Portfolio Project Genre #1

 The first genre I researched was comedy. I've always had a special connection with comedy films, and loved watching them. Comedy is a genre that I would be interested in.

For comedy, the typical target audience are kids, teenagers, and adults, usually ages 13-40. People tend to watch comedy movies mainly to relax, escape from their everyday lives, and to entertain themselves.  People are drawn to comedy films due to their relatable humor, awkward situations, and social commentary.

Content-wise, comedy shows/movies usually contain lighthearted and humorous storytelling. Situations that involve misunderstandings and irony are common, and exaggeration is commonly used. Dialogue is often filled with things like sarcasm, quick and snappy comebacks, and ironic moments.

These productions typically use fast pacing that help keep the jokes engaging and making sure they land. Close up shots are also utilized in order to capture facial expressions/interactions. Background music is sometimes used in order to enhance humor. 

In marketing processes, they are usually marketed using trailers which include some of the best jokes, bright posters that show silliness of characters or catchy punchlines. These films usually rely on popular actors and comedians.

Some examples of productions include Anyone But You (2023), starring Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney. This was a romantic comedy that was centered around misunderstandings. It targets young adults and fans of modern romance and also combines humor with relationship development.

Another example is Superbad (2007). This starred Jonah Hill, Seth Rogan, and Emma Stone. It was a teen comedy that was focused on friendship and coming-of-age, and uses exaggerated situations.

Music Marketing Project

 Today marked the end of the music marketing project I created with my friends. This project went extremely well. The song that we chose to make the project was Something from Nothing by Foo Fighters. When creating the project, we built creative ideas about how the music video was going to represent our "band" as a whole, how it would serve as a marketing tool, and how we would use other marketing tools to make our campaign more well rounded. Attached is a "behind-the-scenes" which consists of the work that went into the creation of our project. I hope you enjoy!

https://www.canva.com/design/DAG67GfgCB4/VJTrVxZiaIkgxFPxxY4CUA/watch?utm_content=DAG67GfgCB4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=hb5f9148b20

Music Research and Upcoming Project

 In my Media Studies class, we're learning about the role of music in the world of media. I conducted research about key players in the rock industry, Maneskin and The Strokes. In conducting this research, I studied the company that represents these two groups (Sony Music Group) as well as the groups themselves. I looked at history of the groups, each group's target audience and how they develop their brand identity, and the digital and non-digital methods of marketing and distribution. My research not only helped me learn more about these groups, but also introduced me to methods and strategies that are normally used by rock artists in the industry.

Following this research, I'm working with other students to create a marketing strategy for a brand new artist. We're basing the marketing strategy based on key information that we collected while researching. We're also developing a music video, using a song that was previously released and tying it into how it would market this new artist. The song we've chosen to market our artist is Something from Nothing by Foo Fighters. Our group is working on preliminary planning, like what our project will reflect and how our music video will tie into the marketing plan. I look forward to seeing what we create.

Multimedia Mise-en-Scene Character Project: Avery Norris

This past week, my group and I worked on a Multimedia Mise-en-Scene project where we had to take a one sentence character prompt and turn it into a full representation of that character. 

The character we created is named Avery Norris. She is a reserved college student who keeps to herself. To build her character, we used Pinterest as a resource to find with pictures that match her personality and interests while building a mood board. We also put together a playlist with music that we felt Avery would listen to, music that would her vibe.

When we set up our character station, we kept everything very simple to represent Avery. We included pictures of books, her setting, and the different interests that she has. Using these elements together helped us show her personality clearly and made it easy for people to understand what kind of person she is.

Looking back, I think our group did a good job of creating a clear picture of Avery. We worked well together and made sure every choice connected back to her character. One thing that could have improved our project would be adding some tangible items that could create a stronger first impression or first idea of the character. Overall, I am happy with our final result and how everything came together.

