Peer Reviews

What I liked	What confused me	Suggestions
I loved the sound effects and background music. It set the perfect mysterious mood for the movie opening. Josh’s acting was also really great in the sense that he was a very affirming interrogator.	The dialogue left me confused at times because I couldn’t really hear what was being said. The kidnapping was confusing because it happened all of a sudden and I definitely made this mistake of my own.	Maybe record a voiceover to replace the dialogue happening in the opening and lip sync what is being said. Introduce the kidnapper more in a sense that leads to the kidnapping in an understandable way.
I really liked the music that was used in the background, it helped with the sense of mystery and developed the plot.	I was a little confused at the end why the hoodie was just left on the table where the last person was interviewed.	I think maybe at the end instead of the hoodie just being on the table the last person who was interviewed should get up and say "may I get my things" and the detective says "of course, you're free to go" and the interviewee gets up and gets the hoodie off of a hook or something and leaves, then the film cuts.
I really liked the lighting you chose, between the darkness of the night and the shadows created while Josh is interrogating people, it was very well executed.	I think the purpose of the opener is to cause confusion and raise questions, so in that aspect it was good.	The volume of the interrogations is a little muffled and quiet. Also, some frames are full screen and others are smaller, revealing black frames around the clips.
I really liked the music at the beginning. The interview scenes were also very well done.	I was a little confused when the person in the hoodie was kidnapping Miguel because during the scene right before that, Miguel and the hoodie person seemed to be friends.	I suggest that the volume of the music should be turned down slightly during the interview scenes. I struggled to understand what the people were saying at times. Other than that, I loved this film opening!
I really liked the noises added in. I also think the acting is pretty good and the whole film in general was just well done. The editing was good and I liked the plot too.	I couldn't clearly hear what they were saying because of the music and a little bit of mumbling so I didn't fully know what was happening. I also don't understand the beginning of the film where a character was on the computer.	I just think the audio needs to be fixed a bit. Just turning down the music while the characters speak would probably make it better.
The atmosphere was carried forth extremely well by the lighting, camera work, and mise-en-scene. The title, especially the way it was presented at the end after the scenes, raised questions for me: what is so important about this ordinary article of clothing that there would be a federal case about it? The director revealed exactly what was needed for viewers to understand the plot, while keeping the answer to this question hidden.	Besides the aforementioned question, I am confused about what the criminals' motives are for kidnapping someone. Other than that, nothing really confused me; the director provided everything else I needed to know.	I would suggest that the editor(s) attempt to filter out the slight static noise that is in the background of certain scenes, so that it will be easier to hear the dialogue of the characters. I would also choose a different location for filming, as it was fairly obvious that it was shot in a school, which conflicts with the adult nature of the plot.
I really liked the escalation between Miguel being watched to being taken. I think being in the perspective as the person in the hoodie is really interesting because it gives us this sense of wrong-doing yet we want to see the person survive. I also liked the music choice and the intensity of the interrogations.	I think the interrogation scenes were unhelpful to the plot and were confusing to the story. I also think that the pace between Miguel being friend with the person in the hoodie to then being kidnapped also was confusing, it was very fast and did not give a lot of understanding to what was happening.	I think that maybe having a bit more information or clarity to the plot would help viewers understand it more. I also think the interrogation scenes need to have much brighter lighting. It's really important that you get the gloomy atmosphere, but if you can't see the actors then it defeats the purpose. I also think the acting was a bit stiff, it seemed unnatural and I think would make a big difference in the opening.
The acting and editing were really well executed.	What really happened in the beginning, it was unclear to me as to what happened until the detective announced it as a kidnapping.	Nothing really, I thought It was a really well done first draft, maybe minor tweaks to the shots of the crime itself.

Overall, these comments were really constructive and positive. Most of the reviews about what they liked mentioned the low lighting, the acting, investigation scenes, and the escalation/suspense in the scenes. The music choice was another thing that they mentioned was well done in our movie opener. We had trouble picking the right music for this opening because we didn't want to pick sounds/music that we could potentially get flagged for. The lighting was tricky for us during the investigation scenes since they were done during the day. Luckily, the low lighting in Mrs. Henderson's room worked well with the investigation scenery. Some reviews mentioned that the investigation scenes were well done and the atmosphere was well executed. I think Josh made a big impact in our opening during the investigation scenes because he had the perfect tone and attitude for the role and he did a wonderful job executing it. 

Some peer reviewers mentioned that they were confused in the beginning as to what's happening and why the kidnapping was sudden. We worked with the clips that we all agreed on but we didn't finalize how to arrange them to make the story less confusing so we just agreed on arranging them in that order. Also, the comments mentioned that the sound was too loud so that blocked the actors' voices. In our original edit, Miguel lowered the sound but it got messed up when it uploaded to YouTube, but we'll definitely try to fix that. One comment mentioned that the investigation scenes were unhelpful to the story and the plot. Our genre was mystery so we did the investigation scenes to portray that the kidnapping was a mystery and that the audience will have to find out who committed the crime. I'm not sure what else would we substitute to best portray that sense of mystery. Lastly, the reviews mentioned that the kidnapping was confusing and sudden and that there was no motive shown in the opener. This is something we discussed on improving because I think that the order of the clips may have confused some people. We didn't really want to establish the motive in the opener because it felt like we would give too much background of the movie. We wanted it to follow our genre and be a mystery for the audience once they begin watching the film. 

The suggestions mentioned that we should work on improving the audio and volume since they shadowed the voice of the actors. This is something that we're working on at the moment by finding sounds that aren't too loud and that correspond to the film. Another review mentioned that we should change the location of filming to add more of an adult nature to the plot. I don't think we are going to or can redo the scenes in a different location. I don't think it matters that the investigation scenes were shot at school because this opener will mainly be seen by teens and not as many adults. To add more clarity to the story, we will rearrange the clips so not much can be confusing to the audience, but I think some things will still be confusing. We are working with a mystery genre, which requires confusion and suspense for the audience. One comment mentioned that we should have the final actor get the hoodie off of a hook after the investigation. I thought this comment was very helpful because this was something we are discussing on doing, but with the virus spreading and us social distancing, I don't think it will be a possibility. We can try to zoom in a bit more on the hoodie to add emphasis and lower the lighting in the investigation scenes to add more suspense.