Genre Research: The Decision

          So, you may or may not know about one of the previous blogs. It was a whole lot of information about the genres we thought might fit our pitch. The genres were the Musical and Action genre. All of the genres that we had to choose from were crime, action and musical. After talking, me and the person I'm working with decided on a genre. We picked crime. We both agreed that making the genre crime would make it more interesting. I'm honestly excited to see how all of this turns out. There's so many possibilities, it's insane.


         I hope you have a good rest of your day.

Genre Research: The Genres

          Hello, I hope you're having a nice day. So from the other blog (Genre Research: The Power Point) you were given one of the three genres we picked for the movie we're doing. The three genres are, Crime, Musical, and Action. We picked these because our pitch could easily fit into any of them. For crime, A guy can witness people committing crimes while sleeping. For Musical, he's singing about having this ability and what he'll do with it. For action, an intense story of a guy getting beaten and getting vengeance, while he's sleeping. Very interesting, I know.

          You know the power point in the last blog? We're going to do that for the other two genres, except they're not going to be in power point form, it's going to be written. I want to apologize in advance for the repetitive sentence starting, it gets really old, really quickly and I'm sorry for that. The first genre is Musical. Common camera angles in Musical films are High, Low, and dutch angles. Common camera shots in this genre include, Over the shoulder, close up, establishing, extreme close up, mid shot, long shot, and aerial shots. Common camera movements are, pans, tilts, tracks, and zooms. Now moving on to CLAMPS. Common costumes in this genre are, very over the top, to say the least. A lot of musical films are about famous musicians, such as Elton John, And Freddie Mercury, but even then there's animated movies like Frozen, And all of them wear really fancy, shiny clothing, like Elton and his peacock suit thing. Common Lighting in musical films depend on the movie and the scene. If it's a happy part of the film, it's nice and bright, if it's a more upsetting part, the scene is going to be darker. Common acting in this genre is still, depending on the film. For example, Rocketman is way more over the top, or extra than a movie like Frozen. Common Makeup in the genre are also depending on the film and scene, But they have the usual film makeup, the makeup that makes their skin look smooth and not old looking. Common props in the Musical genre are still dependent on the film, if it's a film about someone preforming, those people are going to be surrounded by instruments and their on stage audience, but if it's just a musical film like Greese, they might have alcohol or cigarettes and stuff like that. Common setting in this genre are still dependent on the movie and the scene, But I'd say that the common setting would be a house or the characters home in the establishing scene. Common editing in this genre could include, cutaways, jump cuts, eyeline matches, action matches, graphic matches and cross cutting. Common sound in this genre could include, Digetic and Non-Digetic sound, Voice overs, Dialogue, and Ambient sounds. Common elements in this genre could include,  (Obviously) Signing and Dancing, Foreshadowing, Conflict, and more. I actually really like the musical genre. I've watched many movies in that genre and enjoyed it. I think the thing I enjoy most about the genre is the accuracy to the actual events. For example, the Live Aid performance in the Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody, that was pretty accurate. I don't think there's anything I don't like about the genre.

          That was a lot, I know. One more time. Now, we're doing action. Common camera angles in this genre include, high angles, low angles, and canted angles. Common camera shots in the action genre include, establishing shots, over the shoulder shots, point of view shots, close up shots, extreme close up shots, long shots, and such. Common camera movements include, pans, tilts, trucks, and zooms. Again, now we're moving on to CLAMPS. Common costumes in action films are casual wear, but if it's a superhero film, then they have really tight spandex-y clothing. Common Lighting in action films depends on the circumstances, if someone has died, it's going to be dark, if they're fighting it might be dark, but not too dark to where you can't see what's going on. Common acting in action films includes, fighting, being overall dramatic, and such. Common make up in this genre include, makeup that makes your face look smooth, SFX makeup, and other casual makeup. Common props in action films can include, weapons, (swords, guns, etc,) helmets, Armour, and more. Common setting in action films include, big cities, other planets, and more. Moving on. Common editing in action films include, eyeline matches, action matches, graphic matches, Jump cuts, split screens, and cutaways. Common sounds in this genre include, Digetic and Non-Digetic sounds, Voice overs, Ambient sounds, Dialogues, and more. Common elements in action films are, foreshadowing, drama, high energy, and such. Now my opinion. In all honesty, I don't really like action movies. Well, certain action movies, I guess. I don't really like the superhero aspect of the genre, I've never found that stuff really entertaining because it's been ruined for me. My brother overplayed it and it got annoying. I don't really like anything about action movies.

