. The biggest challenge we will face for this short film is to add even more variety of shots into our camera work given the fact that we are working on more then one location for this short film.

• Moving onto the flaws of our AS Opening Sequence, we felt that the titles of our film were very basic and didn't match with the genre of our short film. As my skills in video editing and graphics have improved significantly in comparison to AS, I want to push my skills even further to making more suitable graphics and title entries for the short film. These skills will also be shown when I begin to make my ancillary tasks too as part of my coursework for A2. We also believed that our preparation for filming was very sloppy and didn't reflect the way our Opening Sequence turned out. Alex and I were overall very lucky to how our work turned out despite the fact we made up the majority of our camera shots on the spot, instead of following a formalised storyboard. We both agreed that our organisation is something we wish to improve a lot more for this short film. The last flaw which we were heavily criticised for in our Opening Sequence was the quality of the sound. Even though we used the bet possible microphones to record our Opening Sequence, we faced some technical difficulties when it came to us editing the sound together since we could here small radio signals flickering in the background as the actors were speaking. After researching thoroughly on how to record sound effectively, I believe that I the quality of our sound recordings will be improved significantly if our organisation and planning for the short film is successful.

Our Pitch:

• Our Short Film for our Main Task is going to be once again based on the Action/Adventure genre since this is a genre which we are both captured by when we watch any Action/Adventure film we've seen. This genre was what we both chose to work with for our Opening Sequence at AS to so it was logical for us to decide to work and improve our knowledge and understanding about this genre at A2.
• We took some inspiration of conventions from both American and British films we had researched initially.
• The story is initially about a spy who is working for the CIA who has been held hostage by a ferocious gang who are member of the Syndicate International. The man in charge of the gang has hired a bounty hunter who tracked the spy down and has brought the hostage to unfamiliar location away from all civilisation with the help of two other members from the Syndicate. The spy is being held hostage as the main gang member is after a special tool from him which will unlock the secrets to the location of whatever this may be (have not yet decided what this thing will be). After talking to the spy, he makes a quick escape with his half and the gang members' half of the tool and makes a run for it. The scene progresses with several short fight sequences and a car chase in pursuit of the spy. 
• The story of our short film is arguably a similar story-line to our Opening Sequence, however the challenge to this is not to copy the exact story of our Opening Sequence to the point where the idea becomes unoriginal and loses the audiences interest in our short film. 
• This time we are thinking of our short film to completely different environments compared to at AS where we were mostly shooting in one location the whole time. The additional environments will add more interest to the story and push the boundaries of our skills in filming.
• We were praised heavily for our excellent use of props in our Opening Sequence, which is something we are planning to recreate once again for this short film. The use of props can carry many signs during any film and can have an impact on the overall story line of the film too, which is why Alex and I are going to plan extensively each individual prop we are going to use for our short film and make sure they all contain relevance to the story of our short film. 

Feedback from our Secondary Audience:

• Positives: The biggest positive comment our secondary audience told us was how much they liked the overall idea/story line for this short film. Compared to the story line of Opening Sequence at AS, they said that the idea is more original and very exciting at the same time. After the successes of our project at AS, our secondary audience have full confidence in us pulling off this piece if it is shot beautifully.
• They were also very excited to hear that we are introducing the same actors at AS into our short film and introducing new members to the cast as we will need even more actors this time for our short film. The actors we used at AS have a huge influence on how the new members will deliver their performance in this short film.

• Negatives: As with any big pitch, there was always going to be some negative but constructive feedback from our secondary audience which we were going to have to consider. An audience member first mentioned about the use of the cars we going to be using. When Alex and I mentioned to our audience that we will be including a car chase for this new escape scene, the person was concerned about the type of cars we were intending to use since the main gang member is supposed to be wearing a black suit and appear more superior then the rest of the gang members as well as the spy. Since using the right type of cars counts as a prop item and has a huge impact on how our characters are going to be portrayed in this short film, its important that we both research into the type of cars we have access to drive with. 
• Another audience member also concerned about the difficulty of pulling this piece off. During the rest of the student pitches, Alex and I noticed how simplistic the ideas of other people's music videos or short films are which increases their chances of making a more successful piece. We have both realised how challenging this idea of ours is and how difficult this is going to be for us both to pull this off in comparison to our work at AS, however we are both determined to give this idea a shot and take into consideration that a lot of factors could go wrong when we make this short film if our organisation is not on point.
• Another member also mentioned that the genre of Action/Adventure will not necessarily tailor to everybody's pleasures which is why they suggested to maybe include conventions of this genre which could attract wider audiences eg: attractive actors, flashy cars, beautiful camera work etc. 

After Alex and I had delivered our pitch to our secondary audience, we felt like we really needed to work on our initial story idea as well as wanting to do some more research into our audience more.