Genre Research- (Epic)

 In an Epic movie there tends to be a lot of aerial shots, this is so they can show the audience the extent of a journey. An example of this would be in a lot of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings shot where they show the entire group walking up a mountain. They also use long shots that show the extent of nature of the beauty of their environment. Additionally, in an epic film they use tracking shots to show a conversation through some terrain. In a film there tends to be 5 types of movement: The camera moves in relation with an object , The camera moves in relation to people, People move in relation to the camera, People move in relation with each other and other objects in a frame, Framing elements move in relation to themselves or each other But when it comes to epic movies you will see a lot of tracking shots to carry the conversation. Common sounds in an Epic Genre are Diegetic Sound, Ambient Sound and Symphonic music scores. Epic films can really be put into two categories, mythic/fantasy epics and war epics. In a mythical/fantasy epic you would be heavily relying on nature, using costumes that represent the time period or the storyline. The same goes for epic, but the costumes would be more of a rusty, torn look. You would also see maybe broken trees or devastated areas. Usually an epic movie tends to use natural lighting since they are filmed in nature. However, movies nowadays are filmed inside with green screens, so they have to create their own. There is softer lighting. What I really enjoy from the Epic Genre are the battle scenes and the music. The story is also great most of the time. 

Genres I would like to research

  So, now that we have finished the movie pitch, Xavi and I will begin researching different genres. There are multiple reasons for this process. First, and probably the most obvious reason, is so we can correctly align ourselves with a specific genre. This will slightly shift our overall script, this will help us stick to one area and not go on unnecessary tangents during the film. Second, by identifying our movie with a specific genre will allow us to research common themes in the, sound, lighting, mis-en-scene, editing, and more. This helps sharpen our skills, especially in specific areas related to the genre we select. The first genre we we will be researching is, romance. We decided to select it because it does play a medium sized role in our film. During the film you will be able to see some shift due to the introduction of romance. It can also assist in many scenes, by this I mean the production of these scenes. Like when we research this genre we will be able to see certain aspects of lighting and angles. Even if we don't end up selecting this as our main genre we can still take parts of it. For our second genre to research we selected the coming of age geneere13. I am leaning towards this as the genre we should select for our movie. Xavi and I feel that this best fits our movie. When researching we can improve the production and we can also edit the script so that it fits the genre and common themes better. Finally, for our last genre to research we decided on epic. We knew that this wouldn't be our final selection for the genre, but we did have a major reason, the camera. When shooting a epic you tend to have a lot of long and birds-eye-view-shots, which is one thing we really wanted to incorporate into our movie. Those are the three genres we will be researching.

Pitch Blog

 “You’re a teenage boy struggling with mental illness, your grades, life, and parent’s marriage are all falling apart, but you have to make it work”

Group Blog

 Today was the final day to choose the group that you have to work on for our short film project. I had a lot of people to choose from since you could work with anyone from any period. I chose to work with my friend Xavi. He is not in the same period as me but like I said before we were allowed to work together. I am very happy to be able to work with him. We did very well last year together. Our 2 minute film looked great and our commercial and music video looked even better. I chose Xavi as my partner because we have a lot of chemistry together. We are very used to working in these kinds of projects since we have done 3 of the already. Xavi is more of a tech guy, while I like to be part of the videos. He knows how to film really well, and to edit as well. This works really well because me and him are both comfortable on what we are doing. It will definitely be a challenge to do this project as a duo since its a pretty long video. I believe that we are ready to take this challenge though, we are now way more experienced then when started working together last year. We had a lot of experiences where we made a lot of mistakes last year but also learned a lot from them. Me and Xavi have been discussing the idea of our movie ever since the beginning of summer when we first heard that we were going to take this class again. We have almost everything down and are ready to start filming. With the pandemic still around, I don't know how we are going to film and when we are but I hope it is very soon. We have heard some rumors that we should be getting back to school in a couple of weeks, and I really hope they are true. Going back to school is going to make everything easier for us to create a schedule for our filmmaking process.

Welcome Back!

