Soundtrack

Ahhh music, one of my favorite things to discuss. I've been looking for music to use in my film opening but the non-copyrighted music I've found isn't what I'm looking for. What I have found is the song New Flesh by Current Joys. The song is perfect for a Coming of Age film and I would really like to be able to use it as background music as I introduce my character Persephone aka Percy. The song has a calming vintage vibe which I absolutely love. Listening to it feels as if I am living in an 80s coming of age film and I would love to represent that feeling by including it in my opening. I will however look for back up songs to use if I am unable to use Current Joys' New Flesh. I will keep you guys updated on which song i will be using for my project, until then bye bye :).

Here is a link to a lyric video on YouTube of New Flesh: https://youtu.be/RaNnztBVD7w

Here is a link to the word doc where I created my draft of the message I sent the artist:

NewFleshRequestWordDoc

My Filming Weapons of Choice

 In this post I'm going to list off the equipment I'm going to be using to create my 2 minute opening. 

My main piece of equipment is going to be my phone. I don't have a video camera, so my next resort is to use my phone. I have an iPhone XR and since this is a newer apple product, my camera quality won't be terrible. I will also be using my phone to record any foley sounds I need. I have the Voice Memos app as well as the app Dolby On. However, I don't recommend Dolby On because there is a limit of how many sounds you can record. So, I plan to solely use Voice Memos. 

For lighting I'll be using a ring light. About a year ago my sister bought a ring light to take picture with, so I will definitely use it to my advantage to light my shots. The light is also a tripod for a phone and camera, so that will come in handy when filming. I also recently got LED lights for my room, which I have already installed, so I'll be using those for colored lighting. I may also use other devices like my iPad, or even my Army Bomb. An Army Bomb is a light stick that the BTS fandom, Army, uses at concerts. It has a bright white light, and with the BTS Official Light Stick app you can use a curser to pick a color for the light stick to display. The more I think about it, my Army Bomb may be a great tool to use XD.

Below are pictures of the Army Bomb, color wheel picker for the Army Bomb, a screen shot of the Voice Memos app, and the LED lights I purchased, as well as link to to Amazon, where I bought the lights.

 

LED Lights Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JP5375R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Army Bomb: I bought my Army Bomb on the Weverse Shop App. It doesn't have a website, only an app. It's the offical Big Hit(the label BTS is under) shop where all their artists have their merchandise. The website Cokodive also sells the Army Bombs as well as more merchandise from different Kpop groups under multiple labels.

Cokodive Link: https://cokodive.com/

Shooting Schedule

 I am planning to start shooting this weekend after I get a new battery for my camera and I have more LED some lights going in that I need to set up, I was getting these lights for my room anyway so they're coming in handy XD. I can wait to film the scenes that include the LED lights, but the battery is the most important factor, so I plan to get a new one tomorrow, Wednesday, March 3.

Schedule:

3/5-3/8: Here I plan to film my scenes outside, I have more daylight on the weekends then I have during the weekdays considering I have school. If something comes up, I will move the filming of the outside scenes for 3/14-3/15.

3/12-3/14: I'm going to film the scenes that take place inside my house on these days because by then I should have my LED lights.

3/14-3/15: Outside scenes, foley sounds and reshoots

3/16-3/21: Foley sounds and reshoots 

3/21~: Throughout filming, I will be putting clips together to see what I what I'm missing, what could be better, and what I should tweak, but from 2/21 and on I will fully devote to the editing process.

Group Meetings

 Hi again XD! During class today we held group meetings, where we met with people in our class to talk about our projects, discuss issues with our projects, and offer each other advice. 

After my group said hi to each other, it was a bit awkward because we didn't know who wanted to go first, but once the first person went, it went fairly smoothly. We discussed our basic ideas and what direction we're heading in with our project.

All of us for the most part didn't have concrete ideas, so we gave the advice of watching more film openings within our chosen genre to help spark ideas. This would also help with ideas for shot composition. 

Despite not having concrete ideas we also discussed our problems with filming, lighting, and finding music.

One of the peers in my group said he would do a horror film and wanted to film at night, but he would have trouble getting his parents permission to do so. So another member in our group gave the idea of just filming in his house and have his house completely dark with a dim light, so that people could still see what's going on. He also said "who said horror films have to be during the night" and gave the idea of filming during the day since the person wanted to film in a forest. Since forests are vast and shady, it would be a good alternative to film in the day, it would also be easier to film during the day.

The next issue brought up was background music. One of the peers in my group is doing a predominantly silent film which will have background music from the 1900s. One student asked how he'll get the music without it being copyrighted. We mentioned that YouTube has non-copyrighted music that can be of use. We also have the option of sending a request to a record label to ask if we could use their music.

My issue was how I'm going to be able to light my scenes. I only have one ring light and some led lights. I was told that I could use flashlights or an iPad with a plain white screen and the brightness all the way up. These options were very helpful and I'll definitely take advantage of that.

The group meeting was very helpful and we had a great dynamic together. We were able to give advice and provide reassurance that our ideas are good. It would be fun to do this again, and it would be nice if I had the same group :).

Color Scheme

For my color scheme I'm deciding between pastels or earthy neutrals. Since Persephone's a relaxed and down to earth person I wanted to use earthy neutrals, but she also has her head in the clouds and an airy personality, so I could also go the pastel route. 

If anything, I'll use both schemes. I could possibly use pastels for when Percy is not at home. The use of a pastel color scheme when Percy is not at home will represent her feelings of freedom and happiness. It will also keep the notion of her having an airy personality and her always having her head in the clouds.

 When I use the earth and neutral tones, it will be for when Percy is at home to represent the neutral, muted feelings she has. Her home will represent her suppressed negative feelings, so the neutrals and earth tones will help enforce those feelings. This color scheme will also keep the representation that Percy is still a down to earth person, but just not as airy and relaxed as she may seem.

I will uses these color schemes in the form of clothing, accessories, and lighting. 

Pastel and Earth Tone Color Schemes:

To Light or Not To Light

Today we're going to be talking about lighting, so let's get right into in.

I am going to use lighting to my advantage for this opening. I plan to film some shots outside as well as in my own room. When I shoot in my house and room, I want to use lowkey lighting and incorporate some colored lighting to represent her suppressed/bottled up feelings. When filming outside, I will take advantage of the broad day light to parallel Percy's airy, daydream-like, relaxed personality. If I shoot in locations that aren't my house or outside, I want to do my best to create three-point lighting. 

I believe creating colored lighting will be easy because I have LED lights in my room I can take advantage of. Also, by recommendation on some students in my class, I can use binder dividers and place them over lights to create colored lighting. Filming out side and getting natural lighting will be easy as well.

I believe it will be more difficult for me to create lowkey and three point lighting however, I did watch some videos that are very helpful in guiding me in the right direction of how to create these different lightings. Hopefully I'm able to execute the lighting well, but we'll see once I start filming.

Here are the videos I found most helpful when learning how to create the different types of lighting:

Lowkey Lighting Video: https://youtu.be/g4rF38M-SWs

Three-Point Lighting Video: https://youtu.be/EBGuQZo0g94

Persephone: A Fashion Icon

I'm really excited for this one because in this post I will be discussing my main character Persephone's style woohooooooo!!! I personally love talking about styling and fashion so let's get this party started XDD!!!

Since Percy has a down to earth, airy, relaxed personality, I want her style to replicate that. She would wear baggy, loose, comfortable clothing but it wouldn't look like she put together her outfits in 5 minutes. Her creativity would shine through with cool graphics, shoes, and staple pieces; she utilizes accessories often. She doesn't have a strict style, she fluctuates between styles, showing her go with the flow personality. 

For Percy's physical appearance, she has shoulder length poofy, curly, dark brown hair. She has caramel colored skin and she is on the shorter side about 5 feet 4 inches tall. Percy's has dark brown eyes that always seem to be glazed over and slightly closed, another representation of her in the clouds personality. 

Percy tends to walk with her hands in her pockets, gathered under her shirt, or behind her head while also leaning back slightly, always very relaxed. She also looks at the clouds a lot while walking.

