Decisions Decisions

  Hello! My group and I have confidently made the decision to do our 2 min movie project on the genre Horror! We took time to research 3 different genres. Which were war, action, and horror. We dissected each of them and looked into how each of them are produced and were most drawn to horror. We believe doing horror will allow for us to be most creative. We just overall love watching the genre and want to create something as good as we've seen from other creators. We have a pretty clear set plan of the plot we want to do. I'm very excited to the next stages of this project.

Researching More Genres

Action just like any other genre has common lightnings, camera angles, mis en scenes, editing, and sound. In action films lots of accent lighting is used to enhance certain scenes and the mood intended for that particular scene. Some common situations for the lighting in the beginning of the movie is low lightning with shadowing. Then as the movie picks up to more action packed shots the lightning becomes brighter in cases of victory or back to gloomy in times of loss. Common camera angles in action movies include high angles to show superiority or low angles to show inferiority. Tilts, aerial shots, over the shoulder shot, establishing, and medium close ups are also common. Action genre films also have tend to have common sounds such as ambient background sounds like explosions or lots of digetic and non-digetic sounds. Sounds from vehicles is present in a lot of action movies and of course dialogue. Common Mis En Scene can be shown through the abbreviation C.L.A.M.P.S. C for costumes has a very wide spectrum that could go from gowns and tuxes in a film like James Bond to superhero costumes in the Avengers. L for lightening is usually correlated with tone so it could be bright or low. A for actors is people from all genders, ethnics, and nationality. Makeup usually isn't too dramatic and a lot of times used to show cuts or a rugged look. P for props in action films could be cars, weapons, or practically anything retaining to the plot. Setting is also very vague, they could be shot anywhere but the location is usually established very quickly and states when it changes. Common editing techniques used in the genre Action consist of jump shots, flashbacks, etc. 

          Action is a very big genre in film. Many of the films in this genre have very similar elements. The elements for an action film include high impacts, continuous high energy, lots of physical stunts and activity, and many times there are extended chase scenes, fights, escapes, and races. Action films also have a lot of non-stop motion and great rhythm and pacing in order to keep the audience entertained. Action films also have great potential to cross-over into other genres of film such as: Science fiction, thriller, crime, and westerns. Many times in action films there is usually some type of love interest between the protagonist and another character. Another character element in action films is that the hero seems to always have some dark and depressing backstory. Action films will always have the main protagonist struggling against some kind of life-threatening situation such as facing an evil super villain, trapped in a deadly scenario, or in a dangerous chase but in the end, the hero always wins. A couple examples of action films that display many of these elements are: John Wick (2014), Spectre (2015), Mission Impossible-Fallout (2018), and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014). Within these elements I really like the overly dramatic fight scenes as well as the prolonged chase sequences. I find these elements to be very entertaining and fun to watch. However, I don’t really like some of the character and plot elements of actions films like the love interest or the dark backstory. I find these elements to be very cliché and overdone. 

   The next genre we are going to look at is horror. The horror genre like many others have common camera angles, movements and shots, common lighting, mis en scene, editing and sound. The most common camera angles seen in this genre are high angles to show superiority, dutch angle to give the feeling of tension and to show that somethings wrong, and low angles to show inferiority. Some common camera shots and movements are long shots, close up, zooms, point of view shots, tracking and pan shots, over the shoulder, wide shot, establishing shot just to name a few. For lighting, some common scenes are introduced with dark lighting to emphasize the feeling that something is going to happen, usually something that's not good. As the movie progresses there are usually some scenes that are more brightly lit to break up the feeling of suspense and horror. Which are then followed by the darkened scenes which radiate the feeling of horror. Horror genre film also have common sounds such as non diegetic sound, usually the eerie sounds that the viewers hear when somethings about to happen. Also diegetic sound,dialogue, ambient sounds, incidental sounds and internal diegetic. Common Mis en scene can be shown through the abbreviation C.L.A.M.P.S. C for costumes has a very big spectrum. Usually the costumes can consist of normal clothing normally seen in movies like Annabelle and Scary stories. Along with normal clothing some more obscure costumes can be used for the antagonist of the movie like in movies like the Scream trilogy. L for lighting is usually connected to the tone of the movie usually it’s dark lighting to make the feeling of horror. A for actors  can be anyone, any gender, ethnicity, nationality. M for makeup can be anything. In some movies like  Scary stories  they use effects makeup or normal every day makeup. P for props can be anything from a knife to a stick. S the setting can be anywhere any location. Common editing techniques used in this genre are flashbacks, cut always, fade in/out, shot reverse shot, action match, jump cut etc. 

Horror is a very big genre in film and a lot of the films have very similar elements. The elements in a horror film are designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale. While captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and it’s fears:our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsion, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, or loss of identity. Horror films are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when earth is threatened by aliens. A couple examples of horror films that show these elements are: It (2017),  The ring (2002), The Blair Witch Project (1999), The Wolf Man (2010), and Insidious (2010). Within these elements I really like the jump scares they add into these horror films, I also like the monsters they create. However I don’t like it when different horror films have the same story line I think that it’s annoying. 

