Chapter 8: Small (and messy) Outline

What's Up! Welcome back, in this post I'll be giving you a look into where my head is at with my idea. 

Idea: A group of friends struggling with their own darkness but find a salvation/escape in each other.

I'm still thinking about how I'm going to map out each trailer, but I know I want one of them to build up the appealing aspects of the production (so this would focus on depicting the friendship) and the other to develop conflict.

Appealing trailer: I think I would want this trailer to open with some sort of conversation the main friends are having, probably them planning to do something like go on a car ride or late night swimming or something. Then it would cut to a montage of them doing that planned activity. I would want it to embody the vision people have when they think of teenage years. I would want the montage to pause and introduce brief conflict, like maybe the camera could show each character and a cut or voiceover or something to just barely introduce each problem they're dealing with as if they start thinking about it; and after that, I would want it to show how each character snaps out of it and just focuses on living in the moment and escaping reality.

Conflict trailer: For this trailer, I'm not sure on whether I want it to focus on one of the friends or all of the friends. I'm leaning towards all of the friends. It would start similar to the appealing trailer, where the friends are just hanging out. Then I want to indicate them parting ways to go home or something, and this is where I would cut from character to character introducing each conflict. I would probably end it by each character sort of paralleling each other by an outburst of anger of frustration and then they meet up to escape their problems.

As you can probably tell, this is pretty messy, but it honestly sums up the jumbled ideas in my head. I think as I develop each character and the conflict, as well as a full story outline, creating the trailer outlines will become easier.

Chapter 7: Title Fonts

What's up! Welcome back to another post! In this one I'm going to be showing some titles/fonts I like based on some drama movie posters.

The first title font I found and liked was, to no surprise, The Breakfast Club. I think it really follows the drama norm of simplistic but bold titles, and the red against the white is eye catching. I also think that the title itself is well chosen. It's not cringe and ropes in the potential viewer to wonder what "The Breakfast Club" is/is about.

 The next poster I found is yet another one of my favorite movies [if we remember from AS level ;)] The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I liked this font because, once again, it is also simple. I liked the boldness of the more important words, as well as the style; It looks like the title is actually being drawn on the wall. I also really like the all lowercase for some reason. 

This is poster is for a movie I have never seen, but I still like this title font for The Diary of a Teenage Girl. It's another simplistic one, but I like how it looks a little bit like ink, tying into the "diary" portion of the title. The maroon color is bold yet not overpowering, and the center placement of the title are things I like as well.

Chapter 6: Royalty Free

What’s up! I’m back and I’m going to recount the frustration that was ✨looking for music✨. Spoiler alert: I haven’t found anything yet.

Once upon a time… I was in 3rd period. I decided to start trying to find background music for my trailers because, as can be gathered from Chapter 5, music has heavily inspired my idea. I need music that matches the vibe that the songs I previously shared gave me, and that’s very difficult. I was thinking that I should get this part done early because without good music, this is not going to fulfill my vision. I looked through my notebook because I had remembered a classmate recommendation a website to find non-copyrighted music; and I found the note which said “chosic.com”. Now don’t get me wrong, I found a lot of nice potential bgm on chosic.com(background music), but only for specific moments. 

I spent a good chunk of my class period scavenging for something that fits, but nothing was satisfying me. It was honestly pretty frustrating, but I kept looking. By the time the bell was going to ring, I still hadn’t found anything. However, even though I didn’t find the right music yet, I learned which genres/tags to avoid on chosic. I went on the tags “adventure” and “fast”, and the pop genre and I couldn’t find anything I liked because everything was too chill or just weren’t what I was looking for at all. Despite my frustration I’m not going to completely give up on chosic, but I’m still going to try and find other sites that can hopefully help me out. Sadly I haven’t gotten my “happily ever after” yet, so for now I’ll say “to be continued”…

Chapter 5: Music Inspiration

 Don't you forget about me, don't don't don't don't. What's Up! I'm back again and in this post I'll be talking about the music and other things which have inspired me for this new portfolio project.