Below are some examples of what Persephone would wear.

Meet Persephone aka Percy

 As of right now I am only focusing on character. The initial idea that people will be able to take from my film opening is that the film is going to focus on this character and her development. I don't know what my character is going to look like at the moment, but she is most likely going to be me because I am the only person I can film with at the moment. 

My character's name is going to be Persephone, Percy for short. I want Percy to have an airy, daydream like personality. Her head is always in the clouds and she goes by the philosophy that things aren't meant to be taken seriously unless needed. Her seemingly airhead personality comes from the fact that she doesn't want to be like her uptight, strict parents.  Although Percy seems like she's always disconnected from the world, she is very intelligent and capable. She is creative and a quick thinker and this can be put on display with her quick, witted comebacks. And when Percy does take things seriously, it's like a complete switch for her, she's focused and attentive. She doesn't appear to be the airhead, in the clouds girl everyone knows. This side of Percy isn't shown too often though because of the philosophy she follows and her conscious goal of not becoming her parents.

More information about Persephone, like her style/wardrobe and physical appearance, will be discussed in a future posts.

A visual representation of Persephone's personality as an aesthetic.

Yeah...I Chose Drama

I chose Coming of Age/Drama guys, yes I know I know TOTALLY unexpected right? No, hahahahahhahah. As you have seen from my last posting, "Starting the Portfolio Project", I was heavily leaning towards the Coming of Age/Drama genre, and I finally finalized that decision.

So let's take a second to dive into the Coming of Age/Drama genre with me. Together we'll find some guidelines for how to create a great film opening in this genre.

Let's Get in Some Drama

Ahhhhh the genre of coming of age/drama. The genre most teenagers relate to and enjoy. Memorable movies such as, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Breakfast Club, and Call Me By Your Name have come from this genre. They make us feel as nostalgic, and cry, and just feel in general. The target audience of this genre would be teens 13-18yr because the genre is very relatable and teens resonate with that. 

Content:

Within the coming of age/drama genre, we tend to see, more like hear, music frequently; whether it be non-diegetic sounds like background music or diegetic sounds like music playing through headphones, we hear music playing. More specifically, the type of music playing is usually within the alternative, indie, or pop genre. This type of music is a staple in coming of age films because it is the type of music a lot of teenagers listen to on a daily basis. We also hear songs that are great at bringing out powerful emotions in viewers. Songs such as Mystery of love by Sufjan Stevens and Visions of Gideon also by Sufjan Stevens are two of the most popular songs in the movie Call Me By your name. Visions of Gideon in particular was a song used at the end of the movie in an emotional scene where the main character is seated in front of a fire and silently lets his tears fall. The music playing in the background was a great use of non-diegetic sound which brought forth powerful emotions within the viewer. I'd like to say that every time  I watch that scene I cry :").

Here I have provided a link to the scene I had described: https://youtu.be/O65N5WuQfSU I cried watching it again :").

Production Techniques:

One of the major production techniques is costuming/wardrobe. I would say that I personally really enjoy seeing what each character in a film or TV show are wearing because it helps give insight to characters as well as builds character. A great example of this is in The Breakfast Club. Each character has a different style. John, the trouble maker, wears battered and baggy clothes. Allison, the outcast, wears all black and brown, long, covering clothes. Brian, the high achiever, wears simple clothing(a crewneck and jeans), Claire, the good, popular girl, wears pink, skirts, and delicate jewelry. Lastly, Andrew, the jock, wears his blue varsity letterman jacket, and underneath a blue sleeveless shirt. Each character has a different costume design that reflects who they are, or rather who they seem to be on the outside. Through costuming/wardrobe we can get to know a bit about the characters we are seeing on screen.

Left to right: John, Andrew, Allison, Claire, Brian

Marketing:

Since the coming of age/drama genre is aimed for teenagers 13-18yrs old, we can expect to see content marketed on social media. Trailers and digital posters can be seen on apps like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. We also see popular actors in this genre, for example Timothée Chalamet, posting trailers and posters on these apps as well to get their fanbase to see. We also see promotions on popular talk shows like The Ellen Show and The Late Late Show with James Corden.