Playlist: https://1drv.ms/v/c/18962bea2175614e/EWjmcjh49MVMiXsNmLRme1kB91AxlCZR3l3BaRimvS8FQA?e=ZH7Obz

Mood Board: https://www.canva.com/design/DAG2DAaM4WQ/bAA8lKp6byCTKjGF-4ctVg/view?utm_content=DAG2DAaM4WQ&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h5a9e986cc6

Action in Films

     Action is a genre in cinema that focuses on fast paced scenes, stunts, and conflicts. It keeps viewers engaged through movement, danger, and suspense. Some subgenres of action include superhero and spy movies. 

  Action movies appeal to a huge range of viewers, which comes from the adrenaline and suspense that the films carry. The biggest fans are those who enjoy thrill, competition, or stories about survival and courage.

The main characters tend to be brave heroes or skilled fighters, and the plot focuses around topics like saving someone, stopping a villain, or completing a mission. These movies have quick pacing, and sometimes have a few slow scenes. Some qualities are things like fights, chases, rescues, and also explosions. Themes that are common in action movies are justice, survival, and personal redemption, and the tone is usually intense.

As for production techniques, handheld and drone shots are used, while quick cuts are used to add to the intensity. Loud and layered sound effects are used, like gunfire and impacts. In things like trailers, the focus is placed on dramatic visuals and stunts, while posters show the hero facing the villain. 

A film that can be used as an example of this is Mission: Impossible - Fallout. It has big stunts, fast pacing, and a lot of suspense. In the movie, Tom Cruise performs his own stunts, adding a real sense of danger. The movie also has intense chases, fights, and combat to show that the stakes are high. 

Another example is John Wick. In the movie, it mixes martial arts with gunfights. There are long takes which make the action relatively easy to follow, and has intensity and suspense throughout the movie.

Some other examples include Die Hard, The Raid: Redemption, Mission: Impossible - the Final Reckoning, Skyfall, The Dark Knight, F1: The Movie, and Heads of State.

Sound Projects

 For the past few weeks, I've been learning about and experimenting with sound in media. I learned about how sounds are added as additional layers and how soundscapes are carefully put together. I also learned about the process of creating foley sounds. 

I then created 2 sound projects: for one, I had to create a soundscape without any additional video, and the sounds themselves had to tell a story. For another, I had to use the video that my partner and I created earlier (the One Word Film), and add a soundscape to that video. 

For the first project, my partner and I first had to brainstorm what the idea for our story would be. We had many, but none appealed to us as much as the idea of creating a battle scene did. We created an outline, where we outlined the different scenes that would take place within our story, and used that as a basis of what our project would encompass. The outline overall helped us stay on track and served as a checklist for us. We used Microsoft ClipChamp to create this soundscape, a resource we found very easy to use. 

In our project, we did a good job of getting the message across. The scene represented the story well. I think we could have improved the output by including a little bit of dialogue or words that added to the story.

This is the project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h69z9a7ZngBRqtMhNSG560u4EQTZwZj-/view?usp=sharing

One Word Film

 This past week, I worked on creating a 60-90 second film whose main purpose was to reflect a single word. After being given a word, my partner and I were instructed to create a brainstorming sheet and a storyboard with at least 15 shots that reflect what we would shoot, what shots would be used, and how we plan on editing the film. Afterwards, we would shoot all the footage that we would need at school and then edit all of the clips together to finally finish our film.

When creating this project, our first task was to find how we would represent the word assigned to us, Awe. After long thought and consideration, we decided to showcase how a student experienced awe through a piece of artwork. We then created our storyboard, where we decided to use a combination of shots, some of which included long shots, medium shots, and close ups. This helped us get a main idea of what we should show in the film, and helped us create an outline for the film. We then recorded the shots during class time at school, and finally brought the shots together into a single film using Adobe Premiere Pro.

Looking back, I feel that my partner and I did a good job of reflecting the sense of awe. Our project showed the awe that the student was experiencing well throughout the shots. Something that could have made our project better would be adjusting the colors during the film in order to strengthen the focus placed on the student and the artwork.

Link to the project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16kqs_XprajS8tf_nVTOY1KsEefvRXJub/view

A page of our storyboard: