Portfolio Project 9 Script

#9 Script

    I've written a few scripts before, I've at least started some and given up since the screenplay format is confusing so getting to do this felt somewhat refreshening. I wrote the script myself, even though the entire group threw around ideas and contributed equally:

I wrote it using screenarist, a free to use software that is really helpful for formatting things like this. I couldn't figure out how to download the script so I had to take screenshots. One issue that has been pressing me so far is the problem of length, the software has a built in estimate for the the video's length but it kept changing randomly and I don't really trust it. I do think we can make it within the 5 second grace period of 2 minutes and there are some stuff here that I think can be reasonably cut out. I think in the editing room this will all work out.

Portfolio Project 8 Film Theory

#8 Film Theory

    I like being critical of the media I consume, I don't write a review or massive three page essay on every movie I watch, but to some extent I like knowing that there is a reason why I like the art I like, and with that said I have come to realize that there are a lot of ways to judge art's quality. Media theories fascinate me since their focus is less on weighing if a movie has good cinematography or if its funny or what not but how it relates to society as a whole and how it effects the viewer. Theres a great video series by youtuber Lindsay Ellis where she discusses media theory in the Michael Bay Transformers movies because of how notably terrible they are, I'll link it here. I want to use Semantic Code, using signs or symbols that represent more than their literal self. In the Great Gatsby the glowing green light over the lake in Gatsby's backyard represents his longing for what's on the other side, which I won't say in the 1% chance you haven't read the Great Gatsby, but it also represents Gatsby being enticed and obsessed with it as it blinks 

 Gatsby knows that everything he wants is right in front of him and that its just calling him, being clear and bright as day, but he can't get to it as there is a lake covering his way there.

    In my opening I want to use the dog in a similar way, he will represent the main character being unable to do anything about his life that is only getting worse because of his own doing. His tiny little dog barks at him loudly and doesn't stop no matter what, all through out he sits there and doesn't do anything about this problem, acting like if it doesn't exist, but at his lowest point he finally snaps and yells at the dog, which does nothing and he cries and cries but doesn't bother to do anything. The dog being small shows his lack of power, a weak creature having this kind of control on him shows him as being weak and unable as he gets overpowered by this tiny little dog. The fact that dog barks loudly represents that he has issues that he is working through and can't seem to control.

Portfolio Project 7 The First Group Meeting

#7 The First Group Meeting

    This group meeting was pretty eye opening since it feels like I'm sharing my idea beyond the pretty closed group of people who had time to process everything I threw at them and think about it. Here are all of the points we made:

    

And for closer detail, here is mine:

I also took my own notes on what me and my team should improve on:

    

    My biggest fear so far is that movie doesn't feel like if it is going anywhere after this opening however Alejandro has given us a big idea, what if the main character owed someone money or was a drug dealer who was being targeted by some sort of gang. Another idea I had was him trying to get over or together with his ex again. The big problem is that I don't know how I'd show this very well, for the first idea maybe his phone could be full of messages asking for drugs or for money but for the second one I don't really know.

Portfolio Project 6 It's A Setup!

#6 It's A Setup!

    I am not an expert on film history, but I know that you must have left an influence if every middle schooler with a growing interest in film copies your style when making a film opening. Tarantino has made some of the most iconic film openings in history. Whether it's hitmen talking about Madonna or a father being broken down to tears by a terrifying Nazi, he knows how to interest an audience, but nothing can ever beat the most iconic, Pulp Fiction.

    As of recent I've been obsessed with the youtube essays of Lancelloti, in particular his essay on what makes Pulp Fiction's opening so iconic, listed here. One thing he talks about in the video is how the two main characters, Vince and Jules are set up and characterized. He talks about how most directors would start with them busting the door down and killing the people who have what they want but Tarantino did the opposite of that, showing the characters as relatable day to day people who have work gossip, and complaints about their job. I wanna characterize my main character immediately, so I think before you see him snorting cocaine and being annoying about his ex you should see him as a loser. Now I still am working out every detail and I'm gonna work with my team on this but what I want is for the audience to see themselves in him, I think that is something I was missing with my early idea, so just to spitball ideas maybe it can start with him being annoyed at waking up way too late, a clear sign of irresponsibility but also something that the audience can relate to as it's a common mistake you can make, obviously not meaning that the audience are all losers but still giving a hint at what kind of character this guy is.