 Hello everybody, I am very happy to announce that I am finally back from the summer break and will start to write my blogs again. Ever since this pandemic started, I wasn't able to write too much here. There was just so much going on that I kinda left my blog a little to the side. Our school continued even with the pandemic. We had to adapt with online learning, in the begging it was hard but as weeks went by it became very easy and enjoyable to do. I finished my school year with straight A's and was able to pass all 4 of my Cambridge classes including AS Media. Due to the pandemic our Cambridge exams were canceled bu they were still able to give us a grade based on our past school work. Before the pandemic I was lucky enough to be able to meet with my counselor and choose the classes I will be taking my senior year. I was fortunate enough to have Mr. Katz as my counselor that year. He was my previous AICE Media teacher, and really encouraged me to take the next step and take A Level Media my senior year, and that's what I decided to do. That is why I am writing for you guys today. We have started the new school year online since we are still in quarantine. I really don't hate online learning but I want to come back as soon as possible and enjoy my last year as a student at Fort Lauderdale High. I was really happy to know that my last year's partner for most of my projects, Xavi, is taking the same class as me. We have both started talking about of final project and hope that we can go back to school to start filming. I believe that we are slowly going back to normal. After 7 months quarantined my Soccer practices and games have started to happen again. That is the first step, now I am waiting on school. I am very happy to start this new year in this class with my amazing teachers. I have really big things for this year and I can't wait to share with all of you. But that's for another blog!

Audience and Institution Essay - To what extent is digital distribution vital to film?

To what extent is digital distribution vital to film? 

Digital distribution is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other software. We take technology for granted nowadays since it is so accessible to us. However, digital distribution plays almost the biggest part in how well a movie does before or after its release.  

Digital distribution can continue a film’s legacy even after it premieres in theaters. The Fast and Furious franchise released a DLC pack 7 days after the Fast and Furious 7 film officially premiered. They did this through cross-media convergence. Universal Studios and Microsoft collaborated to bring the audience the ability to race in the game as if they were players. This benefitted both companies because they both profited from people learning about and playing the game. Another way that digital distribution can help films is by supporting small companies and indie films. Charles Matthau wrote an article for WIRED titled “How Tech Has Shaped Film Making: The Film vs. Digital Debate is Put to Rest.” In this article Matthau explains that distribution through the platform “YouTube” has significantly altered the ability for small companies to get their advertisements and movies out, and for the better. Matthau writes, “Distribution through YouTube has been the most common form of marketing for quite some time. Studios have released big budget trailers, while indie filmmakers have sought funding and interested eyes posting content through various YouTube channels. [...] YouTube users also crowdsource what is popular with a thumbs up, helping others to find new and interesting content without spending too much time digging for it.” This is just one example of how digital distribution can help films that may not have been seen, become seen. 

Warner Bros. has shown a trend when releasing films in their “Lego” franchise. Usually, they will release a video game first, then a movie. They did this again with The Lego Movie 2, releasing yet another video game beforehand. This caused audiences to draw their attention to the entire franchise, creating more money for the first movie and its video game, as well as its successor. Media distribution also benefited a lot the Movie Black Panther. The movie was not very “hyped” before its release date, but after it was finally released the movie gained a lot of popularity and profited a lot from it. After the release of the movie, Disney also  released the movie’s soundtrack for download. That was a major key for the movie to be talked about for a long time and never “die” in popularity. Disney has a history of very good marketing and Media distribution. Before the latest Star Wars Movie, Disney partnered up with Epic games and their game Fortnite to bring in game outfits, known as “Skins” for players to buy and use. They also had a live event where thousands of people joined and watched parts of the movie inside the game with their friends. The event and the “Skins” players bought created a huge hype for the movie and certainly Disney and Epic games profited immensely from it. 

The movie Spider-Man Homecoming was a movie that had a lot of people very excited when it was announced. The movie certainly did not disappoint and got amazing reviews and people really enjoyed watching it. After the release of the movie Sony also released The movie in streaming devices like Xfinity stream and other streaming sites. Sony benefited a lot from that since many people don’t have the time to go out to the movies or simply just don't want to leave their homes. In the article “Ins and Outs of Hollywood Film Distribution” the author Jonathan Paul writes about digital distribution and how companies profit out of it. In the article Paul writes, “With each passing year, Digital Distribution Is positioning itself to surpass disc-based media as the top home-entertainment revenue. Studios and distributors are including digital copies with physical copies. They’re even beginning to Release digital versions of films to online retailers like iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play before the disc-based option is released.” This shows that digital media distribution is increasing its popularity every day and will soon pass disc-based media and maybe even media delivered in the movies.

