Genre Research-(Romance)

 The Genre romance is a very popular genre in movies and it attracts a lot of people with different ages. The romance genre uses many different types of CAMS, the most used are Long shots, Two shots, Medium Shots and Establishing shots. They are used to really give the viewer the idea that what they are watching is a love story. Sound plays a really important part on films with the romance genre. Sounds like Voice overs, diegetic sounds, non diegetic sounds and ambient sounds are used a lot during a romance movie. An example of that is when a narrator does a voice over to tell a love story or talk about the two characters that are in love. CLAMPS is probably one of the most important parts of the genre. Props like rings, flowers, clothes always show in romance movies. They are so important to really show what the movie is about. Lighting also plays a big part on the movie because it is very important to have a romantic lighting at a dinner or on a date, and that’s what the directors do when shooting a scene in a romantic movie. Cross cutting is used a lot in romantic movies. It usually works by cutting from two people that like each other and how they feel about something that happed in a scene. Straight cuts are used as well to keep the moving going. Examples of romantic films are Dear John, The  notebook, The fault in our stars. I really enjoy this genre because of the storylines are always great. The settings are always nice and the cities that they are usually shot are beautiful. 

Genre Research-(Coming of Age)

 In a Coming of Age film there is a common theme when it coms to camera angles and shots. One the most commonly used shots is the close-up. They use this because it shows the viewers the characters emotions and/or shows how the character is changing. Along with the close-up, usually combined with it, an eye level camera angle is usually used. These are used many times during these coming of Age films, this is for one main reason. They are repeated so that as the movie progresses, you can see how the character's emotions and reactions change. Another shot used is the two-shot. These shots are mainly used to demonstrate intimacy, like when your main character is talking to their crush. To accompany many of these two-shots the director also uses tracking shots so they can film the two walking around places like their school. Speaking of location, a large percentage of Coming of Age films occur in a school, or have to do with a school. Going back to the close-up shots, an edit that usually comes right after the close-up is an eye-line match. As I said before the close-up can be used to show someone's reaction to something, so you must be shown what they are reacting to. Two examples of films in the coming of age genre would be the movie It, and the film Little Miss Sunshine. Coming of age films are actually some of my favorite movies, like Little Miss Sunshine. In these movies you get to connect emotionally to the characters more than other genres. You also get to see them change as the perceive more aspects of the world. I also feel like I can relate to them much more as they fit my age range. There are also some things that I dislike about them, one of which is the clichés. However, these are only really found in lower quality films. Another dislike of mine is the common themes, this is relatively acceptable as the genre has some pretty narrow restrictions.

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!