STORYBOARD

Hello! After having my group meeting and changing some aspects of my screenplay and story outline, I thought it was an appropriate time for me to create my storyboard. For me, creating my storyboard is almost like creating my final draft. I don't know why but I've always felt like this. Obviously, that doesn't mean that if I don't like something I can't change it, it just means that my idea is pretty much finalized aside from maybe a few shots here and there that I might end up changing. Now before I started creating my storyboard, I just wanted to have a look at some more film openings. I know I've seen quite a few in my lifetime, but a few more wouldn't hurt. So I watched this video on YouTube called: Top 20 SCARIEST Opening Scenes in Horror Movies. I watched this video more for fun than for my project, but it did end up reminding me of the feeling that I want to emulate in my opening. So with that said, here is my beautiful story board!! (I can't draw):

















I ran out of storyboarding paper in the end so I got creative!! But I am really happy with my idea, and I was really able to picture shot by shot what I wanted so I am very excited to see it come to life. One thing I need to figure out before I begin filming is the music I want to use because, at the beginning of my opening, I want the group of friends to be dancing to a song, so I will do some research on some songs. My teacher gave my class a few websites that have royalty-free music such as freesound.org, bulletproofbear.com, bensound.com, and purple-planet.com. I will take a look at these websites and see if I find something that I like. See you next time!
 

Group meeting

Hello, so today in class we had this thing called a "group meeting." We got put into groups with our classmates and we would go around and present our ideas and listen to any advice or criticisms. This was VERY helpful for me because it helped me make some changes that I think are necessary.

When I presented my idea to my group they all thought that my idea was very good. One of my group members brought up a really good point that, if the main character and all of his friends were kidnapped in the first two minutes, that might reveal too much about the film in too little time. Instead, he proposed that when Asher goes to the bathroom, he sees the glove and then a vision occurs where he sees the campsite empty with a white glove on it, but then he wakes up and it didn't actually happen. This would foreshadow that something might happen, while still reinforcing the fact that my character has visions. He also proposed that in the beginning when Asher has visions about his mother's death, instead of showing the hospital, I can allude to it by having hospital noises in the background which makes it less abrupt and sudden that Asher has this ability. The good thing is that I haven't storyboarded yet so the only thing I have to change is my script at the end and my story outline.

Here is an example from Inception that is the same concept that I want to do. Different contexts, different ways of achieving the concept but it's the same idea (except my character won't be dreaming he'll have a vision). (watch from 1:25-2:11)

Here are the updated versions of both:


STORY OUTLINE:
-Friends driving to camping sites and listening to music having fun
-It is late afternoon the sun is still out when the friends get to the camping site
-They get out of the car and start unpacking their camping gear
-Asher is the last one to get his stuff and as he is getting his stuff a picture is peeking out from one of his bags
-He takes the picture and looks at it, It is a picture of him and his mom and he gets a vision
-In the vision a heart monitor is beeping and it flatlines
-During the vision clip of the hospital lights and other things that infer the hospital appear
-His friends call to him and he is brought out of vision, he puts the picture away and grabs his stuff-A shot from inside trees shows the friends setting up implying they are being watched
- Happy music as they are setting up different shots but happy music stops when the shot from inside the trees occurs
- Once the kids are done they are sitting across the campfire, the camera goes around in a circle showing the dynamics of the group (sisters, boyfriend, etc) shot stops on Asher as he is talking to Claire and mid-conversation he gets a vision
-During vision heartbeat in the background and flashes of the cross, the glove, the hut, and the woods crosses occur
-It is a slow zoom so when inserts finish it is a tight close causing discomfort
- Claire snaps him out of it and she asks if he is okay
-He said yes but that he needed to go to the bathroom
-Another shot from the other side of the woods shows Asher getting up and walking into the forest
-A shot from behind showing Asher’s back but peeing sound effects plays
-Handheld shots make it look like someone is behind Asher
-Asher hears something and turns around
-He sees nothing but a white glove
-He finishes peeing and sees a white glove on the floor
-He goes to check it out and realizes that it is the same one as his vision, he then touches is
-He hears screaming from the campsite and rushes to go see what happened
-A close up of Ashers face shows fear
-an eyeline match shows the campsite empty with a white glove
-and then another close up of Ashers face
-and then another eyeline match shows his friends back where they were before
-the opening ends with a look back at Ashers face with confusion with tension broken


SCRIPT (Formatting is wrong because I copied and pasted it):


EXT.CLAIRE’S CAR- LATE AFTERNOON

A group of friends listening to music in the car, everyone having a good time as they pull up to the campsite. The teens get out of the car and start taking out their stuff from the car.
RUBY
(over chatter)
Claire, can you open the trunk?

