Similar to the "Jaws" opening??

    

   I was talking to my mom about the idea and then it suddenly came to me! I suddenly remembered in class when we began discussing the project, my teacher showed us an example film opening and it was for the movie "Jaws." I played it for her and watching it again I realized the structure of it is basically what I was envisioning for my film. This said structure in a nutshell goes from introduction, to craziness as I like to call it, to calm. In the "Jaws" opening the introduction includes meeting 2 characters clearly very carefree, then the craziness comes when the girl is being pulled down to the water by an unknown source and the guy is unconscious, and the calm scene occurs right after as we see the ocean and the waves once again as if nothing had happened.  I will try to find some inspiration for my ending based on this opening which opened up my mind to so many ideas once again!

Link to the opening here :)

Link to movie poster

Sources: 

• “Jaws (1975) - Chrissie's Last Swim Scene (1/10) | Movieclips.” YouTube, YouTube, 27 May 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrEvK-tv5OI. 
• Comicbookhomagec. “Jaws (Movie Poster) Homage Covers.” Sidekick Comics: Comic Book Homage & Parody Covers, 12 Dec. 2021, https://sidekickcomicgear.com/homage-covers/jaws-movie-poster-homage-covers/. 

Let's get to work!

   Ok, I am envisioning this so well that I feel so impressed with myself. Anyway, for now I am most likely going to film in my room since I have both a desk and my bed. However, I am afraid that my room is obviously smaller and has a lot more stuff, meaning more cluster and the vibe I am trying to go for is way more empty so that is something I definitely want to figure out soon. We begin listening to the chime of a clock while we focus on a desk with lots of pill bottles and items that show off a little about the personality of the main character, then we cut to the clock itself revealing the time to be around 4 a.m. or so, cutting to a person barely awake doing work on a computer (the computer being the only source of light in the room). The clock chime gets louder and louder to the point where the character abruptly shuts the computer accordingly with one last chime of the clock. Then we cut to a black screen with the title name of the film. Afterwards we cut to the person already in bed from a high angle, then some close ups of the eyes, hands, etc. and then to put it briefly the episode begins with lots of violent cuts and angles, voiceovers, whispers, and even a shot of two shadows (one being the main character and the other one unknown) with the unknown force hurting the other. The ending I still need to figure out but so far I really like what I came up with. So happy!

Did I finally figure it out?

    Well, after much thinking and discussion today I think I finally found my whole video concept. Yesterday I made a post about how I think a good lens to focus on the video was anxiety, and after literally thinking about it for the entire day I think I got it. Have you ever heard of sleep paralysis? In my opinion there is no other thing ever as nerve racking as not being able to move. I received a lot of help from my parents, when I told them I thought creating a sort of tense atmosphere which would cause a sense of anxiety to the audience we all got to work and together we came up with what could be a really cool opening. Stay tuned to hear more later!

Finally have some concepts!!

    Well, well, well, hello there again blog! I have good news today. I was finally able to come up with some concept ideas for the opening. Not going to lie though, this week was extremely difficult for me to come up with ideas since it was so crazy. Two lockdowns in a week, really? how pathetic. However, I'm not here to talk about my week so without further ado, let's talk plans. First of all, I am fully certain that I want to make a thriller because I think it is the best way to make an impact to my audience in 2 minutes if I do it right. The first concept that came to my mind was actually to make an opening of an individual stranded in an island but in a more mysterious kind of way. Like having the person stressed and trying to find out where they are or how they got there to later cut to them looking at an unknown thing behind the camera and ending right there. I thought about it but then I was like, will I be able to pull off something that I can't really relate to? (I have never been stranded on an island) How can I convey a point if I myself don't understand the situation itself. After much thinking, I narrowed that concept to something that I can manage to do around my community very easily. I am certain we have all at some point experienced anxiety in our lives, so what if I play with that topic (relatable to the audience) and make it into a thrilling and gripping opening that can get people hooked immediately and make them want to keep watching. Obviously the idea still needs a little organization and cleaning up but everything great comes from simple ideas and lots of patience. Anyway that is it for now, I will try to come up with a solid story I can tell through the lens of anxiety and if I can't really think of anything I will focus on something else. 

Schedule!

   As I continue to develop the story, for today I think making a schedule for how it is going to go is best. Since little, I was always taught that being organized is key for success which is why making a schedule will help me to visually see certain aspects of the projects I must have done by specific dates. 

