Schedule

 Planning

    This class has taught me that without laying out a schedule of how to tackle a project I would be most definitely be failing the class. After learning this skill I have now have incorporated scheduling many of my events through the calendar app on my phone and it has made my weeks much easier. Obviously, nothing is perfect so following a intended schedule and doing everything as it should have may not be case, I myself have had to make some changes during the week due to some unfortunate circumstances, but that's life!

Schedule

week 1 (1/27- 2/1 )

• Research
• Planning
• Brainstorm possible ideas
• Pay attention to any additional information provided
• Start research on genre 

week 2 ( 2/2- 2/8)

• Continue with story
• Meet with teacher
• Ask questions to get some clarity on specific information
• Get ideas from teacher
• Watch credit sequences from a variety of movies to gather ideas
• Start asking for possible characters and spots to film

week 3 (2/9- 2/15 ) 

• Potentially start filming some easy shots
• Garage gym
• Film in a way that portrays the plot and mise-en-scene element
• Ask questions to professor for further clarity of what is the best approach to tackle project

• Follow blog schedule!

week 4 (2/16- 2/22 )

• Research on mise-en-scene
• Additional planning to incorporate better shots that portray the plot
• Record some foley sounds
• Do some extra takes (diff time of day)
• Start some early editing

week 5 (2/23- 3/1 )

• At this point have all shots filmed
• Begin editing and focus on incorporating the techniques
• Ask teacher for help if stuck on how to show the plot in a more professional manner

week 6 (3/2- 3/8 )

• Editing
• CCR post
• Have the film opening almost complete

week 7 (3/9- 3/15 )

• Editing
• Last minute touch ups 
• Gather opinions and criticism on the film opening
• Make adjustments accordingly 

week 8 (3/16- 3/22 )

• Finishing up blogs 
• extra time to fixup any potential delays
• Say I finished :)

Goals

    After laying out a schedule I obviously do not expect to have this schedule work 100% there will obviously be some road blocks ahead but that is nothing from the ordinary. Me and my partner will help each other out the best way we can to help us succeed on our project and present a well worthy final product!

Credit sequences

 

Info

As discussed on the previous post the credit sequence is an important part that we have to incorporate into our project. On this day I was able to meet with my teacher to ask her some further questions about my idea for the project. I had some doubts about certain ideas and missing parts of my story. After some discussion with the teacher I further realized I have to shift my focus towards the main character and give information that closely relates to the purpose of the film. 

    Additionally, I also made the decision to work with one of my fellow classmates. I felt the addition of this classmate would give me some crucial insights on some of my ideas and he has done just that. After the discussion ended with the teacher there were a lot of questions that were not clear. The story to this point is not complete and there is still missing pieces to this puzzle. After hearing some recommendations from the teacher I wanted to give them a look since she said that we can find some inspiration to further answer some questions we might have.

The wrestler (2008)

    The credit sequence in this film is gave me and my partner some inspiration of what our credit sequence may look like. The way the production credits are showed is very similar on how I want to tackle this. The fading in and fading out will help give smooth transitions to each name. The major difference this credit scene will have from what my group is thinking is it will not be showing any accomplishments but struggles the character has to overcome.

Raging Bull (1980)

    One of my personal favorite credit sequences is Raging Bull. The credit sequence has grabbed many of peoples attention such as myself and attracts a viewer to want to know more. The mise-en-scene in this film opening is kind of similar to what we want to do. The grayish / blackish colors help show the purpose of the film and helped give us inspiration to incorporate shots that have similar lighting. Since we have access to a garage controlling the lighting we can make a shot that definitely has a similar lighting effect. The production credits itself is not the style I am looking for but does get the point across.

The fighter ( 2010)

    The fighter is another movie I would like to talk about regarding their credit sequence. The style they used for this sequence is one that I personally enjoy. This style of credits is what I am aiming to show in my project just cause it fits naturally with the opening scene. The way the names are displayed are different from other examples shown, as a viewer I feel like this is better than other credit scenes such as the wrestler, this is because in the wrestler one only sees the credits in the middle which in my opinion is pretty boring. After viewing some examples I know have a better understanding and some inspiration on how I am going to tackle this opening scene.

Film Openings

 Film openings

    After a few days of thinking how I can incorporate meaningful shots I believe the best option was to film in a at home garage. This idea helps illustrate the immense training the character has had to do while giving me the ability to shoot from all angles and change the lighting to my desire. The teacher also gave us this tip and I feel would be the best plan of action, now regarding the opening credit scene I want to shift my focus to one of the examples I briefly mentioned on my genre choice post. 

What are credit scenes?

    

    As explained in class the importance of film openings is the production credits. Most credit scene sequences combine both the production credits and illustrate the genre the film will be based around. After doing further research on what may be seen in a sports drama credit scene many of these films tend to go for minimal text on a black screen. As instructed by our professor this would not be acceptable as part of the project. 

Creed 2 

    

    This movie opening scene shows the simplistic text as stated before. The scenes that come after it focus on the movie. The first clip with the mini figure of a man boxing helps illustrate the purpose of the movie. This is a technique I would personally want to incorporate on my film to easily show its purpose. As an example I would use a notebook that the main character has written on, the information in this journal would be of the routine he has taken and more of a tool he uses to log workouts, and other important information that happened throughout the day. As not previously stated I would incorporate the simplistic text into the scenes so it follows the guidelines of the project!

Ford v Ferrari

    One of my personal favorites, this movie has a unique opening scene where the main cast members are mentioned that being Christian Bale and Matt Damon. Although main production credits where not listed in the opening credit scene, I believe the way the production artists decided to portray the opening scenes help truly depict what the movie is about. Obviously I do not have access to such tools to make a production like this but I saw some interesting use of close up shots which are not really seen in other opening scenes. The use of this shot is useful to show stress and anxiousness which helps show the main objective of the movie which is to win the 24 hours of LeMans.

