Portfolio Week 2 Post #4 Finalizing Plot and Genre

     For the last post of this week, I wanted to finish up the goals I set in my schedule by finalizing the genre and plot for the film's opening considering I have already amassed a lot of research. I talked with my group on a group chat we set up on messages about the genre and plot that would fit best based on the research into genre and openings we have done. Through this discussion, we were able to decide on what we will be doing, and hopefully, with the direction, we have found we will be able to transition well into the later stages of the project. 

Genre

    For our genre, we have decided to stick to horror since we have the most research on it and we are highly interested in the topic. We have also done a lot of research on it since we did a horror film pitch earlier this year although that is not documented here. The openings from this genre we will likely be pulling from are Jaws (1975) and Scream (1996) with their amazing use of silence, shot types, music, etc. We also decided we will be incorporating some supernatural elements which will be showcased through the antagonist in the opening that will aid in building mystery and leave lingering questions after the opening making the audience interested in what's to come. We also want to pull from elements of fear and mystery developed in the opening like The Batman (2022). Even though this opening is not horror the elements from the opening provide an unnerving sensation that we would love to replicate in our shot choices and lighting for our opening. 

Plot

    The plot my group and I decided on centers around an opening kill to elicit fear from the audience and to build suspense as a monster is on the loose. The opening will take place fully in a house of one of us during the night. The night will be used because it fits the horror vibe of fear. The opening will begin with an establishing shot of the house to show that the events are happening in a regular town and then it will cut to a teenage boy sitting on his couch talking to one of his friends don't he phone home alone about a supernatural doppelganger monster on the loose killing people. While those shots are happening the credits will be playing. The teenager will dismiss these claims and behind him akin to the reveal of riddled the audience will be able to see something behind the teenager causing a cause for concern for the audience as they sit on the edge of their seats wondering what will happen. Silence will be the only thing heard building the suspense. As the teenager gets ready to go he will notice the thing in his house the score will start to play and will start to run away. He will run to his closet and a shot will be done of his pov looking out of his closet with only his breath to make the audience experience the fear he is experiencing. We will then cut to the mysterious thing going up the stairs but he will be covered in shadow and be in all black to keep the mystery of him. As he approaches the shot will return to the pov of the teenager in the closet hiding as the thing checks the room he is in. As he is found a scream will be heard, he will fall to the floor and a pov shot from his perspective upwards will be taken as he is killed to avoid having to use effects/buy props but the message that he was killed is still established. Once the kill is finished the thing will take off his mask and it will become apparent that he is a doppelganger of some sort but he is distorted with weird eyes. This will make the audience wonder about the nature of the doppelganger, how it will be stopped, and what it wants. The scene will end with a low angle from the dead teen's perspective as the doppelganger walks out of the room with the title card appearing.

Example of the reveal shot we want to try and replicate

This is similar to the kind of shot we want to do in this closet but instead, the camera will be looking out the blinders into the outside.

For our ending, we want to do something like this with the killer walking away but we want to have their whole body in the frame, and the subjects' legs will be shown not their arms.

Conclusion

    By figuring out the plot for our opening now we are able to comfortably enter week 3 where will be getting into the specifics of what we want to do with storyboarding and script writing being some of the major parts of that week. My group and I will likely be producing the storyboard in class on Tuesday and the script in the subsequent class. I will also be looking for music for the opening to use and I may do some further research to try and elevate the project as a whole. I have successfully completed all I wanted to do for this week and that is a great step for this project. Next week I will continue to provide updates and complete my goals, until then stay tuned!

Portfolio Week 2 Post #3 Film Opening Research

     For the next task of week 2, I plan to review film openings in both the crime and horror genres to see what techniques they employ to set up the story they are going to tell. This will help me when developing the exact events of my film's opening because I can pull techniques I like from the examples into my own opening to make a great result. In this post, I will be going over various film openings I have watched in these genres and I will be noting things I like in them and will be likely thinking of incorporating into my opening. 

