Genre of the film, research blog

So far we've researched the 3 genres of musicals, action, and thrillers. Three very contrasting genres of film, all having different effects on their audience. The musical genre being the more family-friendly genre. Appealing to a wider range of people. The thriller, and action genre which have a few similar characteristics, attract viewers with their suspenseful plots. We decided to go with thriller genre. We feel like this genre's characteristics fit with the pitch of our film.

Genre Conventions Research Blog

The first genre we're going to explore is the Musical genre. A musical is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dancing. It uses humor, love, and anger. Common types of lighting you would see in a musical consist of spotlights, PAR lights, strip lights, scoop lights, LED stage lights, and Fresnel lanterns. Common camera angles found in musicals are tracking shots, overhead shots, long sequence shots, close up shots that keep only the full face in frame, and wide angles that let the audience see big group dances. Movement found in musicals, sonata form which is really simple and enhances the appreciation of classical music. Slow and lyrical with a lilting song like them, and dance like movement. Common Mis En Scene in musicals are bright stage light on individuals, dancing and singing.Elements of u musical consist of timbre, pitch, texture, tempo, duration, structure, dynamics, and silence. Examples of musicals are Manna Mia, Grease, and Hamilton. Musicals are appealing because the represent an escape from everyday life, they are able to heighten passion and emotion through the display of songs and dance.

The second genre we’re going to explore is the thriller genre. A thriller is a suspense film the evokes excitement and suspense in the audience.Lighting used in thriller movies are key lighting, under lighting, and filler light. Common camera angles and shots in thrillers are high angle shots, low angle shots, canted angles, wide shots, and panning shots.Common Mis En Scene in thriller, weapons art the common props in fight scenes, which are commonly used to create tension. The thriller genre uses the elements of story(action), plot, character and setting. The story in thrillers uses tension and excitement to stimulate the viewer's moods. Examples of this genre consists of Get Out, Taken, Seven, and Unknown. Thriller films are enjoyed because it keeps the audience at the end of their seats and build suspense and tension, it entertains the audience and engages them through the film.

Genre Research

This is a PowerPoint, created by my gourmet tonight, explaining the action genre. Including, what components action movie consist of, example films, and etc. This PowerPoint gives a general explanation of the action genre, so that a person learning would be able to understand. After reading a PowerPoint you’ll be able to spot an action film from miles away. This sets up the platform of how we will research the other genres. We have decided to research thrillers, and musicals. Two very contrasting genres of movies. 

Let’s pick our pitches!!

Today my group and I are going to pick a pitch. There are three pictures, but we’ve never let them down to two. Hopefully the final decision is an obvious choice. I already have my mindset on one of the pictures. The one I want to do I feel is the best but of course every plan has pros and cons. One of the pitches out of the two we narrowed them down to “ Walking to Walmart with her sister that she has lost, while someone is following her, then she gets kidnapped.” The other is “ In the empty parking lot of the warehouse 2 to 3 girls are rubbing this man, with a gun to his head; but there’s someone hidden in the corner then boom a gunshot goes off.” It’s exciting to see which one will be in our final film or not. Because both are pretty interesting to me, honestly I wouldn’t know how to choose.

While discussing the first page with my girl we decided a few things. I thought this was a great pitch, honestly just I don’t know it was just different. They were still some things about it that needed to be fixed though. Jasmine thought this pitch was a great pitch and that this one should be the one we chose. But we couldn’t help us find some cons about it. This is the scenario Walmart my group me pointed out what if Walmart does not allow us to from the store. Also she pointed out that kidnapping is so cliché, but I recommend we do something to spice it up a little bit. In addition to the scones, we listed the process of doing the speech. We had the right amount of actors  to act out the scene  we wanted to do, and we all lived in the exact area of the Walmart we were going to shoot at. Moreover, I thought we could do a creative person disconnecting some. I don’t want to film a cliché and call it a day. I wanted our film to be original and spicy.

