Rough Cut Screening

Today we screened our rough cut of Greater Heights in FST 497. I thought overall the screening went well. We received some good feedback, suggestions, and critique. It definitely gave us some things to work on going forward.

First, it was unanimous that our vox pop is too lengthy. This is something that I have already feared for some time. Recently, my partner has worked on shortening it down from 2 min 30 sec to 30 sec. Doing this should reduce the overall run time; however, my fear is that it will make the opening all the more abrupt.

Next, people suggested that we install found footage of injuries and bloopers involving parkour. I agree with this point. Such footage would fit nicely in the section where Tori discusses how so much of YouTube parkour is all about style and tricks, but what many people don't know is that those athletes practiced the tricks hundreds of times before ever posting them on the internet. Thus, it is obvious how this could be dangerous for children. They could view the video and get a false sense of courage to go try the tricks without training. If we address this fact by showing clips of people trying and failing at parkour and pair them with Tori's dialogue, it may make his points have a greater impact.

Overall, people said that it flowed well between the topics and that it was coherent, which is a good thing considering that we created different sequences for each topic and then, after completion, arranged and organized them all together to find a story. However, Professor Silva noted that the film is missing a key element, a dramatic arc. He stated that, as it stands, the edit is a great promotional piece that could play at various gyms to encourage parents to sign their children up for parkour lessons. But for festival submission, it is missing an emotional connection, a dramatic struggle. These points I agree with, however, the recommendations for fixing it seem a little difficult to me. Everyone's recommendations involved shooting new footage. Some suggested we get footage of things outside of the gym. Others suggested we find new interviews and have them talk about things that contradict other statements in the film. I'm not sure how feasible these options are this late into the semester. That being said, I do recognize that the vast majority of the interviews focus only on the positives of parkour. And if ever they do relate a downside (such as when Anthony Gomez discusses his failure on American Ninja Warrior) it is only for a very short sentence or two. As a result, I am beginning to wonder: should we market this for festivals or should we aim to make this a promotional piece for gyms and parkour lessons?