Group meeting

 Hi guys, yesterday in class we met in groups to get some feedback from our fellow classmates. This helped me so much! I got positive reinforcement of my project idea. So that was good and what was even better they helped structure the story even better. t. They also helped me with slight errors that I had made in the script outline that I should improve when I go to submit the final outline. I won't spoil too much but on Sunday you guys are in for a wonderful script.

I also helped some classmates with their own film opening such as giving them ideas and for the most part, they said they were going to use it. I think today has helped the project improve so much because I'm sort of getting feedback from the audience I want to focus on.

We also took notes on a TED talk called "The Clues to a great story" by a scriptwriter named Andrew Stanton from Disney. The talk centered around how he had pitched a different idea to tell stories and how in the beginning it wasn't going so well in fact he was told to do the opposite of what he was doing. In the picture below there are some key points that I got from his presentation as well

Script outline

 The Script

The film starts with a high school hallway with all the commotion in the world and everyone is trying to class. The protagonist Jake a 16-year-old who is wearing a faded shirt from his favorite team and a really old backpack. He tries to blend in with the crowd but gets found by the bullies because of these old pieces of clothing. This is going to provoke Jake to do something bad, but he'll probably refrain from it.

(The script is mostly completed but some words might get caught from the final cut)

The film starts by presenting the production company on an all-black screen. (5 seconds)

Bully named Brock: Hey, nice shirt Jake! Did you get it from the dumpster? (Laughs with his friends that are next to him)

Jake is going to try to avoid them just trying to have a normal day at school.

Then the second bully Dirt will say: "He always wears the same shirt what a loser" and the group will start dying of laughter again.

Jake is going to start walking faster with a look of embarrassment and a little mad when a close-up of his fist is all that on camera. 

This will be around 45 seconds to 1 minute 15 seconds of the film opening. 

Then the camera turns black but turns back on when it cuts to Jake playing soccer making his moves swiftly and elegantly. He looks like he isn't even bothered by the earlier bullying he encountered. When two kids from school see that it's him one says, "Hey isn't that, Jake?" and the other says "Yeah I had heard he was good, but I didn't know he was this good."

around 20 to 30 seconds

Then the screen cuts to the title of "Rise of a baller" Not a confirmed title but it's something along these lines. We think this is the perfect timing for this title because of the upcoming scene.

The scene is him going to sleep looking at the ball in the corner of the room. Then the screen goes black when a lot of messages start blowing up his phone and there will be a focus pull from the phone to his eyes opening. This final scene will be around 30 seconds.

This is what me and Matias have so far hope you guys are interested in it because we are. 

Story outline

 Welcome back guys, I hope you are well. Today in class we were shown a few samples of previous projects to demonstrate how good our project could turn out. This gave me motivation to be one of those people that the teacher shows to her students next year.

But that's beside the point. Today I'm writing to you guys to talk about the outline of the project. Thus far we've created a basic plot of the movie that we don't want to give too much of in the film opening but we've figured out how to tease a bit to it. The film opening bases on how the protagonist gets bullied for going in his sporty outfits as he comes from practice in the morning and goes straight to school which also leads to him getting made fun of for his hygiene in school. The part we're not showing is how his life changes overnight when he gets signed by a famous soccer team. What we were thinking was to hint at this by blowing up the phone of the protagonist. This will leave the plot of the actual movie unanswered while leading the audience to that type of conclusion.

Me and Matias are going to be the main actors of the film while maybe having some friends join in as either coaches or bullies. As for the roles of me and Matias we are still deciding but we think that I will be part of the bullying group and he would be the player that goes famous. 

We were thinking that the bullies would look like this and there would be as I mentioned before one of us being the leader of the bullies. The kid on the floor would be wearing the sporty clothes as we mentioned before and would probably have like sweat stains and wet hair representing bad hygiene

We'll make our final decisions on the acting parts by the end of this week when we post our script so for now, peace out.

The Approach

After thinking it out, as a group me and Matias have decided to make our film opening in a character vs. character conflict. We're also discussing about the idea of adding character development into the mix. But, I think we don't have enough time for it so I'll keep you guys updated for the final verdict. We decided of this different approach by thinking of how we wanted the opening to turn out as. We mainly had inspiration from our film opening research. We decided to kind of use the movies "Stranger than Fiction" and "Thunderstruck" to help us think of what we wanted the film opening to represent.

We haven't created a concrete idea for the film opening rather it just be a base. We're taking  a while to really decide the main idea or the message because we want our audience to be really engaged in the film opening to leave them to want to see more of the movie. 

In the end we're gonna go with the simple character vs. character conflict. We won't add a narrator to describe the characters life but we might use certain mise-en-scene elements to lead the audience to a conclusion of who the character is. That's it for now guys. Peace out.

Film Opening Schedule

After thinking about it we finally decided to show a basic outline of how we will be approaching each week If we decide to do something else, we will keep you updated but that is it for now.

Week One (2/8-2/11)
-start brainstorming
Week Two (2/12-2/18)
-choose project genre
-research film openings
-develop project schedule
Week Three (2/19-2/25)
-choose film opening approach
-develop story outline
-develop script
Week Four (2/26-3/3)
-create shot list
-create storyboard
-develop filming/editing schedule

Week Five (3/4-3/10)
-research possible filming locations
-develop mise-en-scene elements
-begin filming

Week Six (3/11-3/17)
-continue production of film opening
-begin editing of film opening
-begin developing responses to CCR questions (script)
Week Seven (3/18-3/24)
-research information relating to creative critical reflection
-finish editing of film opening
-get peer feedback on final edit
Week Eight (3/25-3/31)
-research information relating to CCR questions
-create Creative Critical Reflection projects 

Week Nine (4/1-4/2)
-create final, overall project reflection
-post project and CCR to blog

Film opening research

Good news! In the end me and Matias decided to go with drama as our genre. Also, after discussing who's idea we should use we decided that mine was a better approach but that we could integrate his ideas in as well. 