CLAIRE

Yeah


ASHER is the last one to get his stuff. When he goes to get his bag he notices a picture peeking out. It was a picture of him and his mother. He picks it up and gets a vision.


CUT TO:

INT. Hospital- 2017

ASHER has a vision of his mother's death, *only sound


HEART MONITOR GOING VERY FAST

ASHERS MOTHER

My boy. I will always look after you.


HEART MONITOR FLATLINES


CUT TO:


EXT. BACK OF CLAIRE’S CAR- LATE AFTERNOON


ASHER gets pulled out of vision. MARK yells from across the street on the campsite.


MARK

(yelling)
Asher…get your ass over here, don’t think you can get out of helping!!


JADE

Let him be Mark


ASHER pauses for a second. He puts the picture back in the bag, grabs his stuff, and closes the trunk.


ASHER

(YELLING)

Calm down kid, I’m coming-I’m coming


ASHER walks to the campsite and sets his stuff down. All the friends set up their stuff and sit at the bonfire. The friends talk and fool around until ASHER gets another vision. He sees flashes of a cross necklace, a glove, a wooden hut, and wooden crosses. He then gets pulled out of his vision.


CLAIRE

(TOUCHES HIS SHOULDER)

Are you okay?


ASHER

(STILL OUT OF IT)

Y-Yeah, I just need to go to the bathroom


ASHER gets up and walks to the forest so he can pee. Once he finishes peeing he hears something behind him. He turns around and sees a white glove on the floor in the distance. He walks toward the glove and picks it up. When he picks up the glove he enters a vision (the viewer doesn’t know) he hears screaming coming from the campsite so he runs to see what happened. He looks and sees that the campsite is empty except for a white glove. He looks again and his friends are back, establishing it was a vision.


THE END


Now that I have updated all of my papers, I can start storyboarding. I am really happy we got to do this meeting because it helped me figure out how to achieve my vision (no pun intended) without giving everything away in the first two minutes.

SCREENPLAY

Hello! Today in my Aice Media class we had a lesson on screenwriting and the proper ways to write one which helped me A LOT. I was going to rely on outside sources like this article on Indeed, but now I don't have to!!!

Some specific things I learned were that characters names in the script have to be typed in all capital letters, there are different alignments for different things like the dialogue is centered while the scene heading is left, and that you shouldn't include specific shots in a traditional screenplay because it is not your job as a writer.

After learning and reflecting on these things, HERE IS MY SCRIPT!!!

Foresight

By

Julia Amigorena

Date: Feb 26, 2024

EXT.CLAIRE’S CAR- LATE AFTERNOON

A group of friends listening to music in the car, everyone having a good time as they pull up to the campsite. The teens get out of the car and start taking out their stuff from the car.

 

RUBY

(over chatter)

Claire, can you open the trunk?

CLAIRE

Yeah

ASHER is the last one to get his stuff. When he goes to get his bag he notices a picture peeking out. It was a picture of him and his mother. He picks it up and gets a vision.



CUT TO:

INT. Hospital- 2017

ASHER has a vision of his mother's death, hospital lights and a clinic-like area are shown

(HEART MONITOR GOING VERY FAST)

ASHERS MOTHER

My boy. I will always look after you.

(HEART MONITOR FLATLINES)

CUT TO:


EXT. BACK OF CLAIRE’S CAR- LATE AFTERNOON



ASHER gets pulled out of vision. MARK yells from across the street on the campsite.

MARK

(yelling)

Asher…get your ass over here, don’t think you can get out of

helping!

JADE

Let him be Mark

ASHER pauses for a second. He puts the picture back in the bag, grabs his stuff, and closes the trunk. He is back to normal.

ASHER

(YELLING)

Calm down Kid, I’m coming-I’m coming

ASHER walks to the campsite and sets his stuff down. All the friends set up their stuff and sit at the bonfire. The friends talk and fool around until ASHER gets another vision. He sees flashes of a cross necklace, a glove, a wooden hut, and wooden crosses. He then gets pulled out of his vision.

CLAIRE

(TOUCHES HIS SHOULDER)

Are you okay?