The second pitch,  about the empty parking lot with the warehouse in 2 to 3 girls, I felt was a little weird for our group. Honestly I love action movies, so I really wanted to do something action and I kind a liked this pitch but it was still a little weird. Action movies are my favorite movies so I wanted to do something with like guns in fighting you know make it seem more realistic. Kind of like the movie Superfly, I wanted it to be that much in depth, and I wanted it to seem like an actual drug deal gone wrong sort of. I didn’t pick this pitch but Jahleel did and I’m honestly grateful for that because I actually like this one more it’s just it would be a bit more complicated to execute. We will have to find a warehouse and we would have to order guns online and I have to look as realistic as possible which kind of scares me. What’s crazy about this is that I feel like it being so complicated for us to pull off what actually make it so great. It will be original, and I feel like that’s one of the best things you can have an film, originality. It all comes to finding out where will find a warehouse, how we’re going to portray us robbing someone, and how fast the fake guns would come. I feel like it would it would be cool if we did a trick where were using like object that looks like a gun instead of a fake gun, kind of like the hate U give.

We decided to choose the first pitch idea, which kind of made me a bit sad. I feel like the first pitch idea is a bit action but it’s mostly like a thriller , and personally I don’t really like thrillers like that. But when you’re in a group of people who make compromises and yes I still like the idea, I think it’s a good idea and I feel like we have more resources to do that idea and it’s perfect for us. But for me it was something so beautiful about the second pitch, because I just love action movie so much and I felt like. This pitch really represented me and represented what I would like to see in in a movie. I feel like pitch number two would really be a movie I’d watch. I feel like picture number one would be a movie I would watch if my friend made me, but I would really end up liking it in the end. So I really don’t have a problem with the pitch like either way I feel like we’re gonna do great and I feel like we’re going to be original and we’re going to bring something to the table. The more I think about it the more I think the first one would be  perfect for us because we really do have all the resources available, three out of four of us live  right by this Walmart and  the other one has a car so it really wouldn’t be a problem.  Plus I feel like a lot of things happen at Walmart so this would be a really believable scene, which makes it perfect.

Starting the Final Task

 Ever since I was a toddler I've enjoyed the watching movies. As the years went on I started to get more interested in the whole movie process. It's amazing to me how all the little thing came together to create something so great. I was happy when I found about this great opportunity, I'd get to have hands on experience. Hopefully I get to put it to use in the real world. It’s just something so special about movies. Being a director was always a secret dream of mine, I never thought I’d get the opportunity to learn. I feel like one day I can really put this to great use and do something great. Maybe I’ll continue with this course, I guess we’ll see. The fun thing about this is that I get to work with people I trust and enjoy. When Jahleel, Dwana, Jasmine, and I put our heads together I think we can accomplish anything.

Throughout this class I learnt a lot. At the beginning I was just a clueless girl who lived movies. Now, I know how the process is done. I get to acknowledge all the work people put into making something so great, and I get to appreciate that. I learnt how to use a camera, how to exit on software, and how to add sound. The thing I learnt the most about was filming, that’s the one that’s most exciting. I’m definitely excited to use all the right camera angles, shots, and lightening. I also am excited and anxious about editing. The process is stressful but seeing everything come together makes it all worth it. During  this project I’ll try to think about using pinnacle studious instead of IMovies this time around, because I need to get more familiar with that software.