Crime Genre Sample Openings:

Opening from Knives Out (2019)

    There were a lot of things that I liked about this opening. To start off, the slow-mo used at the start of the opening with the dogs and the sober score kinda gives off the feeling like something is wrong paired with the visuals of the house it signifies what is to come. I may not use something like slow-mo but establish the setting with a score that shows something is wrong. The score then picks up in tempo as the scene progresses which adds to the tension of the scene showing many establishing shots of different random items that add to the mystery in the movie. The mise en scene paired with the score adds an element of suspense for the audience since they do not know what to expect. I will likely use a score that adds mystery for my opening but I plan to use a more unassuming mise en scene, unlike this opening to make the reveal more impactful. The use of many different camera angles while establishing the scene makes it feel like they are being watched and fleshes out that setting. I want to try and incorporate various usage of camera angles in my opening as well to add to the suspense rather than to flesh out the setting, however. Finally, the score climaxes with darker notes, and speeding up when the murder is revealed really adds to the weight of the scene and I would like to use my score in a way like this to really make the scene more fleshed out. 

Opening from The Batman (2022)

    When looking at this opening I was more focused on the part about the riddler's attack on the mayor portion rather than the batman introduction portion of the opening. I plan on making something more akin to a murder scene rather than an introductory scene. The scene starts off with very unassuming and light music which is then juxtaposed with the creepiness and intimacy of a pov shot of someone looking through binoculars into someone's house. I like this because it establishes a mystery about who is the person and makes the audience feel uneasy which is something I want to replicate in my opening. We then see him tilt to look at an opening at the top of the building which uses the show don't tell technique to imply what he will do. I like this and want to incorporate this in some way where I hint in the opening as to the goal of my monster/killer without ever seeing it. The next shot is a darker shot looking down from the opening at a man the darker colors imply something will be happening and the dim lighting in the house supports this, the music also ending further reinforces the idea that something is definitely wrong. I want to utilize music in a similar way to create a sense of uneasiness and lighting my opening in darker shades would help to reinforce the dark tone I want to create. The next and possibly most unnerving shot comes when the phone rings and we see a light shine on a mysterious figure watching the man which establishes the source of the danger and that danger persists as now the light reflecting from the TV is constantly shown in the mask of the figure. I want to make my reveal of the mystery in my opening something like this. I want to show my monster/killer in a similar or the same unnerving fashion. I though do also want to ensure that I still keep the element of mystery by giving it a mask or maybe adding a supernatural element. The shots from then on get tighter to make everything that is about to happen to feel more real to get us more intimate with the characters as a major event will go down. I will keep this technique in mind when planning out the shots for my opening. When the attack finally happens we hear a muffled scream and screeching music which adds to the creepy and scary nature of the scene. I want to utilize sounds like this to make the conflict more impactful for the audience. Finally, the last thing I want to note is how when the killing of the man is happening we do not see the man but instead, we see a pov of him getting attacked which is a great way to show the attack without having to make realistic blood and injury make up. 

Horror Genre Sample Openings:

Opening from Jaw (1975)

    This opening starts out without any sense of danger with a couple going swimming. It is first alerted that something will go wrong when the sound dissipates as the female goes into the water. The silence is almost eerie when contrasted with the dialogue they were speaking before. I plan to use silence in my opening as well to make scenes more suspenseful and scary. The shot taken from under the female with a deep sound sends a message that something may be down there and something is wrong. Shots taken from angles by unknown figures are something I will like to add to my film openings as well. The menacing and iconic score of jaws right before something goes wrong for the woman is also an amazing part of the opening. It alerts the audience of the horrible events to come. The shots also become closer as the woman is attacked which makes it feel so real to the audience that the screaming and struggle show the pain and suspense perfectly. I will make sure to incorporate this genius use of shots in my opening. Finally, the silence is once again used as the woman is dragged under the water seemingly dead, and has the same unnerving effect as before this time more obvious. 