ASHER

(STILL OUT OF IT)

Y-Yeah, I just need to go to the bathroom

ASHER gets up and walks to the forest so he can pee. Once he finishes peeing he hears something behind him. He turns around and sees a white glove on the floor in the distance. He walks toward the glove and picks it up. He then realizes it was the same glove as his vision and before he can react a hand with a white glove pulls him out of frame and the campsite is seen as empty with a white glove on the floor.


THE END

Now that my script is done, I can start writing my storyboard and shot list!!

STORY OUTLINE

Hello, I'm back. Today I am going to be creating a story outline so I can write my script and storyboard next week!!

Before I began writing my story outline I checked out this article on writers.com called How to Write a Story Outline, to learn a little more about story outlines and how to write them. The article mentions something interesting about using different approaches to story outlines. There is a plot approach where you focus on the key plot points and write your story outline based on that, a scene approach where you focus your story outline on the different scenes in your story, a theme-based approach where you write about the themes you want to advance in your story, and there's Freytag's Pyramid approach which you write your story outline based around the Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution of your story. Since I am creating a film opening which is only part of a story, it wouldn't make sense for me to use Freytag's Pyramid, plot, and theme approaches. That leaves the scene approach which either way I found most appealing because it lets me also incorporate any ideas I have for possible shots and angles.

Now that I know a little bit more about story outlines I'm going to get writing! For the information in my story outline, I am going to use the character descriptions I wrote about in my last blog, my general idea blog post, and other information in my blogs that might be important to my story. After around 35 minutes, here is my story outline:

Setting: camping grounds (Markham Park bonfire area)

Premise: Friends on a camping trip, having fun until they are kidnapped by a cult and forced to convert.

Characters:


Asher- a 16-year-old boy who lost his mother at age 10. Since then he has experienced visions about past or future events which sometimes are irrelevant therefore he tends to ignore them. He is a kind, funny guy who despite his grief, lives a happy life.


Mark- a 16-year-old boy who has been Asher’s best friend since birth. Mark’s mom is like a second mom to Asher and he considers Asher a brother. He is not the smartest one in the group but he tries. He has a girlfriend Ruby who has changed him for the better he loves her very much.


Ruby- A 17-year-old girl who is dating Mark. She is in the top 2% of her school for academics, she is beautiful and kind, and she loves her twin sister Jade a lot. Mark and Ruby have been dating for all of high school, and they plan on staying together when they leave for college.


Jade- A 17-year-old girl who stands out in a crowd. She has a unique style and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She thinks school is stupid and plans on pursuing music as her career. She has a band with her boyfriend which her friends don’t like so he isn’t part of their group. She is free-spirited and very caring, and although they are very different Ruby is her best friend.


Claire- A 17-year-old girl who had been best friends with Ruby and Jade since middle school. She is relatively shy and keeps to herself, but with her friends, she lets loose a little. She secretly likes Asher but would never tell him because she is scared of ruining their friendship. Ruby and Jade tease her for this.

Outline:

-Friends driving to camping sites and listening to music having fun

-It is late afternoon the sun is still out when the friends get to the camping site

-They get out of the car and start unpacking their camping gear

-Asher is the last one to get his stuff and as he is getting his stuff a picture is peeking out from one of his bags

-He takes the picture and looks at it, It is a picture of him and his mom and he gets a vision

-In the vision a heart monitor is beeping and it flatlines

-During the vision clip of the hospital lights and other things that infer the hospital appear

-His friends call to him and he is brought out of vision, he puts the picture away and grabs his stuff

-A shot from inside trees shows the friends setting up implying they are being watched

- Happy music as they are setting up different shots but happy music stops when the shot from inside the trees occurs

- Once the kids are done they are sitting across the campfire, the camera goes around in a circle showing the dynamics of the group (sisters, boyfriend, etc) shot stops on Asher as he is talking to Claire and mid-conversation he gets a vision

-During vision heartbeat in the background and flashes of the cross, the glove, the hut, and the wood crosses occur

-It is a slow zoom so when inserts finish it is a tight close causing discomfort

- Claire snaps him out of it and she asks if he is okay

-He said yes but that he needed to go to the bathroom

-Another shot from the other side of the woods shows Asher getting up and walking into the forest

-A shot from behind showing Asher’s back but peeing sound effects plays

-Handheld shots make it look like someone is behind Asher

-Asher hears something and turns around

-He sees nothing but a white glove

-He finishes peeing and goes to check out the white glove

-A shot shows his face as he realizes it is the same one from his vision

-Before he can do anything a hand with a white glove puts a hand over his face and pulls him

-the opening ends

This story outline will make my life 100 times easier next week when I begin to solidify my plans for my opening. See you soon!!

