Media Theories

         Media theories are used to explore the relationship between people and media. There are many different media theories in the media sphere however I must only pick one to integrate into my project. Even before this project my teacher had us working on media theories by adding them to our essays. So I have some experience in this field.

        Out of these media theories the one that stuck out to me most was the character theory. I say this because I have seen this theory so much throughout the stories that I have read and consumed. This is also the media theory that I understand the most. I tried to understand all of the other theories but they were confusing to me. Also it would be easy to include the character theory because in order for their to be a film the characters need to have roles. I was also considering doing binary opposition theory but I don't know how I would add this to my project. Although if I found a way it would be a great addition to my project. I hope that my prior knowledge of the character theory will be enough when I add it to my project. Having something that the audience knows such as the character theory will boost my film by allowing the audience to have more relation to it.

Storyboard

         Well now that I have my plot done I can create a storyboard! Storyboarding is fantastic because it gives a visual for your film so that you can map it out. Storyboarding also helps you organize your ideas together. The great thing about storyboarding is that it's like a rough draft for your film and you don't have to be good at drawing either. The neat thing about storyboards is that they can also be used as a basis when it comes to the actual filming of the movie.

        Storyboards can be hard to layout if you don't what type of shots you want to use. Although it may seem stressful useless to create a storyboard, it's actually quite important and fun, because you are able to see your ideas come to life. While creating my storyboard I had a little trouble, because I wasn't entirely sure what shots I wanted to use. For now I decided on simple ones, but when I start filming I want to look more into diverse and unique camera shots, so that my opening isn't boring.

       My storyboard doesn't have a lot but it's just a rough draft and I intend to have more. What I added is mostly the main parts of the opening and It was just a quick sketch. Doing this activity allowed me to put into perspective how I need to use camera angles and shots wisely in my project.

Project Idea

         I'm glad that I'm finally able to share my idea for my film opening project. So as you already know for my project idea I plan on doing a sports comedy film opening. I've only talked about my genre though and not what I actually planned on doing for my project. Since I'm doing a sports comedy film I plan on creating a plot revolved around sports that also gives a nice laugh. You'll know that my opening will be about sports right from the very first scene, and as for the humor I plan on using some physical humor and humor using dialogue. 

           

           

        The opening starts off with an establishing shot on a golf course, this is because the sport I want this to be about is golf. Golf is a very elegant game and if it is not played right it can be humorous to more experienced players. The main character of my film works at a pro shop on a golf course and this is his first job. While working there he sees this very beautiful girl golfer and is dumbfounded. After this, the main character decides to try and learn the game of golf as an attempt that he can create a relationship with the girl. However, the main character has never picked up a golf club in his life and he has no clue what golf is even about. My influence for my film opening comes from the movie Happy Gilmore, even though the opening to Happy Gilmore was a montage of the main characters life.

        I'm mostly settled on this idea but I'm always open to suggestions and tweaks if it means my project could be better. This idea is like my anchor for my opening and I'll be basing my project mostly on it. I'm very excited to be able to see what I can create and I hope that my research of camera shots and angles, from the beginning of the school year, can be shown through the use of my project.

Group Meeting #1

         What's up blog! This week marks the third week of my portfolio project. On Tuesday of this week my teacher had put the class into groups. In this meeting I was arranged into a group of 5. The purpose of the meeting was for us(students) to share our project ideas with each other and learn from others ideas, as well as give advice to one another.

        The group I was in include my classmates Maria, Samara, Vanessa, and Arianna. We started off by introducing ourselves to each other and then we began to talk about our ideas. Maria was the first one to present her project idea to us. Maria decided on creating a mystery film intro in which one of the characters disappeared and how she wants the whole plot to relate to how the missing person disappeared. I was interested  to hear that she wanted to try and foreshadow the plot by laying mise-en-scene elements around in the background for the audience to discover. Maria also said how she wanted her opening to give off a more investigative POV. I think Maria's idea is very interesting and will be very cool to see.