Genre Research

    These are the slides of a PowerPoint project my group and I did at the beginning of the year. The project was on movie genre and the genre that we were assigned was war. To be honest, I was kind of disappointed when I found out that our genre was war because I never really watched to many movies with that genre and I was hoping for a genre that I was more familiar with such as horror or comedy. Even though I wasn’t thrilled with my genre, I stilled learned a lot with this project. I learned how the lighting of a scene can help to establish the tone and genre of the movie. I also learned that certain genres have specific types of camera shots, angles, and movements that commonly used throughout movies within that category. For war, many times the camera is held close to the ground and uses low angles paired with shaky handheld movements to allow the audience to feel as if they were in the scene. Movies with the genre of war also have similar elements of characters, story lines, and setting. 

Tough Decisions

  Hello, these past  past few days me and my group have generated three different pitch ideas for our final task for our media studies class.  Not only did we have to come up with a simple pitch but also have a whole plot plan out in our heads for each of them.  We knew we wanted to work in the horror genre because we thought it would be the most interesting to create and we believe that we would have the most creative and original ideas for it.  We started off with some basic ideas and each of us chimed in to add in more details to make our pictures better and narrowed it down to two. The first being about a character who has a dream in a POV perspective of different horrible events  and the last shot being of somebody who killed someone and them with blood all over them and then later after the person has woken up someone such as their mom quotes something exactly from the dream.  Our second option would have been a murder mystery which would be about a group of friends who were all together and realize that a friend was missing and when they went to go find the friend they were murdered and left with a note that had a clue of how it happened and the group of friends go on a journey to figure out what happened and who killed the friend.
   The first pitch is what me and my group decided on. We feel as though this would be the best option and best pitch for this assignment. We think we can incorporate a lot more diverse angle shots through this pitch and also use different editing techniques. We also thought that this idea was more creative and would be a lot more fun to direct and shoot.  Another reason why we thought this would be a good idea is that there aren’t that many movies that have a similar plot so ours would be more original.  There are a lot of different ways that we can take this pitch and if we were to create the full thing, we could create a wide range of shocking surprises and thrilling moments. Within just two minutes we feel as though we could accomplish in an intriguing piece of film that would want an audience to go out and watch the full movie.
   The second pitch about the murder mystery we believe definitely has a lot of potential and would make for a great and interesting film.  Things like murder mysteries definitely keep the audience super engaged and feel like they’re apart of the movie which is important. We think if we did this one it would be super cool to create. My group and I have many ideas for this pitch that can make it different from the rest We still like the dream pitch a lot, however we think it would be hard for us to create the opening for this pitch without giving too much away. we also think that this movie is a little to similar to some other horror movies that we have scene.
   Overall, my group and I are very excited to begin planning for our first pitch about the horrifying mystery tale about a group of friends.  This pitch opens up many doors for us and gives us many opportunities to throw in whatever we want with different lighting and moods and camera shots and editing and whatever else we want to do.

Starting the Final Project, Finally

   Hello! Yesterday I was introduced to another project in my Media Studies class. The project is the opening scene for a movie. The scene is two minutes long and should display the opening credits and title. I’ve decided to work with the same group members that I have been working with throughout this class. My group and I worked very well together for the last couple of projects we had. We always have fun during our filming and editing processes. We are always able to share our ideas with each other and find a way to create those ideas in our project. My group and I have also gotten really comfortable with each other throughout this class and it just wouldn’t feel right to work without them. I’m really excited to start this project. I know my group and I will create something amazing.

   Since I’ve started taking this class I really have learned so much. I think that I grown so much since the beginning of the year. My confidence in my abilities to film and edit projects have increased tremendously. I think that my greatest strength currently is my ability to think of and create really cool looking shots and takes. I’ve learned to appreciate the art of film a lot more since I’ve been creating projects like this. I also been able to casually use AICE media vocab correctly when talking about my projects. I also learned to be as specific as possible on a storyboard so that when it comes time to film, my group and i will know what we have to shoot in what locations. Creating a specific storyboard also helps during the editing process because it helps us to know the correct order in which the scenes should go. This class has also helped me pay closer attention to detail. This will help me for my final task because it will make my project look better professional

   For this final task, the opening of a movie, my group needs to present an elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a Hollywood term used to describe an idea where a film is encapsulated in 25 words or less. We came up with three different pitches. Our first pitch is a movie about a women walking out of the mall into the parking garage and walks past a car and sees a girl inside that was kidnapped and gory looking and goes over to see if she’s okay and attempts to call for 911 when the killer comes up behind to take her as well. Our second pitch is about someone who has a horrific dream about bad things happening and wakes up to realize that they will actually begin to start happening. Our third and last pitch is a classic murder mystery about someone who is killed a group of their friends find a clue and begin a journey to figure out who did it. We kept them in same genre of horror because we believed it would be easiest and the most fun.