Creating things

Now that I have my idea, I want to focus on how I am going to make it happen. One thing that will help me picture my idea is a mood board. I created this using Canva with pictures from Pinterest, my camera roll, and Google. Here is my mood board:

I used the pictures I took of the setting I am going to film in and incorporated other pictures that brought in the cult and religion aspects of my film opening. I like this mood board a lot and I will keep it in mind when I start incorporating mise-en-scene elements into my film opening. Two mise-en-scene elements that I already mentioned in my idea are the cross necklace and the white gloves. Here is a picture of both: 

The next thing I wanted to do was choose who I wanted to be in my film and establish the characters in my film. In my film opening, I want there to be 5 characters two boys and three girls. The main character who is having visions will be named Asher. He is a 16-year-old, smart, and funny kid with a troubled past. When he was 10 his mother died unexpectedly and now he lives alone with his father, who has not grieved from her death and takes out his anger on Asher. Whenever something bad is going to happen Asher sees part of it before it is about to happen. These visions began three months after his mother died, and he likes to think it is his mother warning him of danger. Despite having a rough past, Asher has excelled in school and has a great group of friends whom he would do anything for. 

Asher's best friend Mark is the other boy in the group. Mark is 16 years old and can be described as slower than most but as sweet as they come. Mark and Asher have been best friends since birth because their moms were best friends. After his mom passed, Mark's mom became a mother figure to Asher and he considers Mark to be his brother.

Mark's girlfriend Ruby is at the top of her class and gorgeous too. Mark and Ruby met in one of their classes and Ruby offered to tutor Mark. Later, Mark asked her out and they've been together ever since. They share the same friends and people say they are High School Sweethearts.

Ruby has a twin sister named Jade who is a free-spirited, kind girl who is the opposite of Ruby. She fails all her classes but has no care in the world about it. She has a band with some of her other friends and a rocker boyfriend who none of her friends like so he is never invited to things. Ruby and Jade are inseparable despite their opposite personalities. 

Lastly, there's Ruby and Jade's best friend Claire who secretly has a crush on Asher but will never admit it. Ruby and Jade have been trying to set them up for years but it never happens. Claire is a quiet, introverted girl, but she has a great sense of humor and knows how to have fun. Ruby, Jade, and Claire met in middle school and since then Claire has been like the third sister to them. 

All 5 of them met in high school and became a friend group almost instantly. They hang out all the time and go on fun trips like to the beach, to the city, and camping.

Here are pictures of the people I want as each character (I still need to confirm with a few of them but I'm pretty sure this is what it will look like):

Asher

Mark

Ruby

Jade

Claire

The people that I know are very talented and great actors as they are in theater. I am sure that they can bring my vision to life and that is why I chose them. Today's progress really helped me picture my film opening and soon I can start script writing, planning shots, and storyboarding.

IDEA!

And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for... my idea.

I know I briefly mentioned my idea in the past but now, in detail, I will walk you through my idea.

My film will revolve around the forest setting that I included pictures of a few blog posts ago (scroll down if you want to see it). My film will be about a boy who has a special ability. His mother died when he was ten. And ever since then, he has been getting these migraines whenever something eventful is about to happen. When he is experiencing migraines, he gets these short almost dreamy-like flashes that show things about what is about to occur. In other words, he can see small details relating to events that are about to happen or that have already happened. His visions are not always related to bad things, sometimes they are flashbacks of past events, or random clips of images that are irrelevant. Because of their inconsistency, the boy tends to ignore them most of the time. He has not told anyone about his ability and the boy likes to think that his visions are sent by his mother to look after him. He and his friends go and a camping trip and are kidnapped by a religious cult that is trying to recruit them.