   Week 3: define plot, make storyboard, post to blog

   Week 4: film, research on editing, post to blog

   Week 5: film if necessary, edit, post to blog

   Week 6: begin researching for CCR, finish editing, post to blog

   Week 7: make CCR, post to blog

   Week 8: create reflection, post to blog both finished opening and CCR

   Having a schedule that I can look at will give me deadlines for the things I need to do so I make sure to finish ahead of time, resulting in a much better result at the end as it will not be rushed! 

Parasite Analysis

    The research yesterday kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I want to do a thriller for my opening. I think thrillers are the best way to keep people watching from the very beginning because they are so puzzling, and since the goal for the intro is to do something interesting for the audience, making a thriller opening will allow me to accomplish this more easily. 

   Today, to continue the research I want to talk about one of my personal favorite thrillers that I have ever watched (if not the best) and that is none other than the 2019 film by Bong Joon Ho "Parasite." I absolutely love this movie, and there are so many things that make it great overall. One of these aspects is the development of the main characters of the film. Nowadays movies that have multiple main characters truly leave me very disappointed because their lack of development ruins the movie. However, the opposite occurs in Parasite since everyone is unique and the audience truly gets to see and experience all the crazy different situations they all live through which allowed for audiences to connect with these characters as well as enjoy the movie even more. Also, another thing I really enjoy about this movie is that  the plot twist towards the very end shocks everyone leaves people wondering who the real parasites of the movie actually are. The shots, cinematography, set design, props, costume design, etc. are all beautifully done, however, my favorite thing about this entire movie is surprisingly the symbolism of stairs. Yes, believe it or not staircases were crucial in this film as they, in short words, represented both the ascension to a beautiful and luxurious world and the descent to a completely opposite one. 

   Though I am just doing an opening, I want to be able to use a few of the aspects this beautiful movie created in order to make mine great overall. Parasite has taught me that for my project character development and situational occurrences, music, composition, editing, and symbolism are all things I need to include in order to be even more successful at my job. 

   Anyway, click here or maybe here to check out the resources I read from!

   I leave you with a picture of the cover for Parasite because let's be honest, it is amazing and we all love it. 

   Link to picture here :)

Sources: 

-IMDb.com. (2019, November 8). Parasite. IMDb. Retrieved February 18, 2023, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6751668/ 

-A peek inside the homes in Bong Joon-ho's parasite. South China Morning Post. (2020, February 21). Retrieved February 18, 2023, from https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/tech-design/article/3051568/parasite-how-director-bong-joon-ho-used-staircases 

-Rivera, J. (2020, February 9). 10 reasons why parasite is so excellent. British GQ. Retrieved February 18, 2023, from https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/parasite-review 

More Genre Research!

   Since I need to start coming up with solid ideas for my video, I think some genre research would be a really helpful place to start working. For now, in my mind I think the best genres to act upon according to the resources I have are either drama, horror, or thriller which are the options I have narrowed down to. 

   When it comes to drama, I found a really cool article here which talks about how the success of drama films mainly comes from the fact that they are all based on aspects everyone can relate to like tropes taking place at home, the office, school, etc. Also, the article explained how characters featured on dramas are always dealing with some sort of issue with the world that surrounds them which is a big reason as to why they are always so interesting to people. Some examples include films such as "The Social Network" and "Hidden Figures" where we see the conflict I explained previously. In relation to horror films, I found my information here and said article explained how horror movies serve as an outlet for individuals to escape their reality and place all their focus and anxieties exclusively on the film. Lastly, I did some research on thriller films through this article here which describes how the thriller genre gets your audience to think, feel shock and so many other emotions at once. 

   Thanks to the research, I learned that for the final project I need something that really stands out. Even though I still do not have a solid idea yet, the research helped me understand that to get a stronger final product, though only using one genre, I could make sure to use some aspects from each of the genres I looked up today such as creating relatability/ good characters, some sort of conflict/ suspense, and something that can make my audience think "what is going on" but in the best way possible. 

First Day Research!

   In class today we decided if we were working in groups or if we were doing this individually. On my last post I explained how undecided I was since me and the group work really well together. However, over the weekend I thought really hard about it and came to the conclusion that doing it on my own is best. In order to be successful in the final product, I need to do a lot of research to find inspiration first which is why today I did some research of good film openings to get more ideas. 