Portfolio Project 5 credits

    #5 credits 

    Openings credits are gonna be tricky cause it's gonna lead to the team arguing at least a little bit on who is which role, how do three people working on a project were they were all assigned decided on who is say the project's director? I don't know, it's tricky to judge and I'm sure we will decide on who gets what when the time comes. For now I just wanna figure out how to actually write these credits, which I'm realizing is harder than I expected since a lot has to go into them for them to make sense. I'll be looking at three opening credits in my genre and analyzing them.

Get Out (2017)

Get Out is basically the first movie that comes to my mind when the term 'psychological' is said so this was an obvious one. The credits notably start after the film's opening which is something that we obviously won't get to do but is notable nonetheless. Alright, the order of the credits are: production and distribution companies, these make sense to include first however I don't think we really gotta worry about them, don't really have much of a distribution company behind me. Then, director, kinda. Jordan Peele's name isn't listed as director, they just say this is "a Jordan Peele film" something which we are OBVIOUSLY not gonna do because that would really rude, I guess we all will be listed as directors but I don't know. The film then cuts to the big TITLE CARD! With the background being an endless forest that the camera zooms past. This forest location only lists the TITLE CARD that I just mentioned and all the film's actors, who are notably not listed with "starring" over them, good to know, I guess actors are the most obvious things that your mind auto-fills when you just see names listed like that, but since my opening is only gonna have like two people I think I'm safer just listing them under "starring" or something similar. As soon as they list all the actors we cut to the interior of a home where the rest of the credits are shown. One thing notable is that producers are listed last, going Co-producers, executive producers, and then producers. After that they list Jordan Peele as writer and director, interesting to consider how that role is listed twice but with different names, I'll keep it in mind when making the opening.

A little fact that I noticed about this opening is that the blue text might be in reference to....

  

The Shining (1980)

Now that I'm getting a good look at them, I'm realizing that The Shining has strange opening credits, they don't ever stop scrolling up, they start about half way through the opening, and they don't slow down for the film's TITLE CARD which is written with no capitalization. If I had to guess I'd say this was done to really make you feel like you just walked into a bizarre and uncomfortable place, and also to make you feel lonely and desolate by not putting a lot of emphasis or attention on the TITLE CARD, making the audience feel what the family must have felt while in this desolate hotel. Listing wise some things are different: the two main leads are listed before the TITLE CARD is shown, before going back to listing cast member, the production and distribution companies show up after the actors instead of at the very start, and screenplay writers are listed before producers. Notably directors and producers are still listed last and are now bundled, I'll keep that in mind too.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

This movie doesn't even have opening credits, it has 20-minutes-into-the-movie credits, made it annoying when looking up youtube videos for this, made me have to go rewatch the opening with the film it self. I didn't mention it while talking about The Shining, but just like Get Out, it has the director's name listed as "a _ film" and this movie notably doesn't. These opening credits are a lot more hidden than the other two, while they had the credits in the middle of the screen, this one has them at the bottom left corner. The Shining basically wanted to have your focus on the credits, Get Out wanted you to focus on both them and what was going on behind them, but this movie really wants your attention on the montage in the screen of Jim Carrey walking driving around and being all depressed. 

Portfolio Project 4 big openings

    #4 big openings 

    Film openings are scary, because they can NOT be bad. I know that this project isn't trying to literally interest an audience into a 2 hour film experience, but if anything that makes it scarier, like there is no movie to carry this, THIS IS IT. So to calm my nerves I'm gonna take the chance and go over three iconic film openings with the same genre as ours. Me and my team have been struggling to pin down one real genre, so I'm gonna say this really falls under psychological thriller/dark comedy.