The film starts off with a group of friends driving on a camping trip and setting up their camp near a bonfire. While they are setting up, there is going to be a shot filmed from inside the trees, watching the kids set up. This implies that they are being watched. After they finish there will be a shot of everyone sitting around the campfire talking and having a good time until the focus is drawn to the boy. I want to use an eerie ringing noise to show that he is getting a migraine. As the ringing is occurring the chatter from his friends gets louder and louder. Then, I want there to be a slow zoom on the boy getting a headache and as the shot gets closer I want there to be four quick inserts with a dreamy-like filter (to indicate it is not reality). One of a cross around someone's neck, one of the wooden hut that I took a picture of in the other blog, one of a white glove, and one of a ton of sticks that are shaped into crosses. As the shot gets closer to his face and the noise gets louder and louder, his friend touches him on the shoulder and gets him out of the migraine. The suspense is interrupted. His friend asks him if he's okay and he says yes but that he needs to pee. His friends think it's weird but ignore it and keep talking. As the boy walks to the forest to use the bathroom, another shot filmed from inside the forest, shows the boy walking in the direction of the camera. One thing I forgot to mention is that with all of the shots filmed from inside the forest, I want them to be handheld to make them shaky and almost POV shots. Continuing, there will be a shot filmed from behind the boy (with the handheld) and a peeing sound effect to imply he is peeing, and then once he is finished he hears a rustle in the leaves behind him. So he turns around, building suspense but nothing is there. He turns back around to head back to the campfire but pauses for a second. After the pause, he starts walking back, and a close-up of him shows a white glove covering his mouth and pulling him. And that is how the opening ends.

I plan on either putting the title after the distribution logos along with a black screen with facts about cults and disappearances or incorporating it at the beginning when the friends are setting up their camp. The credits will appear while they are driving and setting up. This is my basic outline of the story but some things might change as the process continues. I need to decide who I want to cast in my film and what mise-en-scene elements I want to incorporate. I also plan on making my mood board and storyboard soon.

RESEARCH/NEW IDEAS

Hey, I'm back with some fun new ideas!

I'm a little ahead of schedule and think I have my idea...but this blog post is not about that so you'll have to wait (sorry).

Like I said in my last blog post, I was curious about whether I wanted my film opening to be a found-footage film or something just based around the forest area I found. So, to decide I did research on both things. Dashcam is a movie about a girl who is on live stream and captures these weird supernatural events in her life. Although it isn't a found-footage film, it is a cool concept that I thought I should look into. I also came across this movie called Horror in the High Desert which revolves around a guy named Gary who among many other people in the U.S. mysteriously disappears in the woods. This one is not solely a found footage film as it shows his friends and family trying to find him, but I really liked the film opening. It is a time-lapse of what seems to be the Nevada desert in black in white, with clips of dead animals, and a voiceover of his friends and family seeming to be interviewed about his disappearance. I could not find a video with just the film opening on YouTube so I am unable to embed it or link it but I think I described it pretty well. Another thing that I liked about this film's opening is that, once the voiceover ends, a black screen is shown with facts about his disappearance and other facts about the events. This is also seen in the Blair Witch Project when it describes what the kids are doing. Here is an example.

Before I could do any more research, I talked to my teacher and she brought up a very good point. Found-footage films do not illustrate any knowledge of camera shots and angles, which is something that I do want to illustrate in my film opening. That being said, I stopped researching those types of films and started researching thrillers in general. Before I move on, I want to mention that although I am not doing found footage film, my research did bring me an idea that I want to incorporate into my film which is the black screen with white text after the distribution logos. I think this is a cool thing that is used in many horror/thriller movies and provides suspense and context simultaneously. Moving forward I did some research on one of my favorite movies Zodiac. The film opening of this movie is very long, but there are some things that I took away from it. Here's the film's opening. Although the topic of the movie is nothing similar to what I want to do, I like the opening because of the way that it introduces conflict. The film starts off happy and normal like most thrillers do, but after some introduction to the setting which is California, the conflict is introduced. A sketchy car parks behind the two kids and then drives away. The car then returns and parks behind them so they can't move. The driver gets out of the car and shines a flashlight at them so they can't see and then shoots them, introducing a character vs. character conflict. This is what I want to do except there will be no killing, and it is not a murder. One thing that I was curious about was some general genre conventions of a thriller. North Dakota South University says "A good thriller puts the hero in danger early and never lets up... Thrillers tend to want to be small. It's like putting your hero in a box and squeezing. One of the advantages of this narrowing of focus is that thrillers maximize emotion." This is something I definitely want to look into. No matter what type of thriller I end up doing, I want the feeling of suspense to be the same. I think the premise of my thriller will be about cults. I will make a blog post about the specifics next week but to put it simply: a group of friends is hanging out in the woods and they are kidnapped by a religious cult and forced to conform. There is a supernatural twist to it that I will explain later. 