When T-Stok first introduced the portfolio project in the beginning of the year, I had already been thinking of ideas, I just wasn't set on it yet. But, one song that inspired me was "Tamed-Dashed" by the kpop group Enhypen. The song just gives summer vibes and I imagine friends having their movie moments together: late night drives, beach days, blasting music, those moments. I think this song really inspired me with the friendship aspect of my idea. Even if kpop isn't you're cup of tea, you can tell that the song is upbeat and fast paced and gives summer vibes (they literally say the word "summer" in the the chorus).

Tamed-Dashed (friendly reminder to turn on subtitles)

This next song is also by Enhypen, and it's titled "Attention, please!". This song also inspires me in the way that I imagine strong friendship when listening to this song. When I listen to "Attention, please!" I see a group of troubled teens letting loose and letting their worries go, living in the moment with each other. On the other hand, when I read the lyrics I feel like it would be cool to have the personality and inner thoughts of the song become a character. The song is about this person having a lot of attention and popularity, but the one person they want to give them attention just doesn't notice them and gives no care at all. I think that would be fun to play with, if I made a character the embodiment of this song. Just a thought though.

Attention, please! (another subtitle reminder)

The last song I was inspired by was released very recently, less than 2 weeks ago actually, and it's titles "Stay Alive". It's by 2 BTS members, Produced by SUGA of BTS and performed by Jungkook of BTS. The song helps inspire me to think of the conflict I want to represent in my trailers. The song's lyrics also match up with my idea. The song is very emotional, representing the feeling of darkness but the speaker of the song addresses "you" as their salvation, someone who keeps them going and in turn the speaker helps keep them going. I think this song really encapsulates my idea of a relationship where even though they're dealing with their own darkness, they are each other's salvation. This song helps put me into that creative mindset where I try to play out my story in my head.

Stay Alive  (I usually try to link music to the original artists however, the full version of the song is only on Apple Music, Spotify, etc. I will link the original promotional video released for the song which is the shorter version of it.)

Stay Alive Original Webtoon Promo

That's it for today's post, hope you enjoyed! BTW if you caught that Breakfast Club reference in the beginning, I give you a firm handshake. Byeeee.

Chapter 4: Basic Tropes

 Welcome Back! In this posting, I'll be mentioning some basic Drama tropes that relate to my idea, and some tropes that I want to avoid. 

My basic idea still surrounds the troubled group of friends so one of the tropes that I've found that's popular with Drama and ties in with my idea is troubled youth. The troubled youth trope is exactly how it sounds, young people dealing with their personal issues whether that be familial, school related, mental health, addiction, etc.

Another trope similar to troubled youth is misfits. I don't think I would apply this trope with my idea because I don't plan on making my characters outcasts (at least for right now). However, I do think this trope would be a good one to come back to if needed. I mean some great characters have been the embodiment of this trope, like John Bender from The Breakfast Club; so I'm open to this trope.

One trope I will stay away from is teen pregnancy. I find that this trope can sometimes be included in teen dramas, mostly TV series but still: the show Glee is one example. I'm staying away from this trope because, I can't relate to it in anyway seeing as I'm not pregnant lol. Although this is a great topic to bring to light, the fact is that I have no knowledge, experience, or relatability with this, so I would feel uncomfortable having it be a trope.

That's all for this post! In some upcoming posts I'll delve deeper into my ideas and outlines for the portfolio project. 

 

Chapter 3: Key Art

What's Up! Welcome back guys, in this post I'll be sharing some key art I've looked at pertaining to dramas.

I find this first one very cute. Although I have no clue what this film is about, it's clear that it sis about some type of close relationship. I think the two hands is a simple yet straight forward choice, and the pose of them holding each other by the pinky represents that close bond. The background is minimal and brings the hands into focus. Overall, I like this key art and I think it can be a great source of inspiration for me.

If you've been with this blog since the beginning of its creation, than you know that The Breakfast Club is one of my all time favorite movies. I can watch it over and over again, never getting bored. So, it probably comes as no surprise that I love this key art. Sure, it may be a tiny bit biased but critically looking at it, I like how we can see each character. This poster shows the opposing personalities of each while also posing them in a way that shows the friendship created between them. The simple white background brings attention to the characters and it just has that drama feel that I love. I like how the title is red and the font makes it pop. This will definitely be a source of information for me.

Welp...ya know it's not my favorite. I understand the concept but it's just not hitting the mark for me. The choice to have one of the characters face appear in the 16 ties in with the title, but honestly speaking I just don't like it. The tagline is...interesting. It's not bad, it's just not great. This will be something I'm avoiding. 

Moving on, these were some of the posters I took a look at to get inspiration. I'll see you guys in the next post!

Chapter 2: Target Audience

 What's Up! In this posting, I'll be talking about the target audience of the genre of drama and the target audience for my project.

I know that generally drama is targeted towards females, teens, and young adults, but after some research, I've found out more information about the different target audiences drama can have. 

First off, the genre is pretty broad with a lot of subgenres, including but not limited to crime drama, historical drama, docudrama, sports dramas, and period dramas. Because of the variety of subgenres, there are different target audiences. Historical dramas, for example, may appeal to older male audiences (30+). On the other hand, crime dramas will rope in younger audiences and the niche group of people who like true crime(me). 

As we can see with my examples, Drama can bring a wide variety of people due to its various subgenres. But the content that drama entails also plays a part in bringing in a wide array of audiences. They portray real-life scenarios, making the content relatable to the viewers.

After researching the various subgenres and their target audiences, I've come to decide that my project will be a teen drama and target both male and female audiences aged 14-23.

https://prezi.com/9wa20igfsyqc/film-marketing-drama/

Chapter 1: Mystery or Drama

What's up! In A Level, we've started our portfolio project. This year I want to go for a mystery or a teen drama type of thing, so I've been watching some trailers as a part of my research on the genre. To briefly cover my jumbled thoughts, I want my story to center around a close knit group of teens who rely on each other to escape from their personal issues. If I were to go with mystery, it would be about the disappearance of the friend group. However, if I were to stick with the drama it would just focus on the individual conflicts of the teens and their escape from reality I guess.

I’ll first discuss some of the mystery trailers I watched.

I first watched the Outer Banks trailer to get a feel for mystery, I know it’s a tv series but it had the vibe I was thinking about. If I were to go for mystery this trailer would be very helpful. I liked how one of the main characters briefly gave an introduction to his town and friends and how they transitioned that to the mysteries the group of teens are discovering. The soundtrack is also iconic.

 Outer Banks Trailer

The trailer for I Know What You Did Last Summer was good as well. I loved the fast paced editing during the end that helped build tension, curiosity, and mystery. The darker lighting and music choices were aspects of the trailer that I enjoyed as well.

IKWYDLS Trailer

Now moving on to the Cruel Summer trailer, it wasn’t my favorite. It just felt kind of boring and flat. The story was pretty understandable which was this nerdy girl who became “popular” after the previous popular girl went missing and this needy is the main suspect of the popular girl’s disappearance. The dark lighting kept true to the mystery genre, which I liked, but other than that the trailer felt empty and boring, and it didn’t have that same vibe I was looking for.

Cruel Summer Trailer

I’m now going to be discussing some of the trailers I watched for my research on the drama genre. My teacher gave me these recommendations and I loved them all, and watching them was what made me finally choose my drama option.

The trailer for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was my favorite. I had the exact vibe I was envisioning in my head. It’s just about this close group of friends all dealing with their separate issues but relying on each other for support. I liked that each character could have their conflict introduced a little bit. 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Trailer

I think the How to Make an American Quilt trailer was a good way to show me some more drama conventions. This trailer was helpful in showing me how I could make a trailer that focused more on the conflict to come in the movie.

How to Make an American Quilt Trailer

My original idea was just the drama route, and after watching a bunch of trailers I think I’m going to stick with that route.

Film Distribution Project

Welcome back! In this post I'm going to be talking about my most recent project in A Level. This is the Film Distribution Project.

In this project we worked with the creative writing classes at school to create a full length trailer, teaser trailer, key art, and marketing/distribution plan. The students in the creative writing classes gave us the outline of a film and us AICE Media students created the trailers and such. Of the four options my group we actually ended up choosing the story of someone who is also in our AICE media class. His concept was a thriller/horror movie where a bou who’s parents just died is attacked by creators that hunt the angered, these monsters are called Nighthawks.

The first thing my group did after choosing our prompt was do research on our genre which was thriller/horror. We researched A Quiet Place and It:Chapter One.

Next we created an outline of what we wanted our trailer to look like.

We were able to follow the basics of this outline but it definitely wasn’t the same as the final project.

Our next step as a group was creating our presentation, marketing, and distribution plan. We chose our film festivals and to release the film as a limited release in theaters and then go to wide release if it did well.

After the pre-production was done, we started filming. We filmed in two locations, my house and one of my group members’ house. We also got her brother to play our main character. After the first day of filming one of my group members had taken pictures of her door with a red led light illuminating behind it to represent the Nighthawks, she added the title and it ended up looking so cool. A slay if you ask me😌. One problem we had to overcome was how to depict the second main character of an old man. However, none of us know any old man that fit the description given to us, so we told our main actor to wear his dad’s shoes, a robe, and he used a foam Star Wars staff thingy as a makeshift cane. Filming that scene was hilarious we kept laughing in the background.

Working with my group was very fun and efficient, we got everything done in a timely manner and I believe our end product was great as well. 

I’ll link our presentation below:

Nighthawks Presentation 

The Brand Identity Project

What's up! In this posting I'm going ease you into A level and discuss one of the previous projects I've done this school year. 

This year we've done a few projects, but my favorite so far has to be the Brand Identity Project. In this project we created a brand for ourselves as people. Basically I presented myself, Biana Alexandre, as a brand. I remember being a bit confused and hesitant for this project at first because I had to actually think about myself and how I want to portray ME. It was difficult and if I’m being honest, I avoided the project for the first couple of days. 

I tried to tackle the Brand Identity Prism first when planning my project, but for some reason the Brand Identity Prism honestly confused me. So instead, I decided to come up with my logo. 

I used Canva to make my logo. I made this my logo because when I was thinking about who I was, I remembered my past self who would hide behind a smile. I wanted to present an ironic version of my past self by showing a smiley face covered by a frown, instead if a frown covered by a smile. I also wanted this to be a representation of it being okay to “frown” or feel negative emotions. Which played hand in hand with my slogan of “It’s Okay To Not Be Okay”. Now stylistically, I’ve always liked the edgy band-type logos so I thought I could incorporate that with the X eyes. I also chose my name to be the mouth because this is a project based on me after all💀.

After creating my logo and slogan, I finally started working on the Brand Identity Prism and it actually started making sense, with the help of my peers. I was able to quickly fill it out and put it into my presentation.

Creating my video was fairly easy. I just compiled a bunch of pictures of myself, friends, and memes and put it into iMovie and bam! I liked the irony I created with my voiceover that was fairly deep and serious compared to my visuals which were a majority of fun pictures. I thought it encapsulated the masking you’re true feelings with happy stuff vibe.

Creating my presentation was by far the most time consuming part. I spent hours at my breakfast table finding pictures, gifs, memes, and fonts, and that’s not even an exaggeration. However, it was also the most fun part and I loved creating the aesthetic fir my presentation and keeping its consistency. I added a lot of kpop gifs and memes in my presentation because I felt as tho they were a great representation of me. I use them on a daily basis, I post them on social media constantly, and my friends have come to just expect them from me at this point. That’s another reason this was fun for me, because I got to share a part of me that makes me feel positive even during the negative.

I’m going to be honest I kind of winged my actual presentation in front of the class, but I felt like I was able to accurately present what I was trying to say even though I was nervous. One of the only things I regret however, is not showing my “thank you for watching” slide because it was honestly one of my favorite slides (along with the opening slide). Howeverrrrrr… you’ll get to see that with my presentation down below:

Brand Identity Presentation  

A Level!!!!

I’m back and it's a new year, and now I'm continuing this blog as a part of AICE Media A level. We moved up the hierarchy😈. I'm super excited for continuing the blog this year, and I hope you’ll enjoy this sequel with me.