Blue Velvet (1986)   

Blue Velvet is a mystery film were a regular suburban guy unravels a dark mystery hidden right in his hometown that reveals a dark truth about it, I obviously won't go into spoilers but this opening scene perfectly establishes the tone and setting.
   

    The first thing we are shown is a clear blue sky with a white picket fence and red roses up front. Not only does this set up the idea of "a suburban location with a bloody red secret" it also establishes setting, a suburban town, showing us two iconic suburbanite pieces of imager, a white picket fence, and a garden of flowers. 

The film keeps establishing how innocent this town is, we see children crossing the street, a fireman waving at a man, and that same man watering his flowers.

    However as the scene continues the tone shifts into being uncomfortable. Close ups of the hose the man is using being snagged by a branch and of the faucet gushing out water make the scene feel claustrophobic even though we are outside. The film's audio also changes as instead of only focusing on what's directly on screen, the loud sound of the faucet keeps playing along with the hose which also becomes louder. The branch and the faucet feel as if they are about to break or are under immense pressure, the branch snapping from being tugged and the hose falling off the faucet from the amount of water that is leaking out of it, putting the audience on edge, which pays off when neither happen and instead the man holding the hose has a heart attack and falls over, the sounds of the hose and faucet still loudly blasting, this is all juxtaposed by the calming music that is playing along the scene. Off of this we establish the setting as being a charming yet delirious town and the tone as being dark and uncomfortable.

    Another thing I get from this opening is to not be afraid to establish things that won't make sense immediately. I gotta remember that this is mostly a set up NOT A SHORT FILM. 

   
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Another classic, Eyes Wide Shut, follows Tom Cruise as he discovers a mysterious group of sex cultist.

    The first thing we're show is a woman in a wealthy apartment, shown by the small white pillars used for decoration, and fancy red curtains, as she takes off her thin black dress and exposes her nude body for the camera. The next scene has a man who we can assume is her husband walk into a bathroom were she is preparing herself at and ignore her when she asks him if she looks nice. This establishes the films themes: sex, wealth, and the upperclass being apathetic to the people around them. Establishing theme early on like this gives the audience an early taste about what the film will be centered on as the rest of the film focuses on these themes more (also after really thinking about it, I've decided NOT to put a helpful image, like I did on the blue velvet example, of Nicole Kidman naked, just decided it's too vulgar and off putting, same reason I'm not putting up an image of a fully clothed Tom Cruise)

    This is an issue that really clicked with me while researching for this blog, there is no real theme in what I'm writing. I will definitely work on that and I think it can be added to what I had previously.

Silence Of The Lambs 

A third classic, and the only best picture winner (or nominee). Silence Of The Lambs uses its opening to establish it's main character, Clarice Starling played by Jodie Foster. Off the bat the film needs to establish that she is: a training FBI agent who is very qualified, that she is smart, that she is an oddball in her line of work, and that she has a dark secret that is deep in her mind.

    The film immediately establishes her profession by showing her running through a training camp (and doing really well at it) and of course by the proceeding discussion of her being at the top of her class. The film establishes her intelligence as she has small talk with an old professor who claims he gave her an A in an assignment, claiming she "grilled him pretty hard". The film shows how she is out of her league visually by showing her walk inside of an elevator in which she is surrounded by far taller people who are notably all men (as shown in the picture below) Showing her as short already makes her feel weaker but having her be the only woman also shows a struggle she might have later on, not being appreciated because of her gender. The red men all having red shirts, which is a dominant and powerful color, while she wears a gray shirt, a very boring and powerless color, further show her as not only not fitting in but also being weaker. Finally the last scene has the professor she is talking to bring up Hannibal Lecter, a man that he warns shouldn't get into her head. This warning alerts the audience that there might be some dark secret that Clarice is hiding that she wouldn't want to be let out.  

A big part of the opening I'm making is depicting how much of a loser the main character is, I've been struggling to make this work so I am glad to get a bit more info on the topic.
 