After a lot of research, I've seen a lot of things that I would want to incorporate into my film, such as the black screen before credits saying something like "There are around 10,000 cults in the United States", introducing character vs. character conflict, and developing my opening by starting off normal and later building suspense. Next, I will introduce my idea, look into other genre conventions like music, credit types, and mise-en-scene elements and I will begin script writing. See you next time!

Don't get ahead of yourself...

In my last blog posting, I came up with a possible genre and idea. I was inspired by the Blair Witch Project (TBWP) and came across many other "lost footage" films. The only thing I'm still trying to decide is if I want my project to be like TBWP in the sense that it is lost footage, or in the sense that kids are exploring the woods and something bad happens. I think if I did both, my film would be too similar to TBWP. Putting that aside, I'm continuing to do research on thriller/horror genre conventions and I will share my research soon. But, before I get all excited about my idea and everything, I NEED a good plan. That's just the type of person I am. So, I made myself a very detailed document with reminders, my schedule (ideally), blog post ideas, and a progress marker. Here is my schedule:

Planning outline:

Reminders:

-Don’t get overwhelmed

-If you can’t do it on the specific day that is written it is okay, just get it done

-If you think it is fitting to change what week you do something that is okay, just don’t fall behind

-If you need help ask

-Be realistic 

Week one (2/8-2/11)

Start brainstorming

Write an introduction blog post (Thursday)

Watch student film openings

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week two (2/12-2/18)

Pick a genre

Make a planning post (Tuesday)

Pick Genre

Make a post about genre research (mise-en scene, fonts, credits,editing) (Thursday)

Make a post about other short film research (professional) (Sunday)

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week three (2/19-2/25)

Choose idea for sure

Choose who you want to be in film

Choose approach (mystery, introduction, background etc)

Research film openings in genre and that use approach (Monday)

Story Outline/ Brainstorming (describe, analyze, reflect) (Wednesday)

Do research on script writing and begin script (Friday)

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week four (2/26-3/3)

Create shot list/ storyboard and make blog posting (Tuesday)

Research filming locations (Thursday)

Create filming/ editing schedule (Sunday)

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week five (3/4-3/10)

develop mise-en-scene elements (monday)

try to film this week but if not have a plan for when you’re going to film

summary/ analysis of research and mise-en-scene elements (wednesday)

document filming process (whatever day you film)

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week six (3/11-3/17)

continue documenting the filming process (Tuesday)

begin editing and documenting the process (Thursday)

research editing techniques and things you want to incorporate (if necessary) (Sunday)

alternate: start thinking about responses to the creative critical response questions.

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week seven (3/18-3/24)

Research for critical reflection (Monday)

Document editing process/ reflect on editing process (Wednesday)

Finish editing film opening

Get feedback on the final edit

Discuss peer feedback (Friday)

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week eight (3/25-3/31)

Finish research for CCR questions

Create one CCR project and document process (tuesday)

Create other CCR project and document process (thursday)

Was this Completed? Yes or No

Week nine (4/1-4/2)

Create final project reflection (monday)

Post project on blog (wednesday)

Post CCR on blog (Friday)

Was this Completed? Yes or No

YAY YOU FINISHED!!!!!!

I made this so that I could break down the project into pieces. In my mind, it makes it less overwhelming and more manageable. I also made reminders to myself like "If you can't do it on the specific day that is written it is okay, just get it done," to remind myself that this isn't a strict plan I have to follow, but more a goal I want to achieve. I also put at the end of each week " Was this Completed? Yes or No" to track my progress as the project goes on. It gives me motivation to finish each week's agenda because then I get to highlight "Yes". I made something that I know works for me and something that will help me be successful. I am going to check in with my schedule when I'm writing blogs and at the end of each week to make sure I am on track. I'll be back soon with information about my possible genre!

IDEA??

Today is Valentine's Day, and I went to my local park to hang out because we didn't have school. While I was there, I began getting ideas for my film opening. I was walking in this area covered by trees and came across this bonfire area with benches. There was also this creepy hut that I found. Here are some pictures:

I'm thinking of two things. Either a thriller or a coming-of-age film. I think a thriller would make more sense in the setting, but I think I could make it go either way. The first thing I thought of when I saw the hut was the Blair Witch Project and that's why I thought of doing a thriller. The Blair Witch Project is a film that was marketed as being "lost camera footage" of a group of teens exploring their town's urban myth the "Blair Witch." The acting in the film was so real-looking that when the film came out, everyone was traumatized because they thought the footage was real. Later it was announced that it was just for marketing and the movie was staged, but the premise of the film is still very unique and terrifying. I love how the movie is filmed from a shaky old camera because it really adds to the chaos and horror of the film, and I also like how a lot of the scenes are filmed at night with flash or with low visibility. I would want to incorporate some of these techniques into my future project. 