        The next person to present their idea was Samara. Samara wants to create a sports comedy film. She was inspired from the movie The Sandlot as well as from her brothers baseball team. Samara had the most change in what she wanted to do, because the group influenced her to another idea, which she ended up liking better. Samara plans on having her opening filmed during the day as well as to have her comedy to be cheesy but not too much. Samara left with the idea of having to kids making a tryout or going to a tryout for a baseball team, so that the kids can play together like the kids in The Sandlot. I like her idea because The Sandlot was a good movie and her opening is based on it, so I believe it will be really neat and fun.

        After Samara was done with her project opening idea it was Vanessa's turn to talk. Vanessa knew the most about what she wanted to do for her opening. Vanessa discussed how she planned on doing a psychological horror opening. Her opening takes place around the 80's and it's about a college student who is a male nurse practitioner and doesn't gain the attention he wants from the doctors, so he kills the other employees to move up the ranks. This idea was very good and interestingly. Vanessa didn't really know how to show the hate he has for his co-workers so I gave the idea that the nurse practitioner should have a conversation with the main nurse in their office and one of the coworkers interrupts and the main nurse disregards the nurse practitioner. She liked the idea so she might implement it into her project.

        Now it was my turn to talk about my idea. I started off by saying what genre I picked and how I decided on it. I then gave my idea of what I wanted to do for the plot of the film and I got feedback and decided to change it up a little. I didn't get much feedback because my group members looked a little confused however I got the feedback I needed. They helped me decide on the influence of the main character and how I should display him. After me, my classmate Arianna went. There wasn't much time left in the class by this point, so all we could discuss with her project is that she was doing a sports drama about gymnastics and how the gymnast was really good however she had a bad accident while doing gymnastics. I'm kind of curious as to how this'll work but I'm also interested.

        Overall I feel like this group meeting was very good opportunity to learn about what I need to add to my project as well as what I should change. Also, it helped me discover my plot for my opening.

Credit Sequences

                                    Credits

        Credits are very important in film because they acknowledge and give recognition to all of the people involved in creating a movie. This often includes director, writers, producers, executive producers, lead actors, supporting actors and so on. Although many people don't pay attention to the credits they are still crucial towards the film.

        The Sandlot is the first film I discovered when looking for a credit sequence. This film wants all of the creators of the movie to be known. Not only does this credit sequence provide the names of who worked on it, it also provides what specific thing they did towards the making of the film. In the credit sequence The Sandlot kept a consistent white color font that contrasted a dark background to ensure the audience could read it. On top of that, the film not only makes the names of the people known by bolding their names, but they also put the credits right in the middle of the screen, meanwhile the font size is pretty large, so it takes up most of the screen. I really like this because the audience is able to focus on the film as well as see all of the people it took to make the film.

        Here Comes The Boom also applies a white font to their credit sequence with a contrasting, dark background. However, the font size isn't nearly as big as The Sandlot's. This film also acknowledges people who worked on this movie, but for some people they didn't mention what their contribution to the movie was. When it started to mention the people's jobs the font was smaller and less profound then their names. When it credited the title scene the last word, Boom, was a different color then the rest which made it pop. Unlike The Sandlot, Here Brings The Boom has its credits towards the bottom, focusing more on what's actually going on in the movie.

        

Happy Gilmore is another sports comedy film that utilizes the white font in their credit sequence. But instead of having it so that the credits are affecting the view of the film, the credits are on next to the video displayed, so that it doesn't distract the audience from missing out on what's being shown. The background that the credits are on remains black throughout the entire sequence. Although the names of the people aren't bolded like Here Comes The Boom and The Sandlot, they are still slightly bigger than the position of what they're being credited to.

    I think I would like to do my credit scene like Here Comes The Boom because it's clean and it focuses more on the visuals rather then the people who made the film which I think is better.

Film Opening

                             Sports Comedy

        The genre that I'm doing for my film is sports comedy. I know that in my previous blog postings I didn't mention or even think about doing this genre, but during a conversation that I had with my teacher, I have decided that sports comedy would fit better for me and allow me to connect better with my project.