A screenshot of the Call Me By Your Name official Twitter account

Link to Call Me By Your Name Twitter: https://twitter.com/cmbynfilm?lang=en

Samples:

The film Lady Bird is about Christine McPherson, a senior at a Catholic high school in Sacramento, California. She goes through two relationships, drops her best friend, struggles through a bad relationship with her mother, all the while wanting and trying to go to a college on the east coast despite financial problems. The film takes advantage of wardrobe to show the unity of the Catholic school; out of school, the wardrobe shows us a basic idea of each character's personality. 

Starting The Portfolio Project

 Starting from this posting onward, I will be taking you all with me through my process of creating my portfolio project. As of right now my brain is honestly BLANK as to what my story is going to be. However, I do know I am leaning towards the Coming of Age/Drama genre because, seeing as I'm a 16 year old girl, it would be easier for me. 

I did want to do horror at first because I have already done research on the genre, but I'm too much of a wimp to actually watch horror let alone create a well created horror film opening hahaha. Just the 2017 version of IT scared the bejeezus out of me, and don't get me started on Friday the 13th; I barely even watched it and I've been scarred since i was a child :"). So in short, horror probably isn't the best genre for me.

I was thinking about the fantasy genre as well since I have also researched this genre as well(this research can be seen under the posting The Fantasy Genre) however, it would be difficult for me to actually execute a fantasy that is in my head because I would want it to be in a completely different world, and I don't think I can get to a different dimension. Alice in Wonderland and Jumanji are some fantasy worlds that I would've liked to emulate if I had the resources and experience. So considering the world's current situation, my resources, and what is realistic it would be easier for me to create a film opening for the Coming of Age/Drama genre. 

To wrap this up, I'm definitely going to pick the Coming of Age/Drama genre XD.

Completed Music Marketing Project Reflection

 This music marketing project was most definitely my favorite and best project I've completed throughout AICE Media. My group got a long very well and had a great dynamic. We were able to work effectively and create a great project which we are all very proud of. 

 Our brainstorming process went by well. We threw around ideas and discussed how what we wanted to bring to the table. We were able to create a style, background information, and name for our artist and continue to develop him as we continued to work on the project. 

I focused mostly on the research aspect of our project which had me research the R&B genre and from that we were able to further develop our artist. Nicholas played the main role in creating our artist as well as the filming for our music video. Rodrigo created social medias and a website for our artist and I did a final edit and posted content on our artist's Twitter. Luis really gets a gold medal because he was able to edit our video very well as well as create graphics and merchandise. The three of us working on our separate tasks created a great dynamic and we got things done efficiently.

For the presentation portion of our project, I set down the general layout with brief information we would discuss during our presentation as well as included pictures and graphics. Then, together on a call, we spent about 4 hours editing, tweaking, and perfecting our presentation. We chose to use bullet points in our presentation instead of paragraphs so that it wasn't wordy, boring, and and not captivating. A lot of colors, pictures, and graphics were included as well to catch our audience's eyes. We also created a script for the presentation that was informative, but also a bit cheesy because we wanted to place ourselves in the position that were were actually presenting to a board of producers, marketers, distributors, and other big names in the music industry. 

When it came time to present, our group presented clearly and in an upbeat way to avoid boring our class. Although we had a couple minor technical difficulties, overall we believe we did a great job with our presentation.

Our group was not only able to work efficiently, but we were able to have fun. We joked around a lot and laughed together; it was a great group to work with. We created an artist, music video, social media, website, storyboard, research chart, marketing plan, merchandise, presentation, and a presentation script together, and we did it well. There were some minor bumps in the road such as finding time to call together, but other than that everything went smoothly. I am very proud of the project we created.

I will leave a link below to our group's website where there are quick links to our artist's social media, music video, and merchandise so you can see what my group put together.

Disclaimer this artist, merchandise, and media is FAKE. The music in the video is not ours all credits go to the original artist.

Website: https://neuebandbusiness.wixsite.com/home