Week 2 Posting (General Plot)

After speaking with my group we have decided on a general outline of how we plan on creating the plot for our film opening. Since we have chosen the genre thriller/mystery we need to create suspense through visual and auditory techniques.

The opening of the film will be in a graveyard in the daylight

These shots will transition into those in a dimly lit house

Then we will cut to the film title followed by the first scene at the start of the beginning of the movie in a boys bedroom with patterns on walls

In a later posting, I will go in depth about what will be done in each scene and how we plan on creating each set.

Week 2 Posting (Change of Genre)

After further discussion with my group we have decided to change our genre of our film opening from horror to thriller. We decided to do this because the aspects of the thriller genre fit much better than the characteristic of a horror film. A horror film typically has some sort of monster or phenomenon that is a danger to the main character or characters. However, thriller would fit our opening better because we plan on creating a plot and film opening that is suspenseful.

This image is what a typical horror film might contain. We won't be doing this and rather have a person as the antagonist. Horror films have antagonists that aren't typical people, they have antagonists that are monsters, ghosts, altered people like in this image (A vampire). Overall, I believe that our choice to research the genre of thriller will greatly assist us in creating a film opening that is consistent with the techniques utilized in the genre.

Week 1 Posing (Planning)

Nothing in this posting is finalized yet and will just act as guidance for the film opening. Set design and plot are the first two aspects we must tackle.

The set design of a horror movie must contain aspects that convey the plot. The plot will need to invoke fear in the viewer. We will do this by creating some sort of monster of phenomenon that the viewer will be scared of.

We want to create a scene where it is building up to one like the one above. We want to develop reason why the main character should be afraid without actually putting them in serious danger. We will most likely be using lamps and other low light lighting sources in our opening because we want there to be a dark atmosphere. We also were thinking about using a fog machine to further develop the felling we hope to achieve

These general concepts will be applied to our film opening. The specifics will be developed in further blog postings.

Week 1 Posting (Research)

      My group has decided upon doing horror as our genre for our film opening. I needed to find out what tactics are used in horror films. I found that horror films are scary because of 10 main aspects: fear of death, darkness, crawling things, traditionally scary places, disfigurement, dismemberment, suspense, spooky music, lightning/thunder, and the use of things that are not typically scary and editing them such as a clown or doll.

This base amount of research will help us plan out the set design. Overall, we will be going for a

suspenseful, dimly lit opening. The plot of the film opening hasn't been determined but this research will assist in accomplishing the main goal of a scary movie which is to cleverly invoke fear kn the viewer.

“The Top Ten Things That Make Horror Movies Scary.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201410/the-top-ten-things-make-horror-movies-scary.

a.  My group comprised of three people was tasked with creating an artist and a marketing plan for them that included a music video. We were given a song from an artist and we had to create an entirely new identity for the artist.

b.  We began to research case studies of bands in the same genre. This allowed for us to be able to create a marketing plan based on successful plans in practice. We also did research on the demographic for our genre and distribution methods. This allowed us to effectively market our artist.

c.  We created a website (https://giulilupica.wixsite.com/scarboy) that showcased all of our marketing creations which allowed us to give potential fans a place to find extra information if they pursued it. We also made social media accounts which will promote the artist by drawing attention to him via advertising. We also created a music video that promoted our song and artist. Below is a screenshot of part of our music video we created.

d.  I have learned many things from this project. The first is the group dynamic, communication makes the group members all satisfied with the final product. The second thing I learned was filming tactics to improve on. The main one is the stabilization of the camera. We filmed in very windy conditions so preparing for the filming conditions can definitely be utilized int the portfolio project. Overall, this project has been very effective in preparing me for the portfolio project.

     This post will be on the topic of the misrepresentation of elderly people in films. This group can be represented in our projects to bring many factors from the table not only are elderly people wise, bu they have their own life stories that people can learn from that deviate from the stereotypical old person. Everyone is unique in their own way and films tend to overlook this when representing older people.

     One example of this is the film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. In this film there is many cliques about old people such as not remembering things or not understanding modern technology. However there is an attempt to correctly represent the elderly in this movie. The producers of the movie represent the aging of older people in the movies which is a step in the right direction for representation of this group the in the film industry.

     Another example of this is the film, The Iron Lady. They represent elderly people by tackling the issues that the weakness of their mental poses as they age. This allows for the personality of the elderly characters to show and deviate from the stereotype. This is definitely a route that is worth considering when representing elderly in media. These tactics can also be applied to represent other groups that tend to not be very outspoken such as people with disabilities where their personal perspective can be very insightful.

     Overall, I believe that these characteristics are fair and would definitely implement them into future projects that I create. These tactics can be applied to many other groups that have trouble being represented properly in film. Most of these groups misrepresentation in film is due to the lack of communication or inability to communicate their feelings and thoughts. Overall I would retain the tactic that these two films used.

1. Genre: Horror
2. Content: These movies are intended to frighten the viewer.
3. Production techniques: Movies in this genre use techniques to scare the viewer such as loud auditory effects and 'evil' people.
4. How is genre marketed: Marketed towards young adults by intriguing them with the plot and visual effects in the trailer, social media is also used often.
5. Sample #1 – IT 2017 -This film embodies the classic horror movie by providing an antagonist, the Clown and then the boy was the antagonist looking for his brother. The film uses many techniques to develop plot with a climaxing part of the movie that was built up with primarily the auditory effects and the fast cuts. 
6. Sample #2 – A Quiet Place - This movie is a great example of the a horror movie because it uses tactics in this case a lack of sound to develop fear in the viewer. The film is effective in doing so therefore it qualifies as a successful horror film.
7. List of 5-7 movies in genre: The Conjuring, Halloween, Get Out, The Nun, Split, and Paranormal Activity.