Opening from Scream (1996)

    This opening starts off with a girl at home alone answering the phone to someone who has the "wrong number". It starts off very mundane with nothing seemingly wrong about it which is something I want to use in my opening as well. The scene then cranks up in intensity when the person calling says "I want to know who I'm looking at" over the phone with a sound cue occurring indicating that the harmless phone call is anything but and something is very wrong. I want to use this technique of giving hints that something is off in my movie without making it obvious in my opening. From then on a fear of the man on the phone is established in the audience, a fear of the unknown. I want to use the fear of the unknown for my opening as well. The music also gets more suspenseful and darker in tone as the conflict goes on but when she looks out the window when nothing is there it stops. This makes the audience feel somewhat calm since they do not see anything even though they were looking for it but they still are left hanging since they know it is still there. This subversion is something I want to use to play with the audience's emotions and make them stay on the edge of their seats. The shots are also made to be closer up in times of conflict or stress to emphasize it something I will definitely use. Finally, although many of the kills in this opening are shown on screen I will likely do mine more so offscreen to make it easier with the limited budget I have. 

Conclusion

    From the openings I have seen, I have gotten a pretty good idea of the elements of a film opening to create suspense and mystery. I will incorporate many of the things I have noted into my own opening hopefully and this post will be a great return point when my group and I are developing the actual shots and editing. For the next post I will be doing tomorrow I plan to finalize the genre and the plot so stay tuned for that. 

Portfolio Week 2 Post #2 Genre Research

    Going into week 2 one of my goals was to research the possible genres I mentioned in my initial post for this project in week one. Those genres being: crime and horror. Now since I have already done a deep dive into the horror genre on this blog in the past (link here) I want to take a good look into the crime genre and its conventions to get a better understanding of it and hopefully to learn some things that can be used for my project. This will also help me and my group decide what genre we want to use after we understand it more. 

What is Crime

    To begin to understand the crime genre a basic understanding of what it is exactly is essential. The crime genre basically boils down to a quest to solve or commit a crime. The story will begin with a crime and the rest of the plot serves to solve the crime mystery. 

Conventions of the Genre

    1. The Inciting Crime - This event fuels the whole plot as it serves as a starting point for the story of the initial incident that will need to be resolved by the end. This part can include dead bodies, missing persons, or hostages to set up the crime as long as whatever the audience is shown will be what is being worked to solve throughout the plot. A key element in this is safety, more specifically the destruction of safety. This scene will work to make the audience feel like the narrative world is unsafe and also make them wonder how that sense of safety will return.

    2. A Smart Protagonist and Antagonist - Both a smart protagonist and antagonist is necessary to make a crime story work. This is because part of the enjoyment audiences receive from these stories are the mental games both antagonist plays with the protagonist as he/she tries to solve the crime as well as the mental games the protagonist uses in order to get closer to solving the crime. A competent protagonist and antagonist makes the audience also feel like the crime is not an easy one to solve which adds to the dire nature of it.

    3. The Clues Need to be Laid Out - A part of the engagement in these stories is aspect that the audience can follow along with the mystery. As the detective picks up clues the audience uses the clues to formulate their own solution to the crime. This keeps their interest throughout the film and leads to them enjoying it and staying invested with all of the twists throughout the process of solving the mystery.

    4. Sense of Urgency - In these types of stories typically there will be a time limit to solving the crime due to some otherwards circumstance. This will sort of rush the investigation and make it seem like the detective needs to solve it quickly adding to the suspense as the investigation needs to be fast to meet the deadline while providing the correct results. This builds into the tension and roadblocks in the investigation really have an impact when a time limit is present.

Examples

Some notable examples of movies that exemplify the crime genre are:

The Batman 2022

Knives Out 2019

Se7en 1995

Overall Thoughts

    So from the research I have done on the crime genre I have learned a lot about it and its conventions. For a film opening a lot of the conventions will not be the most helpful but the convention of the inciting kill and the loss of safety will be something I will keep in mind and pitch to my groupmates to incorporate into our opening. I will also take a look at the film opening from these movies as a refresher on how they create mystery in something like this as well as horror movie openings. I will likely provide information of my finding and thoughts on my next blog. Until then stay tuned!

