SPY OPENINGS!

 Hey everyone!

It’s finally time, I’ve chosen my genre for this film opening. Spy action! I know shocking. I have a ton of plans in the works but first I have to get my research down. I researched 3 seperate film openings from the genre starting with The Bourne Identity…

The Bourne Identity Opening

I could tell that in this opening they went from action to a calm environment back to sudden action. Letting the audience be confused about the “dead” man’s identity is a great addition to the suspense of the action which I know I’m going to need for my opening, LOTS OF SUSPENSE! The opening also included advanced technology, including a laser pulled out of the man’s head that had a bank name and multiple numbers in it. I know I’ll have to make illusions to this kind of advanced technology for my film opening, including cool spy gadgets.

Next film opening… Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

The opening involves some humor and some suspense, as well as action packed music in the background. The opening involves technology or military based camoflauge. The music builds with the suspense as well as the pacing of the opening. The iconic music begins to play as the main character arrives and the action truly begins. This film opening went with an incredibly difficult stunt while maintaining suspense and humor. Though I know the stunt was actually completed by Tom Cruise, with the use of special effects, green screens, and angles I’m sure a stunt similar to that would be possible. This a great film I love it.

Next opening coming up… James Bond - Casino Royale

James Bond - Casino Royale

This film opening was done entirely in black and white, with flashbacks to a fight scene. It’s that whiplash kind of sequence like in Bourne Identity where it’s back and forth calm and action. The use of practical weaponry, a gun or simply fists, is used here instead of spy gadgets. The music, once again, follows the suspense and the pacing of the sequence. When there’s a fight the music builds, as things calm down so does the music. The stunt at the end with a silenced gun and the gun shot at someone else into the title card was amazing.

Overall, it’s very clear that this film opening is going to need a lot of whiplash, a lot of action, and suspense. I’m going to need good actors comfortable with doing stunts and fight scenes, as well as choreographing all these scenes safely. I’m going to need some good music so I’ve been contacting artists for a while but I’m also very open to creating my own music for the film. I’m very excited to start all of this.

Portfolio Project Genre #2

     We’re back for part 2. Still finding the genre for my film opening. For this post I’ll be focusing on the science fiction action genre, or sci-fi action for short. Sci-fi action mixes the classic science fiction with some fast-paced action. Similar to spy films there’s so much combat, so many chases, and battles. It focuses on conflict and adds physical danger to futuristic or dystopian societies. My personal favorite sci-fi franchise, Star Wars, generally utilizes a lot of conflict and futuristic combat with lightsabers. There’s a multitude of intense combat scenes and large-scale battles mostly generated using green screens and special effects. Star Wars: Return of the Sith ends with this intense battle between Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi in which they fight amongst lava with their lightsabers until Anakin is practically limbless and scorched. 

Sci-fi follows a multitude of themes but the most popular include:

- Technology vs. Heroes

- Dystopian realities

- Space and alien conflict

- Time travel

- Rebellion

Photo from Wookiepedia

    These films aim to relish in real world fears about what the future may hold or to simply express a story a writer imagines. These films tend to be incredibly suspenseful and entertaining to audiences and most popular sci-fi action films turn into large franchises, such as the Hunger Games franchise that is still ongoing with a new movie releasing later in the year. 

Sources:

- Telotte, J.P. (2001). Science fiction film. Cambridge University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816184

- Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Science fiction action. In Wikipedia. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_action

Portfolio Project Genre #1

     Hellooo! I’m currently finding the genre that my film opening will be. I’ve gotten a general idea as to what I want, I really want to make an action film opening. I think the majority of my life I’ve been surrounded by love for action films, between spy films like James Bond to sci-fi action films like Star Wars.

    In this post I’ll be focusing on spy action films and the research. The core genre definition is centered on espionage, things like secret agents, gathering intelligence, or covert missions make the genre what it is. There’s bound to be suspense and mystery with these sorts of films as sometimes the mission isn’t revealed from the beginning. There are plenty of sub-genres to spy films, there’s spy comedy as seen in D.E.B.S or spy action thriller as seen in The Bourne Identity. 

This film genre often incudes action, deception, and obviously, danger. There’s loads of undercover work, double agents, high-stakes situations, and betrayal. As seen in D.E.B.S when the spy Amy falls in love with the enemy and jeopardizes the mission. Spy action is fast-paced, many things happen within the span of the time of the singular film. There’s going to be chases, fights, explosions, crazy stunts. Mostly in international settings as well as to exemplify the espionage aspect of the film genre. These spy films utilize high-tech gadgets that may or may not be realistic in order to convey these dangerous situations and how the spies go around them. Spy action is simply a sub-genre of spy fiction but I have to say I find it the most exciting. The wildly famous Mission Impossible franchise and the James Bond franchise are also examples of spy action films.

D.E.B.S Movie Poster, Image found

on Google via Amazon Web Page.

The Bourne Identity Movie Poster, Image

Found on Google via Amazon Web Page.