 I think with a good plan this could be a great idea, and the Blair Witch Project would serve as inspiration for my film opening. I would want my opening to establish conflict, specifically character vs. character (if I want it to be a murder) or character vs. supernatural (if I want it to be a ghost or something else). I'm going to do more research on the Blair Witch Project and other films that may be similar to what I want to do, but for now, I think I found my genre!!!

The beginning

Today was the beginning of what seems to be an eternal project. Don't get me wrong I'm really excited to start, but I'm also scared.  Having this much freedom with a project is awesome but also overwhelming. There are so many ways I could this project and that scares me a bit. Right off the bat, I think I might want to use copyrighted music because I like making my life more difficult. I'm not very familiar with non-copyrighted music, because who listens to that, so I'll do some research before I decide. I also should probably have a genre and idea before I make the decision but I'm not sure (kidding). I think before I decide what genre and idea I want to pursue I should watch some past examples of film openings that my teacher has provided. I should also research real film openings and watch a few to get ideas. I would love to tell you what I'm leaning towards but I genuinely have no idea. I could make a film opening that's a coming of age film or a psychological thriller. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm excited and that for a long time, this blog will be dedicated to my experience, hopefully a good experience, with this project. 

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

Research

After being given the genre pop and choosing the song Electric Feel by MGMT because of the creative freedom it gave, my group began their research. We were to research 4 case studies from two different record labels associated with the pop genre. Each member of the group did one artist. Within those two labels, we chose Charlie Puth and Ed Sheeran under Atlantic Records, and Harry Styles and Rosalia under Columbia Records. In hindsight, it might've been better to choose one popular record label with various artists and another small company with few artists, providing a wider range of information for our case studies. Besides the case studies, we also researched the history of the two Record labels such as who they are owned by and when it was founded. We were also to provide information about other artists that are signed to these record labels, which highlighted the range of artists signed to these companies from Bruce Springsteen to Lil Nas X.

Brainstorming

Once we finished researching our genre, we began brainstorming ideas for our music video:

         As you can see we had several different ideas on how to approach our music video. One thing we failed to think about was how the music video reflected our overall marketing campaign. Throughout the whole brainstorming process we were fixated on what type of music video to do, what story, what to wear, and who to have in our music video, instead of focusing on our artist's campaign and how the music video would be as a reflection of the artist. We approached it like the music video was the first priority and the campaign came second. Putting that aside, we decided to do a promotional/ storytelling music video about a girl and a boy meeting at a party but with a twist. The girl is going to have electricity edited on her so that she passes it on to the boy and that is the "electric feel" the song refers to. The promotional part of the music video will be filmed in a dark garage with instruments. The music video includes dark colors like blue black and grey to set our desired tone of electric and cold.

Production/ Campaign

      As for the marketing campaign, we began collecting ideas as our production process began. We first made the storyboard for our film which my whole group adjusted until we were happy with the product. We were sure that we wanted our band to wear something edgy and preppy to reflect their youth. An example here:

         We then came up with the idea of making the band a family band. We thought this would cater to larger audiences and attract more people. We found our main inspiration in the style 90's punk and thought it would make our artist stand out while also attracting people because this style is very popular at the moment. After we decided that we began filming. We had set two days to film. One was after school and was the promotional part, and one was on the weekend and was the storytelling part. The promotional part came first and this we did in one of our group members' garages, with blue LED lights and a skylight lamp to adhere to the cool tones we wanted to incorporate. We told all of our actors to bring button-up shirts and ties and we got to filming. We used one of our group member's Sony cameras to film the entirety of the music video. We thought this would give it a more professional and clean look. We filmed the promotional clips chronologically and checked them off when we finished. This ensured that we didn't miss any shots and that we had enough. For some shots, we specified in the storyboard that there would be inserts during the shot to make it more interesting, so we had to come up with additional angles to film. The filming process went smoothly and we finished after around 2 hours. Here are some pictures from our timing process:

        A few days later came our storytelling film day. We had a friend who was filming a project of her own and allowed us to film on one of her sets where there was a party occurring since we were already in her film. I was the girl in our music video so I wore something I think embodied my "bright" personality in the film, and we told the guy in the story to wear something plain. We had fewer shots to film and there were only two people that had to be in this part, so this day of filming was supposed to be easier. But, it did not turn out this way because we had to film this video whenever we weren't filming for her project which was not a lot. Eventually, after stressful takes and redos, we got all the shots we needed to complete our music video. 