Sources used:

Crime genre conventions. Savannah Gilbo. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://www.savannahgilbo.com/blog/crime-conventions

Timgrahl. (2023, January 4). Crime genre: Justice and injustice stories of mystery and Intrigue. Story Grid. Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://storygrid.com/crime-genre/

Portfolio Week 2 Post #1 Creating a Schedule

    Going into week 2 of this project I decided to create a schedule to hold myself and hopefully my group to as we progress working on this project. This was something I learned from our music marketing project earlier in the year to do in order to be less overwhelmed by a big task at hand and in order to make sure everything for a project or assignment gets done in a timely and orderly manner so we are not scrambling last minute. My teacher had already posted a schedule to go by for the project to help aid us so I used that as a basis and refined it to what I thought would be best for me and my group to hold ourselves to every week. 

Screenshot of the schedule I developed for the project

    I have also sent this schedule to my groupmates for them to review so some tweaks may be made based on their feedback but I am confident that this schedule will allow us to be successful at least time-wise for this project. I also have faith in my group that we will make something worth your time to watch. 

    With that done I plan to research the crime genre tomorrow and its conventions similarly to how I did earlier in this blog with the horror genre. So I will write back here on 2/15. Until then stay tuned. 

Portfolio Week 1 post #1

    Today is a momentous day in my AICE Media Studies journey. I am finally starting our Portfolio project for the AICE exam and with that, I will be transitioning my blog to be solely focused on documenting the progress of said project and my contributions. 

    For week one my group and I decided to think about the genre and the way we will be using our film opening to develop our story. From class, we learned of the various ways to utilize film openings and how centralizing an opening around a central theme like establishing a theme or setting can really help produce a good and meaningful opening for a potential story. Considering that, for this project, I was really drawn to the creating a mystery method of film openings. The way that a mystery can make an audience hooked on a product while still not fully understanding what is exactly going on was very interesting to me and I want to recreate that in my project with my group. For the genre what I was thinking was using the horror genre or maybe the crime genre. I feel like those 2 genres are tied hand-in-hand with mystery constantly revolving around questions like what happened?, how did it happen?, why is it happening?, and how do I solve/stop it? and making the audience question these things themselves as well. So I feel like whatever I end up doing will be in these 2 genres. I have already researched the horror genre in a previous blog posting link here but I have done little research on the crime genre and will have to do so later on. I also will go on to research other film openings in the horror and crime genre that utilize mystery to set themselves up. For the plots, if I end up doing a horror movie I will likely do something like someone being killed or someone already dead and If I end up doing horror I will likely do something like someone is being killed by a monster or entity or is scared by a monster. 

    All and all, I have my work cut out for me and many ideas swirling in my head for this project. I will work on sorting them out and will report back here in week 2 so stay tuned. 

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

    The Music Marketing Project has come to an end. From my experience, I have learned a lot more about the research, planning, production, post-production, and presenting process which will be greatly helpful while doing my Cambridge Portfolio Project. 

Research:
    From this project, I learned the importance of researching the topic that will be discussed and how in doing so the later steps will become much easier. For this project, my group and I were assigned the song She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5, which I had never heard of before, as well as the genre Pop, which I had not listened to in about 3-5 years. Due to my lack of knowledge of the subject matter I had to do some research on the topic. So I decided along with my group to look into the current most trending Pop artists like Harry Styles and Taylor Swift to see what they are doing right and how to incorporate those strategies into my own brand to make it successful. We organized all this information on a chart about their marketing and distribution which we later used to develop our own brand's marketing and distribution plan. Suffice it to say the research helped to make the later parts of the project go easier and I will make sure to do research for later projects. 

One of the research charts we did involving Harry Styles and his practices along with other artists part of Universal Music Group.

Planning:
    From this project, I learned the importance of laying out a proper plan before starting to work on any other steps of the production. One part of the planning that I will incorporate in future projects is a schedule for the steps of the assignment so the work seems more manageable with all the requirements laid out with assigned dates in which to complete them so the work seems less daunting and can steadily be done to achieve a great final product. We did this in our project by laying the dates out in a Google Doc with loose dates for the parts to be completed. I will say I would also like to do this when I do my Portfolio Project but keep stricter dates for myself and my potential group so that the process goes extremely smoothly and I am more motivated to get the work done because during the project due to the loose dates, I let myself get lazy and fall behind.

