The rough cut screening of my film went better than I had anticipated. The general consesus was that the motif of the flower was very prevalent and clear in my film compared to the other two Lamentation projects. People also praised the performance of my lead actor which I couldn’t be more happy with as the audition process behind finding actors was a long and gruelling one.
The thing that people pointed out or had a problem with was how quick the drama gets resolved, saying that it plateaus to quickly. As I mentioned in my earlier post about how the objective eye of the director can get clouded if the director themselves are also the editor, this was something that I did notice. However I soon realised it wasn’t a problem in the edit itself, but more in the script as the way the film is edited is quite frankly, strictly to the script in that how every scene transitions into the next is scripted and purposely constructed. This left me little breathing room to play around with the structure of the edit.
People made suggestions in to how I can counter this offering different alternative ways I can cut the scene. I ended up not going through with many of their suggestions as I felt that if I listened to them and changed my film accordingly, then it would not end up being my vision. If my film is going to fail or be successful, then I as a director want it to be on my own terms in accordance with my directorial vision. I do understand that in the real world that test screenings for films encourage filmmakers to change their edit of the film, but I think there is a fine line to making adjustments to your film and completely altering your film.
My Film Portfolio 