My group came up with 3 great pitches in my opinion. They need to be more put together but overall I feel like we did good. The first one would be two sisters shopping in walking, one of the sister gets lost, while the other one tries to find her someone else is following.... that’s where things got a tad bit more interesting. Our second concept would take place in an empty parking lot of a warehouse, two girls are robbing a man any placing a gun to his head, but there’s a strange figure in the corner, next thing you know a gun goes off... Our third pitch was a bit different, this boy is texting his friend that he thinks he’s gay but accidentally send it to the whole school... DUN DUN DUN

Editing blog

     Today the editing of our music video was finally started..... oh brother! We chose to do the song “Love Don’t Change by Jeremiah.” It’s an old RnB love song, everybody loved it back in the day so we thought it’d be perfect. One of team mates had grabbed a laptop for us to use. I knew the editing process was going to be interesting to say the least. Instead of using my account this time, we ended up using another reliable source. Pinnacle studios always gave us difficulties in the past so I was a bit skeptical. My group members  and I ended up talking about what shots we thought we should use. I love conversations like this because you get to see everyone’s creative side. After talking for a good 5 minutes, we where ready to edit.

 I didn’t know if I wanted to be happy or sad about this. After patiently waiting on pinnacle studios to pop up, which took forever by the way, we finally got started one one of the main processes. My team member entered the flash drive into the computer. All our footage begun to upload to the computer. One of my group members deleted the sample footage. I then of  clicked the import button, and then we watched the files upload. I then clicked the folder with our flash drive name on it. We had to wait patiently till all our files were uploaded.  This process took a huge amount of time but I think we were prepared for it. After all that time, the video was now ready to edit.

We had to figure which footage we were going to use and which we were going to ignore.
 We then had to drag the scenes slowly to the editing strip on the bottom of the computer. We had to cut the scenes so they made sense. By this time the class was almost over. I guess time does fly when you’re having fun. I would’ve been scared but we already went through this so we knew we had to have a backup plan. My group mates and I group thought it’d be best  to edit on iMovie.. Later on in the day, we conducted a group call.. We discussed how we wanted the scenes to look, as one of our group mates edited the scenes on her phone. After we finished editing, my group mate sent the video to all of us, so we could look over it. I thought this editing process would be dreadful but to be honest I was slightly wrong.

Filming blog

In this blog we will be discussing the filming process of the music video. For some reason that always seems to be a complicated stage for me and my group. We struggled with finding the right schedule and the best time to go to the beach setting and shoot. It had to be perfect, we really did want it to be perfect at least. We had to film just as the sun was about to set which is a short time phrase so it was difficult. At first we really struggled with finding when we were all going to meet up.  One group member has a job, one has practice, another was leaving town during the break, and as for me I didn’t have a ride. I know what you’re thinking “why can’t you just catch the bus, or a Uber,” but my parental figure doesn’t work that way. When the class first started we were warned that if your parents won’t allow you to go out then this class wouldn’t be the best for you. Well that’s honestly my case but I’m a smart cookie and I truly believe that I can honestly figure it out. 

 I want this AICE credit so badly, especially since it has to do with movies. Anyways back to filming we finally finalized a date that would be ok for everyone. We all had to face the facts that we were going to have to find a way regardless of the circumstances. So we found a way to do it, one of our group members has a car so we’d leave right after school and head to the furniture  store. You’re probably wondering why we need a furniture store, but our video concept is based on flashbacks. So we thought it’d be best to show what a couple would consider “happy moments,” this involved someone serving breakfast in bed. This was a key detail in our song so we had to inscription it someway somehow. Before we do anything we learned that it’s best to ask permission when shooting in a store. So we’d call management before hand and speak to them as soon as we get there. This way we’re not violating any rules the store may have, plus it’s better to be safe than sorry.

After that setting we head to the beach. This is our last scenery that we chose to use. It’s also the main  scenery because it’ll be used as a way to show how devastated our male actor is at his newly ended relationship. Without this part of the music video, the flashbacks just wouldn’t make sense. In order to execute this we had to arrive before the sunset. We also had a time limit because I have to be back at school at a certain time. So we have to make every take worth it and we had to realize that it’s strictly business. We have to make the video as realistic and relatable as possible so we thought him walking on the beach with the sand in between his toes would make the scene perfect. He’ll be walking alongside the beach, and using the sunset as a way to reminisce on what was once real. I’m between him walking on the beach we’ll add the scenes from the furniture.