Rough schedule developed during the planning for our project.

    Another amazingly useful aspect of the planning I did for this project that I want to carry over is storyboarding. Storyboarding aids in helping to see a visual representation of the story that will be created and allows for the later production stages to be more smooth as all the shots, angles, etc are laid out. We did this for our project quite early on and it helped to make sure our video shooting process was done with minimal hiccups. Finally, the last part of the planning process that I learned is important is developing an idea of what exactly you want to do and what you want to show in your production early on. I learned this not through doing it early on but by suffering from not doing it early. We did not discuss the brand until close to the end of the project so our ideas were muddled and we had to then base the brand off the music video which worked out fine but if we had thought about this earlier it would have gone much smoother. So from the Music Marketing Project, my main takeaway is that planning is probably the most essential part of the production to ensure a steady and easy flow for the rest of the process and that I would focus on the aspects of planning said above the make sure that my planning for later projects goes smoothly. 

Page of the Storyboard illustrating our plan for the music video.

Production:
    The production process for this project mainly consisted of 2 aspects: the music video and the presentation. The music video production went smoothly for the most part. The weather on the day of was beautiful and fit the aesthetic we were going for with the video and everyone who was meant to show up showed up allowing everything to be filmed. The only mishap was that for the filming the date got pushed back for no apparent reason leading to the post-production being delayed which hurt the schedule and made us rush more, also for the filming the date feel upon an unfavorable date for me with Miami marathon volunteering not allowing me to show up and monitor the process which I would have liked to do, finally, we did not end up getting enough footage to fill up the whole song time like we had planned which did not hurt the video too much but made us veer off the plan which is never good. So going forward I will make sure to plan around when I can be present for the filming of any project so that I can direct the process and better control of the situation to prevent any mishaps to happen like not getting enough footage. 

Music Video Frame showing the proper lighting due to good conditions.

    For the presentation, as stated earlier, we had to do it quite last second and had to be quite generic with a lot of the aspects focusing on typical tropes of pop like love (a heart being our symbol) but since our song was surrounding that topic anyway it worked out. I want to make sure I have time to develop my idea for the ascetic and brand of any project going forward to make sure it is not generic going forward. We also experienced some electronic problems like the slides glitching out and not syncing properly especially with the music video so which caused many errors. Going forward I plan to never put a video onto PowerPoint itself and instead use other platforms made for video to stop further issues related to technology. Otherwise of this, our PowerPoint production went well. We had great images aiding in illustrating the information on the slide, we had all the requirements on the rubric like examples, and we presented a decent view of what the brand we are like that may entice buyers. What I took out of the production process of this project is that mishaps will happen while working I just need to allow myself time to fix these errors and work out the kinks to make sure that they do not persist in the final product. 

Brand Logo showing emphasis on classic pop trope of love.

Slide with examples, show don't tell, kept engagement of the audience. 

Post-Production: 

    From the Post-Production process of the project, I learned to communicate with my group, bouncing ideas on how to represent ideas and how to present, and how meticulous review is essential in creating a great final product. For this project, the post-production process was mostly editing and also involved some practicing of the slides for presentation. The presenting practice portion of the post-production was fairly simple and easy it just involved allocating slides and rehearing them to ourselves at home before the day which was fairly simple. The editing, however, was not so simple. As stated earlier I was not there on the day of presenting due to a delay in the initial date which also stopped me from getting the SD card to edit the video with so my groupmate said he would edit it. But he had little experience so we frequently got on calls to discuss how to edit the video and what would work best. We went through about 4 different versions before going with the version in our presentation. The initial version was just the shots together, the 2nd version was with a rough greyscale over most of the video that would fade as happiness is achieved, the 3rd version was a greyscale starting partway through, the 4th version was nearly it with a greyscale representing the male's depression of seeing her with someone else thinking how he could treat her better, and finally, the last version was like the 4th version bit with an effect to present and remove the greyscale. This process of aiding in the editing and sending files to one another helped me to understand why communication is so important in post-production and how meticulous review of the product is essential in making something that you can be proud of. These 2 skills are ones I will be taking when I move on to my Portfolio Project. 