Post-Production

        We decided to edit our video on Capcut which is the sister company to Tiktok, because of its easy accessibility, and cool effects. One of our group members decided to take on editing by herself, and she showed us her progress as she went to make sure we all liked it. The time after filming and before the due date was dedicated to working on our marketing campaign. As I said before, we had very loose plans for our marketing campaign, and it required a long group discussion to figure out what it was exactly we wanted to do. We went for a messy scrapbook look in our presentation to encapsulate the youthful and edgy sides of our band. Here is an example:

We decided on the name "All 4 One" because there are 4 members and they are all part of one family. This was a clever way of reminding audiences of their background.

My group decided to utilize social media like many artists, to reach our target audience. We also made posters (physical and digital), a website, and a TikTok challenge to further promote our artist. Even though our marketing campaign could've been better planned, my group and I came up with really good ideas nonetheless, and I think it turned out really well.

Presentation

Originally, our presentation was intended to be in person in front of our class, but due to many groups being behind schedule, our teacher decided to extend the deadline by 4 days but make the presentation virtual. This means that we would do a voiceover of our presentation explaining all of our choices and information. My group's presentation was 14 slides so we decided to make two people do 4 slides and two do 3. The two that do 4 slides will do the opening and closing slides since those are the easiest. I chose to voice the first 4 slides of the presentation which included the title slide, inspiration for the band, the family aspect, and the band's target audience. In that voiceover, I explain my group's thought process and intention behind certain choices, and I elaborate on the information presented on the slides.

Reflection

I really enjoyed this project. I liked the complexity of the task, and I liked the content associated with the task. Music has always been very important to me and learning about the way it is made and distributed has been really interesting to me. This project taught me the importance of good and thought-out planning and how big of an impact that can have on a project. It also taught me about time management and how you have to set due dates for yourself when doing a long project like this, which I think will be very helpful when developing my Cambridge portfolio. This assignment was also very overwhelming at the beginning because there was a lot that had to be done, but this taught me that if you break something really big into pieces it is not as bad and it is more manageable which is something that I need to remember when going on to start my Cambridge portfolio.

Music Marketing Blog Post #1

In this project, my group was given the genre of pop and 4 songs that we could choose to make a music video and a marketing campaign. We chose the song Electric Feel by MGMT because of the creative freedom that we would have with the song. We were then instructed to make 4 case studies about 2 record labels associated with our genre. We chose Columbia Records and Atlantic Records because of their popularity and the wide variety of pop artists to choose from. My group decided to choose pop artists we thought really embodied different sides of the genre like Harry Styles, Charlie Puth, Ed Sheeran, and Rosalia (the four we chose). Since my group consisted of 4 people, we decided to split up the work so everyone could do a case study and also do research on the record label's history and other artists signed. I did Ed Sheeran's case study which I found very interesting because I wasn't aware of his humble beginnings.

 Once we finished doing research about our genre, we began to brainstorm ideas for our music video and marketing campaign. Here is a picture of a brainstorm our group had in class about our music video:

As you can see we had several different ideas but one thing we all agreed on very quickly was that we wanted to do a promotional and storytelling music video. My group member and I have a recreational band in real life so we had instruments and a place to play, which is why we wanted to incorporate it into the video. From there, we began to think of a possible storyline. We knew it had to be simple and straight forward but we didn't want it to be cliche and boring. We ended up choosing the classic boy meets girl and they fall in love story, but with a twist. She was going to have electricity edited on her so that she passes it on to the boy and that is the "electric feel" the song refers to. We also wanted to use dark colors, like blue, black, and grey throughout the video to set the tone of electric, and cool.

One problem we faced was that one of our group members was going to be out of town when we wanted to film the promotional part of the video (which he was going to be the lead singer for), but we found one of our other friends to cover. We also weren't sure what editing software to use for the electricity part of the video, so we asked our teacher and we were given the option of using Canva, Capcut, or Adobe Animations. We decided to stick with  CapCut or Canva for the effects part of the video because of their diverse templates and designs. My group has already filmed the promotional part of the video at this time, but we still have to film the story part of the video and finish the marketing campaign presentation which we have already begun.