After a little hiatus, I'm back!!! It's great to be back, and I'm hopefully a little wiser since I'm now a more seasoned media studies student (that was some sibilance for those literature analysis peoples out there). And there's no little warm up, so I have to dive in straight to the good stuffs: what I spent my time doing in A Level instead of just having existential crises from learnin 'bout postmodernism... projects!!! Those things that are preparing me to undergo my next big task: the A Level project, the Big Kahuna, what will be eating way at me in my sleep for the next few months. I will probably end up having fun doing it, but I can't get there just yet, I have to talk about a few stepping stone projects first. So, without further adieu...
The film distribution project! The most recent thing that I have worked on and something that I am really proud of! The basic synopsis is that our class received story outlines and movie ideas (they were not our own). Our task was to create key art, a teaser, a trailer, and a distribution plan for the film. We combined all of those components into a nice little presentation, which we gave to the class.
This is the link for my group's presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Z6KPTMvp-KUtWSbee88TrH_5DUKhzjUmt2qVX8JjI2E/edit?usp=sharing
-Everything is located within the presentation, including the key art, teaser, and trailer.
We received a story outline that had an action thriller as its specified genre. Our group did take some liberties in including classifying it as a drama as well, considering the plot. We decided to use two examples along the outskirts of the action spectrum to serve as case studies:
Baby Driver served as one end of the action spectrum. It remains faithful to many action tropes: including quick-edits, action montages, explosions and gunfights galore, tense chase scenes, and a dopamine-rush inducing score. But, it also leans hard on the drama side, too. It does prioritize character relationships and places an emphasis on the conflict. The romance between Baby and Deborah places it firmly in the drama category as well. Our group also thought it might be a great case study because crime is a central plot point and motif of the film. Themes of crime and redemption permeate this story, same as in the storyline we received. The poster also inspired my own, and served as an example for action film key art conventions.
Shang-Chi is on the opposite end of the spectrum. We knew that we would be able to take a little less from this because it has the big-budget Marvel movie tropes and CGI, but we really liked the unique fighting showcased in the trailer. I also liked how it utilized the conflicting colors in the key art, something that I knew I wanted to do for ours. We took away a lot of fast-paced editing from the trailer, and knew we needed our characters (especially our villain) to have an iconic costume. Since our film is called Crimson Wave, we naturally looked to incorporate the color crimson into our villain. And we also thought that blue might be the natural contrast to that red, and would automatically signify that that character - Raith - is the protagonist of the film.
We knew we needed to knock out the trailer and teaser first, so a good amount of time was dedicated to figuring out what we wanted to showcase in the trailer and teaser. For the teaser, we thought that having as many action scenes as possible - with lots of quick cutting - would be the best choice considering our target audience. We first tried to have a sequential teaser with more of a plot line, but we decided against it during post-production. A large part of it was the lighting for some of the scenes - it was in the dark, but we didn't exactly have the most advanced lighting system. But overall, the trailer was cryptic but showcased the bad@ss nature of the villain and the protagonist (with a lot of gun fights and quick edits to compliment it).
The trailer was more complicated, and required more thought into the climax and later action of the piece. The hardest part was the setting, finding out where was best to film. There were some obstacles, but we got the bridge shots that we wanted for the climax. And the dialogue was at times impromptu, but it worked fine. And we emphasized shooting more than we needed, and a variety of shots, just so we could have a myriad to choose from.
The key art was something that I did (mostly) on my own. It required some long painful minutes using the magnetic lasso tool on Adobe Photoshop, but I think it was worth it for my final drafts:
And they are supposed to mirror each other, something that took a little bit of time. Anyways, I'm proud that I got pretty close to my original vision and I was able to make it look a little cool. I had a lot of fun with this, and I can't wait to do the visual element for the final project (I'll maybe shed some more tears of frustration using Photoshop).
The distribution plan was the final element to this, and it may have been the easiest. We found suitable film festivals, including TBUFF and SXSW (and the Miami Film Festival). Each one would build upon the other. I also learned during this project that a lot of independent films like to release in August, since that is usually the month with the least blockbuster releases.
The entire presentation is located in that link a ways back, so please check it out. I'm pretty happy with how this project worked out, and this has seriously made me consider doing the trailer package for the final project. I already have an idea for it, but I'll discuss that at a later time. All in all, the distribution project made me more confident going into this final project. I've picked up some more skills in making a trailer, and I'll build upon this experience going forward.
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