Sources Utilized:

- Campfire Writing. (n.d.). Spy genre. https://www.campfirewriting.com/codex/spy

- No Film School. (n.d.). What makes a great spy movie?

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-spy-movies/

- Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Spy film. In Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_film

Quick Change of Subjects

     Heyy party people! From now on my blog will follow my portfolio project for my AICE Media Studies AS exam that’s coming up in a few months. I’m so excited to have you guys follow my new journey as I make my 2 minute film opening. More to come…

Music Video Midterm!

HELLO! This month my group and I have been working on a music video for our midterm project in class. I have to say it was a blast. Here's a quick vlog of the music video as well as a link to watch the actual video in its entirety!

 MUSIC VIDEO

Music Marketing Project Post 1

     Hey blog! We had a cute little research project for music marketing last week, it was such a good opportunity for me to research something I'm so incredibly interested in and I got a good category to choose from. The assignment wanted us to choose artists/bands under the same label from a single genre who had released an album in the last 5 years.

    I chose Ariana Grande and The Jonas Brothers under Republic Records (part of the UMG group) as my artists in the Pop genre and I had to a load of research to fill out a case study chart my teacher provided. I simply searched up the different categories on Google and saw what kind of websites popped up, I chose the most reliable one with the most information that was accurate and used the information I saw. I also made a couple of inferences here and there as I didn't see everything through the websites and being a teenager in the 21st century it's pretty easy to know things about artists I listen to.

    Now we have a project coming up where we have to create an entire brand identity for an artist we create with our groups. As my group and I got Pop before hand we have to create a pop group for our new band and form a brand identity for them. We also have to film an entire music video based on an already existing pop song, we chose "We Are Young" by fun. because, as my group member Alana said, it gave the most nostalgic vibes which my case study on The Jonas brothers was very much centered around. We created our band name "Eventide" and based their brand around fireflies as we felt that was the most nostalgic, 2012 vibes. We named the fanbase fireflies as well because having a fanbase name is so important when it comes to marketing a certain artist to someone.

    On the first day of work, we created our filming schedule and decided we'd film on the weekends mostly and work on the marketing during the class days we had. We split up our jobs, I took on creating the merchandising as well as helping editing and present our final presentation of our band. For filming purposes, I'll be working the most with the lighting (as it is my specialty) and acting in the actual music video. We created the storyline we wanted to follow before the first day of working on the project and we decided to create a music video with a storyline that also truly showcases the band. I'm expecting a fun time with this project and I'll keep updating soon!

Mise-en-scene project

 Hellooo blog!

So, last week our teacher had us do a mise-en-scene project. A quick recap on what mise-en-scene means, it's the lights, set, costumes, props, etc. of a film or any sort of media creation. For example, in a musical like Mamma Mia you'd see Greek buildings, a beach, or the island as well as lighter colors, high-key lighting, the diary, Donna's overalls. You get it. 

Now the goal of the activity was to see if we truly understood mise-en-scene in the context of a specific character. Our teacher gave us a short character description and we had to create their entire life through a soundscape, mood board, presentation, tactile board, and set model. My character was a movie lover who enjoys social get togethers with friends, they write a movie blog on which they post critiques of popular movies. We chose her name as Cameron Lee and made her a USC student majoring in Film who posts on Letterboxd. My group created a model of her apartment, a model doll of her, a tactile board of things associated with her, a notebook she would use to write her reviews down before posting them, a mood board for her character, a soundscape of her daily life, and a presentation to tie it all together. 

We had to create stations after all was done to allow our fellow classmates to view our creation, each group had their own little area to setup. We used 4 laptops to allow for each seat at the station to be able to click through our Google Slides presentation found here: Mise-en-Scene slides. We set up the tactile board in the middle so every student at the station could feel it while watching our soundscape as they were directly tied together, students would watch the soundscape video which had words presented, such as "Touch the popcorn.", and the students would touch that certain item for the part they were on. We left the model of the doll standing next to some of the computers as to present her and we left the set model on the desks that the doll wasn't on as to create a better space. The notebook was left near the center of others two desks, the formation was sort of like every 2 desks had something out of the 4. The bottom left and right shared the notebook, the top right and bottom right shared the doll, the top left and bottom left shared the set model, and the two top ones didn't have anything but we left space for them to view the notebook as well. 

We used the classic film major stereotype seen both in movies and real life, they love movies and become very critical of every film they watch as they know more about the working of the films than others do. We also used the stereotype of a college student as her outfits consisted mostly of sweatpants and her life consisted of school and friends. I have to say my group and I worked very well together and we were on the same page about everything when it came to creating our character. We all did our own parts as well without any arguments about who was or wasn't doing something, I took the mood board and creating the slides presentation, Marissa took the soundscape, Christina took the model doll, and Alana took the set model and the notebook creation. We were told by our peers that ours was very well done, which was nice to hear as we had put so much work into it.

To see all the media from this project click here → Mise-en-Scene media