Digital distribution is vital for the success of a movie. Digital distribution not only increases the movie’s “hype” and popularity in the case of video game DLCs and cosmetic items but it also keeps the movie alive even after months of its  release by soundtrack releases and by allowing people to watch those movies on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Xfinity stream and many others.

Extract Essay - 24

          The theme of the extract feels like a rivalry between two people. The man, that can be assumed as a police officer or detective, is trying to get information from a woman that is being held in custody. There is a feeling that they have met before that scene, but the woman will still not be cooperative with the officer making him feel really angry. The officer is very nervous because people’s lives are in danger due to the bomb that the police is trying to disarm. The woman is the only one that knows someone that can disarm this bomb and she won’t tell the man, that creates a big sense of tension and rivalry in the scene.
          The scene starts with the man opening the door to the interrogation room that the woman is in. We are able to see the woman through an over the shoulder shot, that type of shot is great to show the actor’s perspective. After that, the director zooms into a close up of the woman’s face to show her reaction to seeing the officer, that type of shot is a great way to show someone’s emotion or reaction to something. From the woman’s face the scene changes to an eye line match to show the officer looking at the camera, that shot helps the viewer understand that the officer knows that he is being watched and that anything he does can be used against him, that shot is great to help the viewer to understand how serious the scene taking place is. There is another over the shoulder shot but this time it is to capture the officer’s emotion when staring at the woman. The camera moves into a close up to the officers face to show how serious and mad he is when staring at the woman. The officer then puts some papers on a table in front of a woman, that prop helps the viewer to understand that an investigation is going on and that the papers might contain evidence of a crime that the woman committed. After the papers are thrown the director cuts and shows the people monitoring the cameras in the room in a two shot, that shot helps the viewer to understand how serious the situation is. Another eye line match takes place when the woman looks at the clock in the room, a non-diegetic sound is then added to show the clock ticking, that shot helps the viewer to understand that the woman might be in a hurry.

          The scene transitions from the clock into a close up of the woman’s face. She then starts the dialogue saying that she wants to keep the interrogation short, adding to the conclusion that she is in a hurry. An over the shoulder shot is used to show the officer’s response to what the woman said, that shot is a good way to show both of their reactions to what is being said. During the dialogue we can hear the officer’s footsteps in a diegetic sound, the sound helps the viewer to see how apprehensive the officer is at the moment. We then see a pan from the officer’s shoulder to the woman sitting in the chair. The medium shot of the woman in the chair helps the viewer to see that she is tied up and to understand more the situation. The officer then is fed up with the woman and throws the table on the ground making it a really loud diegetic sound, that sound helps to catch the viewer’s attention to the scene. The scene then cuts into a close up to the man watching the room through the cameras. That shot helps to see the man’s reaction to what is taking place in the room.

          The scene transitions from the man’s face to another two shot of the people watching the room through the security system. The camera then closes up on the woman’s face once again for her to say a line that would make the officer crazy enough for him to attack her. That close up is really important to the scene because it shows very clearly the woman’s reaction saying that line, she was having fun and even smiled, and that could probably be the reason the officer attacked her. When the officer is running to attack the woman there is also a tracking shot, the camera tracks the officer until he grabs the woman by the neck. That shot helped to see how mad and how hard the officer wants to hurt the woman. When the officer pushes the woman we can see the chair she’s sitting on scratch the floor. A diegetic sound happens to put more tension in the scene. After the officer bangs the woman on the wall we can see a split screen of the woman being chocked and the people watching the room through the cameras run to try to intervene with what is happening. The split screen shows very well both of the reactions of the man and the woman and it also transmits a lot of suspense to the scene. In the split screen a tracking shot takes place as the camera follows the man running trying to get to the room where the officer is. The tracking shot also helps to add suspense and action to the scene. Score sound is also added to the scene bringing a lot of suspense and action to it.

          In the extract, the director tries to add suspense and the feeling of rivalry between the officer and the woman as much as he can, by the use of sound, camera angles, movement, shots and etc. By using a lot of close ups to capture emotion and reaction the director was able to give the feeling that the two main characters hated each other. Using specific diegetic sounds and adding non diegetic sounds and score the director was able to add a lot of tension seriousness and suspense to the scene, making the sure the viewer was always hooked to the movie.