          Well, that's it. I hope you have a nice day.

Genre Research: The Powerpoint

          Hi there, I hope you're having a good day. This power point is a google slides presentation that I embedded with the assistance of a youtube video.

         This is the powerpoint. I'm sorry for the placement, it came out like that and I can't find a way to fix it. A small explanation for what exactly it is, it's an explanation of all the things that make the crime genre. I'm aware movement is very incorrect, apologies for that. Common camera angles in the crime genre are, High and low angles. Common movement in crime films are pans, tilts, trucks, and zooms. Common elements in this genre are conflict, foreshadowing and more. Common lighting in this genre are High contrast and low-key lighting. Common sounds (also kind of wrong) are Dialogues, Voice overs, Digetic, and non-Digenic sounds, and Ambient sounds. Example films include, The God Father, The Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, Zodiac, and more. for the likes and dislikes, I enjoy the actual crime aspects, like the crime being committed and/or solved. I don't like the other stuff, like the Dialogue, and avoidable drama.

Pitches

         Hello, I hope you're having a nice day. Our task I guess, for this blog was to pick two of the three pitches to move on. It's like one of those survivor game things on television, the elimination part. The three original pitches are, 1. a guy can predict or control his future, he tries to save his family from dying by using his abilities, 2. A guy (sleeping or coma) can move out of his body and tries to stop his house from being destroyed, and 3. a guys that's in a coma wakes up in his coma dream, to eventually find out he hasn't woken up. Now that I read those back, I realize, well, they don't make sense. They would if I could elaborate but I can't because it's supposed to be short. But I can promise you that they do make sense in my head, and hopefully we can bring what's in my head into the real world.

          Now for the narrowing down. We have to take 2 of the 3 pitches to move on. The pitches we're moving on with are, dun dun dun, Pitch 2 and pitch 3. We decided on these ones because we realized that 1 would probably be harder to film than the others. First, pitch 2. We chose pitch 2 because it's a cool idea, we have this guy that's unconscious in some way (dead or alive) and he's able to travel out of his body and mess with people, that's cool. Second, pitch 3. We chose pitch 3 because that's a cool idea as well. You have this guy, that's in a coma laying there surrounded by family and he's dreaming that he's getting kidnapped or something, all while he doesn't know that he's still in a coma. I'm not going to lie, all of these would be challenging to film. Not just because of the setting, but the way someone else would think about it. It would be confusing and you wouldn't know what happens so you don't know the relevance(?).

          Now, the grand finale. We have to choose which pitch we're actually going to do. This pitch will win the epic title of "a decent decision". Anyway, the pitch we're going to do is, dun dun dun, pitch number 2. Cue the applause, streamers, confetti, and other celebration necessities. Yes, we're going to do the pitch where a guy can travel outside of his body. Honestly, It wasn't that tough of a decision. We figured that this pitch would be easier to plan and film. As of right now, we plan on making it a comedy. He can go out of body and mess with people. That's cool, isn't it? There's so many options for things we can do with this one pitch, it's crazy. Just think of it, this film could be a comedy film, horror film, a thriller film, any genre you can name, this pitch could fit into it. Honestly, even though coming up with the pitches was difficult, it was kind of fun? Just sitting there and letting your mind flow is pretty cool.

         Anyways, I hope you have a good rest of your day.

Starting Final Task

          Hello! My name is Taylor, and I hope you're having a nice day. It's been a minute since I've done a blog, and I have to reintroduce myself so here we go. Hi my name is Taylor, and I take media studies (hence the blogs and recordings) and there's a lot going on right now. Not just in the class, but in general. I'm not going to go in detail, but stuff's scary. So, the final project as you may or may not know, is the first 2 minutes of a movie. Filming project equals, well filming. The difference between this project than the others is I'm working with someone. Yes, Crazy I know. His name is Peter, and together we came up with the ideas for the next project. He's pretty nice I guess, we didn't really small talk it was more of lets share ideas.