The first film opening I decided to check out was Stranger than Fiction. The movie focuses on the approach of opening the film by introducing and describing the character in detail. The movie has a narrator that talks how he brushes teeth a specific amount of times per side how he ties his tie and most importantly how he walks at a certain speed per minute which is determined by this watch that is so special to him. The movie revolves around the watch and how somehow it talks to Harold to make him the best version he can be. 

In this picture we have a look at the watch and the "captions" that tell the story of Harold's structured life. What is weird about this film opening is that they don't include the credits in the opening because of these "caption". 

In our film opening we hope to bring the approach of introducing the character well and show the interactions he has in his daily environments. We might add a narrator to leave the same cliffhanger that is very well done in this piece.

Thunderstruck

The second film I'm going to research is Thunderstruck

This film has a great inspiration in our film as the plot is similar to ours. The kid would get made fun of because he wasn't great at playing his favorite sport Basketball. When he went to a game and got chosen to play with Kevin Durant during halftime he got Kevin Durant's skills and overnight he became the basketball player at school.

Action and Drama Research

    Looking For Our Genre

    After looking at various genres between me and my partner Matias Colina we have decided to go with Action or drama. We looked through comedy, action, mystery, drama, romance, and horror but in the end, what helped us narrow the genre was looking at the genre from our favorite movies. What led us to this conclusion was the idea of how we got engaged in these movies and we hope to bring them to the film opening.

    Action movies are usually fast-paced and engage the audience by making it seem like the characters are doing something that is risking their lives or doing something that gets the audience excited to see what other adventures they embark on. Drama movies on the other hand engage with the audience by making the audience feel emotionally attached to the characters in a movie. As these two have very different approaches to them we will decide later on one but will most likely include some feature of the other into the film opening.

    Drama

    The drama genre focuses normally on serious topics occurring the world goes off of that. Some examples include hatred towards different groups or people. While action normally focuses on a fictional world that seems realistic. The mise-en-scene elements in Drama are crucial to understand. The costume design helps create a representation of the group or people that are being focused on. Also, the shots drama movies use are very important to know why they are used. Most Drama movies include multiple close-ups to convey the emotions in the movie. (No Film School)

    Action  

    On the other hand, most action movies have a villain that is trying to be destroyed using things that people see normally or at least know that they exist. The mise-en-scene elements vary in every action movie some have superhero costumes and others look like people from normal lives. Action movies include lots of chase scenes and exciting stunts that captivate the audience's attention. (Masterclass)

    

Transition to Portfolio project

 Over the past few months, I've been preparing for this project. The previous projects have been giving me the skills to perform the best I can when creating this project as a whole. Today I'm going to be talking about different ways I'm thinking of making this project come out as good I want it to be.

The first approach that caught my eye was developing character. This really stood out to me because it seemed relatively simple as to how to do it. My basic idea for this approach would be to use multiple mise-en-scene elements like color and costume design to show kind of how the character is. Then I was thinking of putting a little narration over the opening to describe the characters day to day life. With this approach what I would do is show interactions of the characters in their setting.

The other approach that caught my eye was establishing setting. This approach would have to go into detail very precisely. Some of these details could include background on the place. So, say for example I were to do an office I could include details like what the building was before they industrialized it or how the work environment is like within the building. The costume design I also thought would be a very easy way to approach this. Like if the setting was the same office, I can describe that the people are wearing business casual/ formal clothing. Lastly another way to help show the setting could be showing iconic representations such as desks and a whiteboard for a school or office room that have multiple computers in them.

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

 The brainstorming started by thinking of the targeted audience of punk rock. As a group we all watched other music videos on the genre to see what is liked and disliked in the punk rock world. From there we decided that instead of making a story of the band we decided it would look better to do a classic music video where the singer and drummer are playing the righteous one. The planning went as followed I would be the drummer and Sebastian would be the singer who had a guitar. The plan worked as well because me and Matias live close by and so do Sebastian and Reeves. So we would film separately one day and the other together.

The production was split into two days. Most of the video was focused on the lead singer while there would be a couple snips of the drummer in the music video. The lead singer would have the guitar and therefore we would include all the instruments that were played in the original music video. Then would come the editing in the post production where me and Reeves would work together. The editing took us around 2 days to get the best possible video out of us. We put different effects and transitions to make the music video flow easier.

Then came the presentation. Our presentation was worked on as a group together in class. During this time we decided to create a logo that would truly represent the band we are trying to be. The logo had a distinct color which was blue. This color was represented many times throughout the music video as the artist in our band were wearying that. The presentation consisted of 6 slides that talked about the overview of our band and how we wanted to be seen as well as the record label that we thought would be what we wanted.

In this project I learned that procrastinating wont lead to good results so thanks to the extension we got the best quality of our project as possible. I also learned better editing skills by getting the help of my partners. Something I can take into the Cambridge portfolio could be to work as time goes and not let the work pile up last minute to get a better music video.

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