Planning A Setting

 The setting is going to be vital for my film opening (not as vital as my characters and showing their bond, but it is a close second). I want my audience to know some of the intimate details of the background of my characters without having to just say it. Other parts of mise-en-scene such as costume design is also definitely going to play a huge part in showing my two characters to be from more of the working class. However, I want to go just a little beyond that to really get some more dimension from my characters and make them feel more real to the audience. I did some unintended location scouting the past weekend, and went to a spot that could be good to shoot the opening. 

         

I'm not necessarily going to say where it is, but the area around it is perfect for that older town feel, something that is not exactly working class but not necessarily as affluent as some other towns/cities next to the beach. And the beach itself could be a perfect contrast to the town, as it is really nice and (hopefully) will have the hues of blue that I am looking for. It will be a good place for my characters to make their safe place, almost like a hidden paradise. I could add some symbolism aspect, like the horizon being their wide range of possibilities, but I don't think I necessarily have to. It can mean different things to different people and that's what I want. For the characters it can mean possibilities or a great vastness that can later feel like loneliness (again, not filming the entire movie, but I like having somewhat of a plan of where I want it to go).

There will be some difficulties in shooting there for sure. The weather is always going to be a major factor, so I will check weather reports before being set on any date to shoot. I might have to adjust, or I might scrap this setting idea altogether if it is not something that I can do or if I find another ideal setting (not likely, but I have to keep my mind open). Here's two other iconic movie settings that serve as a sort of inspiration (or I just really like them, either way they're gonna be in here):

The beach from Moonlight is very meaningful for the character. It is not only has a great aesthetic, it  reminds the character  of  his good memories and of his "golden" self (his endless possibilities).   

The whole city of Sacramento has a lot of meaning for Lady Bird. It is the town she grew up in, the one she wants to escape, and the one she misses once she has left. It means something to both her and her mother. The iconic shot of the bridge both begins and ends the movie. 

                                                                                     

(I know there's I'm putting a lot of Lady Bird but I honestly do not care. It's a great movie and has a lot of things that I'm looking to do in mine.)

Some More Genre Research and Character Development

 I wanted to find a movie that is.... not similar exactly, but close to what I am going for. Although Fighting With My Family is not a really well-known film (it was released in 2019), it is more of the sports dramedy that I'll examine more. It tells of a working class family (one that runs their own gym) and the family bond is the center of the film. I could also argue that Saraya, the main character, is also one of the drivers of this film. Like Lady Bird, she is very unique and could be considered eccentric. And she also has a very close bond with her brother, and in a lot of ways is the bond that the movie relies on the most. 

This opening scene is a lot more complex (especially the shots of the ring during the wrestling sequences) but it has the more humorous tone that I am looking for. I want to start off with a more humorous tone, and with it still being endearing and emphasizing the relationship between my two characters. This opening also does a good job of highlighting that bond between the family (especially between Saraya and her brother) and just how much she relies on him. The opening also does a great job of establishing the characters. They are introduced as an "atypical" family that is more in the working class. The costume design and their accents help make it evident.

And this is what I want to do with my opening. I need to use the costume design and maybe even the language (not necessarily and accent, but just the way they speak) to make it clear that they are nearer to working class than anything else. I also want to have the sister be more eccentric. Saraya's all-black get-up makes her stand out, and I'm thinking of using the color orange (a color not used too often) to make it clear that my character is more different. And complementing her orange will be the brother's blue. I'm using more basic color theory for this, as orange and blue complement each other because they are on opposite sides of the color wheel. I am not necessarily committed to this, but I am really excited by this idea (pulling it off would be amazing).

First Official Genre Research and Story Exploration

 I first want to say that, while I love Westerns, the story that I am choosing is more suited for a dramedy. And the reason that I say this is because dramedies are the most like real life (the dual-tones are most like the life we live, and it gives the characters more dimensions). The story that I am going with revolves around a very real character She is going to be more-or-less like me, meaning that I could possibly explore my psychology a bit more - psycho-analyzing yourself and thinking about what motivates you to get up in the morning is always fun. Centering the story around a dramedy also allows for me to best explore the relationship between her and her brother. And just like that, I'm revealing my story to you: it's based on the relationship between the two siblings who are part of a working class family who want to get a better life by being the best at a sport (I'm thinking of going with basketball, since I love the sport myself). I might elaborate on the whole entire story later, but I already know where I want it to go and because of that I think I already know what I want my film opening to do. 

Now to the fun part, researching some examples from the dramedy genre. For this post, I'll be looking at Lady Bird. 

The story automatically begins with the two-shot of Lady Bird and her mother. The film is already stressing the importance of the pair's relationship and is telling the audience that their relationship is going to be central to the story. There are a lot of two-shots that make up this beginning scene because of how important the relationship is, from them sitting on the bed to them in the car. I really want to capture the importance of the dynamic of my two characters, and this might just be how I'll do it. The colors also seem more muted in a way that makes it feel more realistic, with Lady Bird's clothing and hair being bright; these are just some other things that I want to try in my film opening. 