          So far in this class, we've learned a lot. We've learned stuff like how to use the camera and tripod, to the definitions of the important words to use on the final exam. Here are some things I can say off of the top of my head of what we learned. How to import and export footage, I learned how to use the TEA method, I learned the cruel, stressful reality of media class as a whole, I learned a lot of the different sounds, camera angles, shots, movements, editing, and stuff,  I learned about the various questions on the written task, and much more. A thing we were supposed to talk about on here was a talent um. A talent I would have having to do with this class is typing I guess? I can spell pretty well, I'd also consider myself pretty grammatically accurate. I'm just not illiterate is what I'm trying to say. I'd say I'm kind of good at filming but the spelling is better, I guess. Am I excited to learn anything else? Sure, I mean,  It's school we learn stuff and this class is cool. Wednesday, we learned about pitches. Pitches are a Hollywood term to describe an idea where a film is encapsulated in 25 words or less. Basically a very, very brief explanation of an idea for a film. Wednesday, I was coming up with my pitches because I intended on working alone, when Peter asked if we could work together. We came up with pitches and it was pretty cool.

          Okay, pitches. I already typed the definition in the previous paragraph, so I won't bother typing it again. Coming up with pitches was very difficult. Coming up with original ideas in a short amount of time is hard. We came up with with pitches then the rest of the pitches would be in the same are I guess? For example, if I came up with a pitch where there was a stalker or something, then I'd be in the stalker mindset, and all the other pitches would revolve around stalking. We had to come up with 3 pitch ideas. Here they are, 1. A guy can predict or control his future and tries to save someone from dying by using his abilities, 2. A guy (sleeping or coma) can move out of his body and tries to stop his house from being destroyed, and finally, 3. a guy that's currently in a coma, has a dream that he wakes up, to later find out that he's not actually awake. Yes, very creative, I know. Especially the third one, that's a lot to take in. We were also told to insert pictures of us working, so here it is: I'm the person on the right, with the red jacket

    That's it, I hope you have a good rest of your day.

Editing Blog

Hello, Welcome. I hope you're having a good day.

  As of right now, It is Tuesday, December 3rd, I say this because I've just started editing, so I'm going to put more stuff here Thursday because there will be more to talk about. Also, Happy December, I guess. Anyway, today marks the first day of editing. We got into class, the teacher told us what we're doing. I actually didn't know we were doing an editing blog, but here we are. Yay knowledge. So far, it's going well. Nothing has crashed, nothing is going badly, Wow surprising. As I sat here and went through the footage and imported it onto Pinnacle studios, I realized something. That something was this probably won't need as much cutting as the commercial did. You see, the commercial was filmed and editing entirely by myself. The music video however, I filmed it with other people. So there isn't much of the awkward me reaching around the camera. Now that I think about it, the only problem that occurred as of now, was I couldn't get the SD card out of the reader. You may or may not recall the fact that I had never done that before, because the teacher dumped the footage onto her computer because of other technical issues. So naturally, I googled it. Cue the panic, because most of the google things that showed up were that you needed sewing pins and stuff. But I ended up pulling the SD card out, no damage done. I imported the footage and put it in the proper places. After that, I played it to get an Idea of what it will look like. Honestly, It made me smile. It was like a "Oh look, I made this and I had fun doing this." but I haven't fully made it yet, make sense?

  Something I've noticed after looking it over more, is that my mother looks like a teenager? I mean, you can see that she's not because of the numerous tattoos and piercings. That'll be a funny question to answer, 'Who's that?" "My mother".  Another thing I've realized is, we're really weird. Like, At one point I thought it would be an amazing idea to film them doing a very 'white person' dance. I mean, It's funny, but I don't think anyone would really be expecting that. Yeah, fun.