 

Portfolio Project 3 Schedule

#3 Schedule

    My team and I have finished our schedule. I have it right down here:

    Had to make the images really big for any detail to show but I think it's pretty readable

    I'll briefly go over what we have planned for the project. For this week we are finishing brainstorming and deciding on one concrete idea. We're probably going to switch from drama to psychological horror, however both drama and comedy aren't off the table.

    For week three we will have some pre production stuff sorted out, mainly actors, storyboarding, and scripts.

    For week four we are developing on previous ideas, deciding the specifics of the mice-en-scene. We are also deciding in a viable date to film.

    For week five and six we will be filming and begin editing.

    For week seven and eight we will be editing. We wanna have close communication between the team so we can iron out our ideas and figure out everything.

    We want to better plan out how we are gonna make this since in every single project that at least I've ever worked on I have had issues from a lack of scheduling. It's always an actor canceling last second, or the whole video being messy from a lack of awareness about what the shots look. I really do want this to turn out good so to me this really does feel important.

Portfolio Project 2 Genre

 #2 genre

    Time to make a decision, what genre will the video be. Me and my team are slowly settling in our previous idea for the video but nothing is official yet. However we have decided on two possible genres, drama, or dark comedy. These genres feel very opposite but I do think these are both very effective for telling such a mean spirited story. 

 Now drama feels the most obvious for this story, it is tackling a character who is putting on a facade to hide his insecurity, drama is perfect for showing the depths of a character without making what the story is trying to tell you super in your face. A big problem, however, is that for a good character drama, you need good actors. The opening would end with the main character having a breakdown and shouting at his dog to shut up which doesn't work and he is left there with his drugs crying, something like that isn't impossible to get out of people with no real acting experience (unless we go out of our way to hire good actors) but it is near impossible. 

    Our alternative for drama is dark comedy. One of my biggest inspirations, really to anything I make in general, is the video game Cruelty Squad (2021), it's a disgusting nightmare of a game that I adore. It notably has a very in-your-face style of humor, take the line "I've been getting really into 'Hell', both as a mindset and as something to strive for, in an organizational sense" this line is very on the nose but it works because of it's inherit irony, using something as dark as, the concept of Hell it self, as an inspirational corporate mindset. I want this kind of writing to be through out the whole opening. Comedy can help iron out your themes, at times because of how unsubtle it is and I think that can really work in a story as dark as this one. 

Portfolio Project 1 the transition

    #1 The Transition

    The next big project I'll be working on for media studies is the portfolio project, following us working on the music marketing project. The basic idea is that we gotta make a 2 minute film opening. The first thing that I thought of when I heard the project's concept was "I wanna make an evil film" that idea is all that ran through my head, and it took me a while to fully understand what I meant by that. Thats exactly what I pitched to my group, which they seemed to agree on. Both of my group members worked with me on the music marketing project, we agreed to work together on this one way back then since we worked together well.  One of my group members, Alejandro got approval to use copyrighted music from the artist Elliot Fullam:

This is obviously very exciting but I worry that we won't be able to get a good opportunity to use any of it since of the film's somber tone. It's worth mentioning we aren't married to an idea yet, mostly a tone and mood. The other person in my group is Nina, who has been struggling with the project since she missed a day of class when we were told A LOT about the project, hell Stoklosa literally said "this is a bad class to miss" so that was real nice to hear after I realized 1/3 of my team was missing.

    The basic version of the story we have so far is, a drug addicted loser has to deal with his friend trying to comfort him after a bad break up while he pretends as if he doesn't care, all the while he is being bombarded by his loud yet tiny dog who doesn't stop barking. One of my biggest concerns is scheduling our filming date and actors in the video not showing up, we had a similar issue in the music marketing project were the band we wanted to get to film with us  just didn't show up. I think we can avoid this by just acting ourselves off the bat. Another idea I had was to make a list of potential actors ranked from best for us to work with to worst and the second that the person in the top of the list says "sorry, can't help" we immediately move on to the next. 