Editing for Music Video

   Hello. My group and I are so happy that we got to work on this music video project. After filming and editing it I don’t think we could’ve been more proud of how it turned out. In the first filming project we did we used our school’s camera and editing program, Pinnacle Studios, but this time we decided to try out something different.  We all agreed that it would be more convenient to shoot all of our footage a phone.  Additionally, we decided to use iMovie on our phone to put together all of our footage and edit because we were all more familiar with this source of editing and it is more convenient. Since we all have experience using this tool, we thought it would be to our advantage to use this instead. In the end we feel this was a very smart decision.  Not only did we save time by not having to dump or risk losing footage we also were able to edit at any time, not only when in class.  So after we filmed everything we needed, we began to go through our in depth editing process.
  To begin our editing process  I started by opening up the app iMovie and clicking on the import application.  My group and I collectively watched through all of our footage and favorited the ones we wanted to use and put it into a separate folder so that they would be easier to find. After that we went to YouTube and searched up the clean version of Hollaback girl by Gwen Stefani. Then we screen recorded and saved the audio from the video so that we could input it into the background of our video.  We added in all of our clips and watch them all the way through to see how they looked together.  One of the most important parts of us editing was making sure the audio and lyrics from the song was aligned with our actors lip-syncing.  So we cut , shortened,or stretched  all of our clips to make sure it matched up perfectly.  We also added a slap sound effect in the video. Along with that it was important that we kept track of the time of our footage and edited them to make sure it fit our limit and overall aligned.  Another aspect that we had to take into consideration is our transitions.  Now, overall I don’t believe that our clips look too choppy with how they are put together. We were at our time limit and we did not want to go over it so we decided to leave it how it was without any special transitions. A reason that special transitions didn’t seem that necessary for our video was because special or crazy transitions were not part of the conventions of the original artists music videos.
   before the editing process began, I thought that this process was going to be more of a hassle and that it would take a long time for my group and I to finish, but it did not take us that long to edit at all. I think the fact that we used iMovie was a big part of this. I was very comfortable with using it because of all of my group members past experience along with my own which helped my group and I to bring our editing ideas to life. I had a good editing this project. I find editing very fun and a great way to make our footage really something special.  There wasn’t anything that really went wrong during editing which was good.  I’m excited to edit in the future and learn different techniques two edits above and beyond an average video. My whole group worked very well together not only in the editing stage but in planning and filming as well. There wasn’t much editing that need to be done in all honesty. However with what we ended with I feel definitely gets the job done. I really enjoyed this project because I truly felt that i was able to express my creativity. I can't wait to begin new projects in the future and to learn new things.

Filming for Music Video again

Hello, my group and I finally finished the filming for our music video. Everyone in my group did a little bit of everything while filming. Everybody was shown in the music video as an actor, everybody helped to hold the camera to film, and everybody got the chance to direct a couple of scenes. The locations that we filmed still had to film in that we weren’t able film in since our last blog were the grocery store and the park. We also had to film a couple more scenes at the school that we forgot to film when we were first filming. Filming at the school is the easiest place to film at because my group and I don’t really have to alter our schedules to meet up, all we had to do was just stay after school for a half hour. The filming that we got done at the school was the intro to the music video and a couple of dancing scenes. We used a variety of camera shots, angles, and movements throughout the entire video. For the scenes filmed at the school we used a lot of movements including pans and tracking shots. We wanted a lot of movement in our video because the song is very fast and upbeat, and we wanted to look like we were all alive and feeling the music. 

  To film at the other locations, my group and I had to plan out the days that we could meet up to film. This was difficult because some of us had to go to work or had no way of getting to the locations that we needed to film at. Luckily for us, we all had a couple of days off from school that allowed us to get together and film. To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy filming at the grocery store location because it felt a little awkward. The store was a little crowded and it was difficult to film without customers getting in the way. To film at the grocery we had to ask permission from the store manager in order to film there. We did get permission and we tried out a couple of different ideas in the grocery store because we thought that those ideas would look cool and different on camera. Some of those ideas did look good and some of them just looked good in our heads. In the grocery store, we mainly used medium close-up shots, wide shots, and tracking shots. 

  The last location that we filmed in was the park. This location was a lot less awkward to film at compared to the grocery because the park was not as crowded. Since the park was a public space, we did not need to ask permission to film there. This location was my favorite to film at because the lighting was very good, and I think all of the footage that was shot in this location was well done and looked professional. I also really enjoyed filming at this location because I didn’t feel rushed. At the school, I felt rushed to finish filming because the school sports athletes needed the track and field to practice. At the grocery store, I felt rushed because there were a lot of customers in the store and I wanted to get out of their way. At the park, I didn’t feel rushed at all because it wasn’t crowded, and I wasn’t in the way of anyone. The used wide shots, close ups, pans, and tracking shots in this location. I don’t know if we will use all of the shots that we took in our final project though,