   I found multiple examples on the following video here

   On said video, a variety of film openings were shown. However, out of all the openings I decided to do further research on two which are the "Guardians of the Galaxy" film by James Gunn in 2014 and "American Psycho" by Mary Barron in 2000. For the Guardians of the Galaxy intro, I love how with no dialogue, the character's personality is showcased to perfection. As soon as it begins, we may think the character is mysterious from his entrance, however, the music accompanied with his dance moves, and his attempt at lip syncing reveals the man is carefree and untroubled. When it comes to the American Psycho intro, even though the actual opening credits is slow paced, the interesting part to focus on is definitely the morning routine of the man because as well as in Guardians of the Galaxy we find out everything we need to know about the character which is that he is an empty man who lacks empathy or feelings overall. I think this is extremely crucial for my project because in order to have an impactful opening scene I have to find a way to thoroughly develop a character and their personality in a two minute time frame. 

Guardians of the Galaxy opening here

American Psycho morning routine part here

   I will definitely do more research on other openings because I find it extremely helpful for development of the scene itself. This way, when the time comes, I will be happy with my results. 

Anyway here are all of the sources used for the research!

• WatchMojo.com. “Top 20 Best Opening Movie Scenes Ever.” YouTube, 25 Sept. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwqsTyYeqsA.
• OutOfTimeMan. “Guardians of the Galaxy [Intro Dance Scene] 1080p HD.” YouTube, 26 Nov. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iw0FEaB9E4.
• Movieclips. “Morning Routine - American Psycho (1/12) Movie CLIP (2000) HD.” YouTube, 15 Mar. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjKNbfA64EE.

First Portfolio Project Blog :)

    Hi blog!! Right now I feel very excited because we now begin the phase of our portafolio project for the Cambridge exam this year. As excited as I may feel though, part of me doesn't really know where to begin.  First of all, I don't really know if I am going to be working in a group or not. Every other project I have done in my group with Luisa, Lauren, and Estefania before have been very successful overall. However, this is a big, big project that I really want to and need to do well on meaning I am considering working on my own. I say this because I don't necessarily want to depend on someone to do their work all the time. Also, I don't know what their schedules look like so that could be a big problem when organizing times to meet up and film or even work together at someone's house, and another big issue, four people is kind of like a lot of people. 

   I talked with the girls last class and they also seemed unsure as to what we should do, so I told them to brainstorm ideas that we could do as a group but also individual ideas that we obviously don't need to share to see what we could come up with and if we liked the group ones better then we're set, if not we'll just work alone. We also said that if we ultimately decide to not work together, we would collaborate with one another as much as possible like being in their videos if necessary, etc. That was actually very nice!

   Anyway, for now I just plan on brainstorming as much as possible for concepts. I will try to find inspiration from some amazing works I had the pleasure to read last year in my AP Spanish Literature class and also from more film openings like the Midsommar opening which is crazy or The Lion King opening (clearly the animated version from 1994 because the other one is horrible) 

   Thanks for reading the first blog! we're in for a long journey now. 

Music Marketing Post 2

   As I explained on the last post for the music marketing project I already knew who I wanted to work with since the last project went really well for us together, meaning the hard part of choosing your partners had been simplified. As soon as we got together we made a schedule where we outlined the specific things we needed to do and be done with on certain days working in class. We began the project itself by researching both Columbia and Republic Records, more specifically building n in depth analysis of Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, Adele, and The Weeknd. 

   In the next class, we worked on our storyboard as well as do some brainstorming for the song we had chosen to go with, Adele's 2015 hit "Send My Love." Coming up with a concept was actually fairly difficult. Even though we knew we wanted to do a story we did not want to make it a cringey video or make it too literal to what the lyrics was saying. After coming up with the base of everything, we drew the storyboard and began working on the presentation itself. 

   The next few classes we only worked on the Canva presentation. Ohh the last class to work though, as well as working on the presentation, we started talking about where we would do the filming since doing it in school would not work. Estefania offered to use her uncle's house as well as her brother and we chose Saturday morning to film everything. That day everything went by really quickly since we all had tons of fun, however, we were getting a lot done and everyone was contributing ideas of different aspects of the filming such as angles, shots, etc. After finishing, Luisa began editing since she had all the footage on her camera while the rest of us finished with what was left of the presentation. 

   Overall, I think this project helped when it comes to better communicating and contributing with others in order to create something much bigger than what you can do on your own. I learned that putting your ideas out there for others to hear is crucial when it comes to teamwork and getting a good result. Also, making a schedule is very helpful to get organized and further communicate with others better. For the Cambridge portafolio, I learned that I should not be afraid to think outside the box and always try my best so that everything I do reflects my morals and who I am as a person.