And now, how Lady Bird utilizes color:

The "blue house at the end of a cul-de-sac" is meaningful to Lady Bird, and its warm blue hue does not represent sadness, but a sort of warmth. I'll get into my character a little later, but dramedies (as well as countless other genres) have certain colors that represent something for characters or for the audience. This house is no different, as when it loses its magic for Lady Bird, the color changes more into a muted gray, symbolizing how the house no longer brings the joy that it once did for Lady Bird. I also want to do something like this for the siblings, but I'll explain this in more detail later. As of right now, I'm thinking that I want to have more warm blues be the background for them.

Early Genre Research and Some Thoughts Before I Begin My Official Story Brainstorming

 I found this video, courtesy of the New York Times, showing one scene from The Farewell:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/movies/100000006688230/the-farewell-scene.html

It shows how even a somewhat static scene can have be engaging because of the way it is shot (the two-shot shows the clear bond between the two characters). As director Lulu Wang states, little camera movement can show the chemistry between actors. Also, the scene shows the background as well as hinting at some of the themes. Nai Nai's (the grandmother's) clothing colors resemble those of the buildings around her. The mostly matching buildings suggest a theme of community and closeness. I will definitely try to develop the mise-en-scene elements of my opening, and even try some static shots, especially a two-shot. The two-shot, as evidenced by this scene, is great at showing the bond between two characters.

The opening scene for Django Unchained has its own elements I want to try to reciprocate.

The opening text font immediately introduces a certain unique style for the film. It almost imitates those of old Westerns, while still bringing its own unique flavor. Music is another thing I might try for my film opening, it accompanied Django's shots well and introduced the main character to the audience, and making him seem as more of a legend. The shots are also really varied, with some camera movement (such as a tilt) that shows the great expanse of the setting. The quick zoom-out of the camera also adds that certain "old Western" feel, something I might try if I do go with the Western genre.

I still have a lot more thinking to do before I decide between the two genres. The idea that I go with for the story of the film will ultimately be the greatest decision factor. I'm still going heavily for the character-centric opening, and Django Unchained's main character (Django) is great as for how to show my main character's personality through costume design.

The colors are especially important (but the sunglasses add to the effect), as he is showing that he is "atypical" with his purple-is pink jacket, the red signifies his anger, and the gold is his way of flaunting his new status.

My Official Starting of the Portfolio Project

 I'm really excited and really nervous to start. I immediately had some ideas on what I want to do for the project (some realistic and some not). But the most important thing I have to figure out is my genre. The shot selection, the tone, the characters, all of it is key in developing a genre (and more difficult by the fact we have a maximum of 2 minutes to do so). I already have two that I am really drawn to, mostly because they are my two favorites (at the moment) and I already have done research on them, so I already know the type of shots that would work well in replicating them and the types of stories that would work well within them. And knowing many movies within the genres is going to help a lot with the brainstorming process. And without further ado, the two genres I am heavily considering are:

          Western                and                                          Dramedy

And yes, I really did need to announce it that spectacularly. But, in all seriousness, they are the two that I already know well and have already watched many movies in both genres. I actually tried a Western-themed music video for the music marketing project and with pretty good results. It served as a great learning tool of how to really replicate a genre. I had good shot selection and now I have a feel for the genre (tone, pacing). This genre will also be great for what I'm planning my film opening to focus on: a mix of main character and background.

Dramedies are also a great genre for an "atypical" main character and one where I the majority of the focus can be on that main character (along with another character the main character has a strong bond with, but I'll go into that idea for my next next blog). My main focus will definitely be the shots (two-shot to stress character bond), but I also want to try to develop the mix of tones, humorous and melancholy (again, I'll go into more detail at another point). This will be difficult to pull off in a span of two minutes, so I'm not resting my hopes on it.

My next blog post will go further into detail on my research on the genres, but the openings of the following films are ones that I will definitely break down:

THE WESTERN:

        

THE DRAMEDY:

Music Marketing Reflections

 

    My group was given the alternative genre (with a couple of alt. rock songs). We decided on the song "Trouble". All of us knew the song already and felt as though we could make a good storytelling video out of it. It took us some time to decide the name and identity of our group, but, since it was the alternative genre, we thought that our band should be more cryptic, "edgy", but one that also connects with the fans. And thus we created:

    For our case studies, we named some artists that we already knew from the alternative genre. They included twenty one pilots, Panic!At the Disco, and Kaleo. From there we found two labels: Elektra Records and Fueled By Ramen LLC. Both are owned by Warner Music, though Elektra is more of an independent subsidiary. Elektra also has an interesting history, as it used to be the record label that was a trendsetter, signing rock bands and other alternative artists before the music became popular. Now, that title belongs to Fueled By Ramen, who has signed up-and-coming artists in the alternative genre and helped them become some of the more well-known bands in the genre today. We also found a lot on the marketing and distribution plans of each artist, which would help us decide ours. The most major marketing tactic employed was "word-of-mouth" marketing on social media, so we decided to use that for our band. 