       

                The first film I came across was Happy Gilmore. This film opening focuses on developing a character. In this opening sequence the film utilizes a technique known as a montage, this is where a film pieces together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole. While this montage is playing the main character, Happy Gilmore is doing a voice over, talking about his life story. This film uses a lot of medium and long shots, as well has handheld camera shots to make it seem as if every single shot was recorded from someone in the film.

       During this opening Happy's life is broken down into two main parts. It starts off with his childhood and progresses into his life as an adult. During both parts of this opening the film was able to keep it's comedic intension by it's continuous jokes and it's physical humor. This opening is a very good representation for sports comedy, however I want my film to be different. Even though I didn't find the whole sequence useful, the physical comedy shown in this inspired me to use some of my own in my film.

    

        Another sports comedy film I found was Here Comes The Boom. This movie opens with establishing character. The first thing the audience sees are pictures hanging up on a wall. One of these pictures has a young boy in a wrestling outfit and the other one is a certificate for teacher of the year. This film uses long shots and medium shots throughout the first few minutes to establish the setting. The music along with the scene of Scott riding his motorcycle is a nice touch and really adds that intense feeling. This opening has just the right amount of comedy with overdoing it. I also like how the film added the shot of the wrestling photo to foreshadow that this is going to be a sport related movie. Watching the fast pacing of the cuts in relation to the music and scene helped me understand how to create excitement and urgency. Applying pacing to my film will contribute to making my film better.

        While Happy Gilmore and Here Comes The Boom are both good representations of sports comedies, another great film is Benchwarmers. Out of the three films Benchwarmers is the only one to start off with an establishing shot. In this establishing shot we can see a baseball field which foreshadows what the film will be about. This film is also the only film out of the three to introduce a side character. The film portrays its comedy through the use of satire and other physical aspects. Throughout the opening a consistent use of medium and wide shots were used. This film doesn't really relate to what I would like to do for my opening, but t's still good nonetheless. 

        What I liked about all of the films is that they established character and they all included the title of the movie early on. Another thing is that the films kind of foreshadowed what they would be about, which I though was interesting. Overall this films helped better my knowledge on this genre and what I need to include in my own film opening.

Creating A Schedule

     As I have progressed through this class and through life I have learned that time management is so important. Because of this I need to create a schedule to plan out how I will spend my time with my project.

    Week One (1/29-2/2)

• two blog postings
  • A transition posting to portfolio project.
  • A posting about two possible genre choices for project. 

 Week Two (2/3-2/9)

• four blog postings
  • Choose genre for film opening
  • research and discuss three film openings
  • research and discuss three credit sequences from films within my genre
  • A research post of my choice 
  • Think of a basis storyline for film

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Week Three (2/10-2/16)

• Four blog postings
  • Find actors
  • Find set location for filming
  • Reflection about my group meeting #1
  • Research about a media theory that I wish to integrate into my project 
  • Create a script or storyboard

Week Four (2/17-2/23)

• four blog postings
  • Start filming 
  • post focusing on character development
  • post focusing on mise-en-scene elements
  • post focusing on audio
  • create some Foley sounds(if necessary)

Week Five (2/24-3/2)

• Four blog postings
  • Continue filming
  • Planning post of my choice
  • A few production posts of my choice

Week Six (3/3-3/9)

• Four blog postings
  • Post-production process post
  • Post-production process post
  • Research for #1 question of CCR post
  • Start editing film opening
  • Sound effect layering

Week Seven (3/10-3/16)

• Four blog postings  
  • Research for #2 question of CCR post
  • Research for #3 question of CCR post
  • Research for #4 question of CCR post
  • Post discussing CCR production ideas
  • Continue editing
  • Create credits for opening

Week Eight (3/17-3/25)

• Four blog postings
• Post about production of CCRs
• Post about post-production of CCRs
• Final reflection of CCR
• finish anything that isn't completed and/or needs touchups

    

    In the past I haven't been the best at sticking to schedules because I would procrastinate and wait until the last minute, but this project is different. I am going to do my best to stick to this schedule and manage my time wisely.