Music Marketing #2

MUSIC MARKETING 2 

    

   One of the biggest problems we faced before we started filming our music video was an obstacle that nearly ended our video all together. Our original plan was to film in Alejandro's friend's garage where they usually do their recording for their band, we even had it planned out in the story board to have three band members and to have flashing lights (something which said Garage had). However, before we could start filming we were told that the band member who's house we were planing to film in was grounded for the rest of the week, the only one we had to film. 

    We immediately had to re-organize and find another place to film, I recommended my house since my garage has a warehouse-y/shed look that could really help expand on Richard Spice, our fictional singer, being poor and down on his luck. The next big problem was finding a date to film in, after a lot of back and forth we chose Friday, right after school, however one of our group members Simon was unable to come for reasons I am not aware of. We did still have enough people to film the whole music video with and even if we did have Simon I don't know what he would have really been able to add. 

    On the Thursday before we filmed my birthday happened, and my dad got me what I hoped for, a camera. A Canon EOS R100, to be specific. This is an extremely useful thing to have if you are able to use it to it's full potential, that was also part of the problem, we weren't capable of using it to it's full potential, mostly out of a lack of experience for most of us except for me, I've used cameras dozens of times, I just never got good at using them. After a long few hours of filming we eventually got enough footage for the video which resulted in me having the long and grueling task of editing those dozens of clips together into a music video. I'm mostly joking when I say it was long and grueling, it only took me about 5 or so hours all together but with constant issues with premiere, our footage not coming out how I expected, and so many other small issues, the project wound up feeling like it took ages. We did eventually finish and after finishing the powerpoint along side Nina and Alejandro, who both really put in a lot of effort into the finer touches such as the pretty amazing website they made for Richard Spice and multiple social media accounts, we were finally done and ready to submit.

    Below is a short BTS video to give a better Idea of what we were working with.

Music Marketing

    The marketing part of our project was one of the trickier parts to accomplish. We mainly tried to think back to how we charted out the marketing for our four other R&B stars to inspire this. The one part that was arguably the most influential in the entire branding for our artist was just the tone and mood of the one song we are working with. The song song is very calm and smooth, it has a similar feel to a jazz club, quiet music with an alluring singer.

 

   This also helped to build the merchandise. The most obvious piece of physical media to sell is vinyl records, something that anyone with an artsy side to them would be exited to buy. Vinyls inherently made a lot more sense than cd's or cassettes, something that we would probably also sell but that we wouldn't be as quick to make and distribute since that would appeal to audiences looking for different aesthetics. These other forms of physical music would probably not get their own special edition versions sold at concerts.

  

    I was personally not as involved in the marketing of the project, that was mostly Alejandro and Nina while I worked in the storyboard. They came up with a backstory for our singer who they ended up naming Richard Spice. He's a young man who's parents are from Canada and who doesn't have a great relationship with them. He has ever since devolved into R&B, making soulful music that is full of passion. His logo, a maple leaf, both shows his Canadian heritage and his general aesthetic, full of oranges and an autumn-y tone.

Representation

     

    Mary and Max is a stop motion film released in 2009 and directed by Adam Elliot. The Film follows a shy 8 year old girl, named Mary, with a big brown spot on her head living in suburban Australia who accidentally becomes pen pals with a 44 year old man in New York City, names Max, who discovers he has Aspergers syndrome. Through out the movie our characters make connections about their similarities showing that confused child who hates a small part of her face living in a hostile home can find comfort in befriending a 44 year old man who is constantly at panic with how the chaos in NYC makes his life uneasy. The two characters are shown to have very different life's but surprisingly similar views about it, it shows this by using color to bring out the traits they hate most as a part of their environment, Australia being shown as brown and muddy which makes the spot on Mary's head a constant reminder of the life she lives an the black and white of NYC like if Max's life is so bleak and uneventful that it manifests around him, the only bright color that we see though out the movie being the occasional bright red seen in Australia, a bright red that Mary sends to Max in the form of a cotton ball which he places on top of his yamaka, as a small piece of hope in a world that seems so cruel.