Other films:

    

Rush(2013)

Rocky (1976)

Raging Bull (1980)

Plans and Genre Choice

 

Genre

    After doing some quick research I have decided to go down the genre of drama, more specifically, sports drama. This genre I feel would help illustrate my story the best and make it enjoyable for the viewer. Some inspirational storytelling would show an element seen in drama and it will show the purpose of my story.

                                                                 Creed 2 (Nov 21, 2018)

 

Characteristics

    There are significant differences between sports drama and normal drama films. The theme of sport drama films unlike normal drama films is that sport drama films tend to have underdog stories. While sports drama can focus on underdog stories normal drama films focus more on love stories. I saw this distinction because this is what my intended story will illustrate. I want to show the hardship the protagonist has had to endure and the immense amount of time, sweat, and tears he has put in to get to where he is. Sport drama films also focus on the emotional depth of a character. When doing some research on this showing some sort of family photo in the film opening can help illustrate this better

    Sport drama films focus on the conflict and motivation on why these characters push to be where they are whether that be from family conflict, avenging someone or proving someone wrong. The mise-en scene element aims to show the hard training and other intense dramatic scenes with warm, natural lighting. It is also seen that these films showcase some spotlight effects during competitions.

Rocky (1976)

Rocky 

This film is a classic movie that I have personally enjoyed. This movie shows the struggle Rocky Balboa has had to endure to defeat the heavyweight champion. Throughout the movie it is seen that everyone looks at him like he is a bum, not capable enough to be a professional boxer. This is what drives him to train as seen in the training sequences and shows the motivation he has to show his worth to the people. It leaves people feeling inspired to go out and tackle all their problems one step at a time.

Portfolio Project Initial Plans

 Initial Plans

    After hearing our teachers directions on the project I had started brainstorming some possible ideas that I could do for this project. I had an initial idea I could do with a partner but then after the teacher ended a phone call she had to attend to, I had seen that the initial plan I had was not going to work. I believe the best way to approach this project is to do this independently. The teacher had showed us some great examples of what our projects should look like and after viewing the examples I started brainstorming some possible ideas.

 I personally have been going to a commercial gym and have seen a lot of inspirational movies. I had the idea of a bodybuilder who had came to be. Showing the amount of work the main character had to put in to succeed. There would be shots of a journal with the statistics of the characters workout and other basic props to show that this character is prepping for a competition. There would also be some sort of motive why this character has put in so much work whether that be for a family member, or just by getting bullied but these are ideas I would like to discuss with the teacher to see how I can make this idea better.

Music Marketing Behind-the-Scenes

 Video could not be posted successfully here’s the link to the google drive!

Video

Music Marketing Project

Overview

 Entering our classroom after reading the syllabus for today's activities I read about a project that we would have to start in class, although the project was already accessible to read I wanted to hear what our teacher had to say about the project. The Project consisted of choosing a song and making a campaign and music video about it the catch was that this was the artist's or band's first everyone had to start from zero. I will now reflect on the first few days of the group project our teacher assigned us. 

First day

   This was when we entered the classroom and were told by the teacher that we had a project coming up that would be 50% of our group project. From past experiences, the teacher told us that we had the chance to pick our groups but to pick wisely because some "friends" could hurt our grades and not improve them. After the instructions were clearly given to us we had the opportunity to look around for our groups. I decided on picking Sergio because from past projects I felt that we had some pretty good attributes that we could both benefit from. We then picked Oona a classmate who sits right behind Sergio with her knowledge of how to edit and brainstorming capabilities she would play an important role in our group. Lastly, it came down to just one more team member and Oona suggested Juan, Sergio and I did not really know Juan but we trusted the information that Oona gave us. Juan is now a fellow classmate that I look forward to seeing in class because of his ability to not be complicated and get many valid points across which really benefited the group. The task for today's assignment was to get into our groups and discuss our plan of action for the days to come. We decided on a pretty good schedule that benefited every group member but was not clarified when submitting it to our teacher. During our submission, we received 4 music samples to start our project from, and we all quickly agreed on one of the music choices.

Second Day

    The second day consisted of planning our music video and doing some research on our campaign, this consisted of marketing strategies, distribution strategies, logos, target audience, etc. A "STRONG" suggestion our teacher gave us was to split our work so two members could tackle the storyboard and two members could do the research and we did just that. Juan and Oona worked on the storyboard while I and Sergio did our research, we came up with the logo of our brand, and some interesting marketing strategies that we believed would stand out and make us unique. We all agreed on the storytelling aspect of our music video because we believed it would fit well into our song, nearing the end of the class the storyboard was basically finished and most of the campaign research was almost finalized as well.

Third-Day

    This day sadly did not have one of our group members who was not able to be present. Today our teacher told us that we would have group meetings with her regarding our projects and where we stand right now, she also showed some examples from previous years so all students could gather ideas for their music videos and I came up with an idea thanks to the samples shown in class. As a group, we felt confident that we were ready to go and present our information but we wanted to do some final touches. To make things easier we made a group chat so we could continue brainstorming ideas and finalize any missing parts in our assignments which helped a lot. During class we took the time to discuss again our plan and present all our information to the teacher, after we finalized touching up some of our information we were ready. We decided during this time to plan an additional day to film just in case any of our shots were messed up or just needed more videos to create a better music video for our project. On this day we did not have to meet with the teacher but we were told that on Wednesday we had to be in our groups, and that is where we stand today, and plan on finishing this project with much success.