Before even working on the presentation, we had to come up with a plan for our music video. I went into greater detail on that brainstorming process in my last blog post, but the basic synopsis is as follows: we thought that the song would be great against a Western theme (some typical Western stings within the song), we also thought the song would go well against a revenge plot. The storyboard was a group effort, with me doing some of the stand-off scenes at the end. I'll discuss the shots and the actual filming process more towards the end, as we had to create the social media sites and work on the actual presentation after we had our storyboard done.

Ryan did the website for our band. She included tour dates and made it look really professional. We also created an Instagram account for our band as well as merchandise (made by Nicole). We even have links to our Instagram account on the website and sell our merchandise there.

Link for the website: https://zeroeffect.godaddysites.com/

Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/zeroeffectbandofficial/

Some of our merchandise:

              

(We made sure to make vinyls to sell on our website and after concerts to add that "alternative rock" flavor to our band)

We had to choose our target audience, and decided to go with teenagers to people in their late 20s and early 30s because of the popularity of bands such as twenty one pilots among that age group. We also took a lot of their marketing trends and made them ours. Our mail campaign resembles that of Panic!At the Disco and so does our social media presence. We also wanted to distribute music to as many streaming services as possible, so we decided to go with Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, among others. YouTube is also a great tool to distribute and market our music. Since our band started out on YouTube, we make sure to post our music videos for our newly released songs to there first before the streaming services (also works great for marketing).

We also made sure to include how our band will go about performing. Since we are smaller, we would have pop-up concerts at smaller venues. Our plan to expand our audience is to perform at many music festivals such as Bonnaroo. Bonnaroo is especially popular with our target audience, and many smaller alternative artists play there. We also have a plan to play as an opener for a larger band, such as what Kaleo did with The Rolling Stones. Once we listed off our major selling points, we were mostly done with the presentation. All we had left to do was the actual creation of the music video.

The filming was all done in one day. We had to gather some props to make the video look Western, including actual boots, bandanas, and some nerf guns. We had to change some of our shot ideas in order to create smoother transitioning or because of a needed change in location (some spots were a little too bright or shady). The overall filming process was fun, some shots were tedious and needed multiple reshoots, but we finished in time for me to edit. Some of my favorites to film were the classic low angle boot shot, the close-ups of the faces, and the quick change in the depth of field in the over-the-shoulder shot.

The editing process was not challenging, exactly, but required some effort organizing the clips and matching them to spots within the song. I started on the Western shots first during the revenge fantasy, as I was able to put the classic Western color palette onto my editing program. This is the final edit of the music video (sound edited by Ryan):

My final final reflections are that it was fun (and challenging because of the time crunch). I learned that I have greater editing ability than I once thought (giving me confidence before my final portfolio project). I also got to experiment with more shot types and try to recreate some iconic shots from a movie genre (also, Westerns are fun to film). I feel as though my camera work got better, and I got some smoother shots. All of this will help me as I am developing my Cambridge portfolio.

Storyboarding Process For the Music Video

 

My group really wanted to do a more unconventional music video, since alternative music videos are typically more unconventional (like twenty-one pilots' and Cage the Elephants'). We decided to do a story structure for our music video, landing on a fantasy revenge plot that's interesting and shouldn't be too complicated to do. I really thought that a Western theme would be great for the song we chose ("Trouble") because of all the acoustic guitar and the classic Western stings within the song. I had to really research what shots to incorporate in our video to capture the Western aesthetic. I found the video below to be very helpful:

We have already created a shot list rough draft to serve as a template for the storyboard. I added some of the shots discussed in the video, like the lower angles and the extreme close-ups with a slow zoom during the standoff. The changing of the depth of field as the antagonist (Emilia in her role as the big baddie that killed the love of the protagonist's life) steps forward into the shot to create a cool zoom-like effect is definitely something I'll try to copy during the filming process. I also really want to use a more rustic color palette when the protagonist is in her fantasy to really be clear that it is only in her mind. There are some LUTs that I can use on Adobe during editing to change the color scheme to resemble that of classic Westerns. My task for the storyboard is to illustrate the last set of scenes, mostly the standoff and the killing off of the protagonist. 

The greatest challenge will most likely be the location scouting and the actual filming/editing. The editing will be especially difficult, as I will need to match some of the movement to the beats of the song. I will also try to match some movement or cutting with the stings in the song. The next step at the moment is completing the storyboard. After, we will divide up the work for the presentation, but this will be relatively easier in comparison with the meticulous shooting for the music video.

Some photos from the brainstorming:

                              (The part I'm storyboarding)