  I'm only making another paragraph this early because it's a different day. Right now, It's Thursday, December 5th. I did research for the past two days on how to download music for the video, but I didn't really find anything. As of this second, I'm going to wait until my teacher is finished speaking to students about their grades so I can ask her. Its been maybe 10 minutes and I did it, I found it out by myself. Okay, so the change of plans was I didn't ask the teacher. Instead, I looked it up. First, I looked on Google to see the options I had. I searched the song on youtube and tried to do it there first. That didn't work. Then, I had the wonderful Idea to look up "the thrash particle modern baseball mp3 download" or something on those lines. That worked!! The first option was a website called Bandcamp. The song was there, and it was free to download. I had done it. But now, the hard time. I had downloaded it, and now I had to import it. But the problem was I couldn't find the file when I went to the import page. But I pulled through and did it. Putting it into the actual video wasn't as hard as I thought. That's all I really had left to do besides cut a little more footage. Also, I forgot to mention in the thing in the other paragraph, The computer I'm on almost died Tuesday. I don't know why, It just went from like 45% to 7% but by then everything was saved and such. I mean, Right now the computer is low charge (21%) and I have no clue why, but here we are. I have to make a couple finishing touches before I have to go charge the computer. Cool.

Anyway, That's it I hope you have a terrific rest of your week.

Filming Blog

Hello! I hope you're having a nice day. If not, be like Evan Hansen and have a good day anyway.

  As said by the absence of the quotation marks, I actually filmed this weekend! I'll explain how the whole week went. So first was Monday and Tuesday. Nothing really happened because they were the last two weeks before Thanksgiving break. I mean, I had a test Monday that was fun. Wednesday we didn't really do anything, either. My parents work, so me and my two brothers just sat around most of the day. I don't remember if I did anything productive, I probably didn't. Thursday was Thanksgiving, that was fun. I helped my mom cook dinner, and It was a good time. Also, that stupid creepy elf thing was yet again put into my home. Friday, we didn't do much either. My mother didn't have work, but my dad did so my brothers and I hung out with my mom all day. I had invited four of my close friends to come film, so I gave them all the information they needed. It was just a screenshot that contained the information, like the time and address. In the information paragraph, I had said it was being held at my house and it was going to be held from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. But, what's my blog without a tragedy, though? That's coming, patience. I had told my parents about everything that was happening. With that information, they still stayed up until 2:00 am with their friends anyway.

  Still Friday night, one of my four friends said that he couldn't go unless he was dropped off at my house at 12:00 pm instead of 1:00 pm. That was fine, no big deal. He was the person I really wanted to hang out with because we haven't seen each other in person since June. That night, since it was 2:00 am I set an alarm for 11:00 am thinking I would sleep that long. No, My body was like "you get four hours take it or leave it." Yeah, I slept until 6:00 am Saturday, not Ideal. Now Saturday was the day where everyone was supposed to come. Now for the tragic part you've all been waiting for. I was up and anxious at 6:00 am on a Saturday, so naturally I rushed and did everything I needed to do. I got dressed, I made my bed, I cleaned my room a bit, stuff like that. At about 9:00 am, the friend who was supposed to come at 12:00 pm texts me and asks for my address. Cue me being anxious because I think he's going to be here at 10:00 am instead. Finally, 11:30 arrives. I'm excited, I get to see my good friend I'm excited. 30 minutes later, my friend texts me, he says "I'd like to apologize for my mother suddenly deciding I can't go because I told her I'm Bisexual." My heart drops, I'm sad. His mother being a rat, yet again.  But at least I have three other people coming, right? No. 1:00 pm rolled around. I sat outside. 20 minutes pass, I still have hope, 1 hour passes, I message all of the people I invited if they were still coming. Surprise surprise, I didn't get an answer from any of them until hours later. One said he was out of town (which he could've told me that before I got my hopes up) another said he had just gotten the message and the final person said she couldn't come.

  Tragic, I know. As you could probably imagine, I was upset. (rich set a fire and burned down the house) I didn't have friends to come and help me film. But we overcame that obstacle. Sunday, We filmed. When I say we, I mean My brother, My mother, and Myself. I'm grateful for them, they stepped in to take the places that my friends would've been in. It was frustrating, but we got through it. In this video, there's going to be a lot going on, yes. But! I think it's going to be amusing or delightful in some manor. Unrelated, but just saying the Mean Girls musical is so good? Anyway, That's what happened. I hope that was dramatic enough for you.

  Have a good day, Goodbye.