When I showed the edits of my second scene to my friends who don’t study media, they had a much bigger reaction than I expected.

For ‘Nothing’, they thought it had something to do with school-work. Lisha is worrying about something, she is a bit annoyed hence the nagging. On the other hand, Kai is laid-back and optimistic about it. The mood is not severe. When they watched ‘Off’, they had a really big reaction to it. They thought it was so dramatic – someone is going to die soon, and the only way to save that person is to finish the research. In comparison, for ‘Sad’ they felt like it was slower and there was not as much drama. Here, they thought the story was either about separation or loss – the characters are in danger of losing something that is meaningful to them. They didn’t make any comments about the technical side of things, so I’m guessing they didn’t notice the jarring sound editing I did in Off. I’m really surprised they interpreted Off and Sad so differently, I was expecting to hear comments about how they’re similar or how only the mood changes, but the story doesn’t.

My media peers also liked Off better – but they were divided on the sound. While some say it’s better to have continuous ambience like in Sad, others think it’s acceptable to edit the sound in that way. A lot of them commented on how the tempo of Sad is a bit too slow and drags out for too long. William thought the establishing shot I used towards the end of Sad focusses too much on the pillar – it takes up too much space in the frame. In terms of the editing, they thought that Off was more stylistic whereas ‘Sad’ was more ‘hollywood’ style – A B A B A B. Kai said the isolated dialogue cutting of the sound is ‘acceptable for weirdos’ – if it’s my style then it is acceptable, but if it’s unintentional, then it should be fixed.