Screenshot of the editing panel used with the different versions and final version on the timeline. 

Presentation:

    For the presentation itself, it went very smoothly it looked like my group and I had reviewed our slides enough to seem like we knew what we were talking about up in front of the class. we were able to go through with minimal kinks except for the music video not starting which is not the biggest issue since we got it to work. I can fix this by making the interface easier by using a link instead or manning the presentation myself. We did not exceed the time limit and we got everything that we wanted to say out in the time we were up there so overall, I found this part to be solid despite me being a bit nervous in front of the class which I definitely need to improve on. 

Overall Reflection:

    Over the course of this project, I learned many great tools for my later projects including my Portfolio project in all steps of the process: research, planning, production, post-production, and presentation. For Research the most important takeaway was that I should always look into whatever I am doing beforehand so my process, later on, will go smoother as I will be more knowledgeable. For Planning the biggest takeaway was to have a story layout and a schedule to stick to in order to stay on track and make later parts of the production easier. For Production I learned to give myself a longer window to ensure whatever is done during this portion is perfect or as close to that as possible since I cannot get this time back. For Post-Production I learned that communication and review are essential in producing a great final product in the end. Finally, for the Presentation, I learned that I should get better at speaking in front of a crowd to allow my ideas to flow out easier. All the things I learned from his project listed above will be essential for my Portfolio project where all these skills should come in handy eventually and lead to my success. 

Music Marketing Blog Post #1

For the past week in AICE Media Studies, I have been learning about branding and marketing through a music marketing project. For this assignment, 3 classmates: Oliva, Hayden, and Miguel as well as myself have been assigned a random genre and a single produced by an existing band that will be released by the new artist or band we create. Our group's genre is pop with the song She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5. After being assigned the song and genre we then decided to create a schedule of rough due dates for each part to be done for our project in order to complete it before the deadline. Right off the bat when we began working I was faced with a problem. For someone like me who does not listen to pop at all, I do not have much knowledge of this genre of music, its conventions, and its marketing techniques. To solve this issue my groupmates and I started by doing research into pop companies and their artists to see how they have been marketing and distributing their music to the public to make them successful in pop. 

Image of the schedule of due dates for the project

Image of research for Sony Music Entertainment

After we completed the research into the artists that excel in the genre we decided to begin brainstorming the music video itself. We started by listening to the song and pulling up the lyrics to analyze the song for its meaning to construct a video that would fit the song and what it represents. After figuring that out my group and I decided to create a storytelling music video since the song presents an overarching story of a girl who does not realize the love that she can and should receive for the majority of the duration but eventually realizes the love she had all along. With this story in mind, we then constructed a storyboard to compose the shots beforehand and outline the events of our story to make sure when we filmed we knew what we were doing and we could get all the shots we needed before editing. 

Image of the first storyboard page

Today we also did the filming for the music video.  Although I was not present for it due to volunteering my groupmates were able to get it done with plenty of shots and enough footage for the video which was great. My groupmate Hayden is currently editing the video since he has the footage on his camera and will send it to me for final revisions on the edits before finalizing the video. After that is done we plan to start working on finishing the PowerPoint and practicing presenting it for class. For the Powerpoint we still have to do most of the slides and do research to complete said slides. We also hope to use the music video to represent our brand and with that representation of our brand, we also hope to expand on parts of the PowerPoint and finalize aspects of our PowerPoint like the ascetic.  We also have yet to practice presenting the PowerPoint that we haven't finished but once we finish the PowerPoint we will make long-form explanations of our slides in docs for our minimalistic slides to explain every aspect of the brand. We still have a lot to do for the project but since we know exactly what to do it should be a smooth process and we should make a shelter marketing campaign for our band.