    While autism may be a hot topic these days that is treated with a lot of respects it wasn't only a few decades. In the 90's the main thing your average American knew about the autism spectrum was the film Forrest Gump (1994). While this film is very beloved it also shows a stereotypical depiction of someone with a mental illness. Forrest Gump presents the titular character as a dumb undisturbed man, one who coasts through life easily and is always doing as he's told because he assumes it will be the best for him. This movie sought to break that belief of autistic people being someone who lives without a worry by showing the exact opposite of that. Max is constantly having panic attacks, before he types anything he has a panic attack, whenever he is confronted with anything he feels immediate panic. The film also shows him as doing what he's told but it is made clear that he does this out of that same sense of panic, if he doesn't question authorities he doesn't have to worry and can go back to doing what he enjoys. That is another important thing this movie does, in Forrest Gump he doesn't seem to really enjoy any aspect of life aside from making friends and being a part of something: a veteran, an athlete, etc. However this film shows our main character as being more focused in his own life than anything else, almost to a harmful point. He spends hundreds of dollars in collecting figures of his favorite characters or on his favorite food. He isolates himself since most people won't be able to understand him which leads to the entire film unraveling it self, as he finds comfort with the one person who seems to get him.

    Mary comes from an neglecting household. She was ignored her whole life by her alcoholic parents so made her own happiness. One thing that constantly holds her down through out the film is the muddy brown birthmark in her forehead. She hates this aspect of her life and is constantly made to feel ashamed because of it. This is part of the reason she finds so much comfort in talking with Max, a man who is shamed for his weight but could care less about it. The movie shows the extent that body dysphoria takes you through. Mary starts believing that this spot is a curse that leads to constant mockery be it friendly or outwardly hostile. This tiny mark in her face ends on her making a drastic unchangeable decision since she is incapable of undoing all because of her dysphoria. These are the extents of society that have made her feel as horrible as she does, a reality that many have to face as the media constantly makes your physical appearance the clear distinction for a characters morality. A big nose is given to an evil person, a rude or unlikable person is fat. These creative decisions are so integrated into our culture that they become our society, which leads to young minds like Mary being haunted by their own body.

Sound Project

    Many times in my life I've been told over and over again that sound is what makes any video. Sound should blend in so perfectly that it immerses you into the story. You have to be able to pay attention and hear each individual sound to truly make a scene great. This sound project involved me and a partner, this time my partner being Veronica Mugica, placing a series of sounds together to recreate every sound that is made during a series of events. We recreated the manny sounds you would hear when leaving school and entering back home.   

  

  I was at first slightly frightened by the concept of the project, working entirely with sounds is something i've only ever done when trying to match it with footage, i've done plenty of Foley projects for school, but as we kept working and getting more organized the project just kinda made itself in front of me. That's something I have to give Veronica so much credit for, organization. I mean yes, it was already a grade for us to write all of our sounds in a doc but Veronica had the idea to label which sounds we already had, which we could make, which we could download with a link of the sound next to it, which made editing so much less stressful. We decided to split the project half and half. One of the matters we had to sort out was who was going to edit this? I've learnt from past experience it is never fun giving someone a half finished editing file and telling them to do the rest or being the one told to do the rest since you have to spend so much time worrying about matching the same tone of whats been done for you. To fix this we decided that I would edit the project and Veronica would download everything and put it on a folder which was a god send of a decision. The task of editing can be divided into two parts, 1 downloading all the clips together and naming them and 2 actually editing. Both of these tasks take time so organizing for both of the team mates in a project to do each long part worked out perfectly. 

    

    Once again This was edited in Premiere Pro, a software that wasn't made for editing sound files but still does a very good job at doing so, providing you with many audio effects and transitions. The pitch shifters and muffle effects were both very helpful at conveying the position and the amount of sound made by the things around you. I do sort of wish we had put more original and unique sounds just to spice up some of the more quiet and repetitive times but overall I did like if I was really leaving school from just the sounds alone.