Week 4? Update 1

So on Wednesday, it was our turn to discuss our project with the one and only TSTOK!!!!!!
We basically told her what we had in mind which obviously you guys know, is the dream sequence. She was very hesitant and asked a lot of questions which was not a sign.

Now keep in mind, I had previously mentioned to Mery that we should low-key turn this opening scene into a PSTD flashback.

Anyway, so I told Ms. Stoklosa about my thoughts on the ptsd flashback and she actually liked it. WOW. So in a nut shell we had to get ride of the story board and every single idea that we had before and start all over. Well not all over completely because the two ideas are very similar but they will now have different settings, for example: the dream sequence was being taken place in a bedroom (obviously because he's asleep) but now the ptsd flashback will take place in a coffee shop.
              ⇨⇨⇨⇨⇨⇨      

The girl in the meadow part is going to stay. Mery and I are both too passionate about that part to let it go but overall the scene needed tweaking because TSTOK said... and I quote " ahhh, a dream? sounds a bit cheesy" and we don't do cheesy so this needed to be done. Im actually more excited about this one than the one before. Time is limited though so we have to work extra hard since we started over with such little time left. Tomorrow we are having our group meetings again so I am excited to see what my fellow classmates have to offer.

week 3 update #4

Our scene will have a lot of background noises in it and some we CANNOT make ourselves. For example, police sirens. or bombs exploding. The human vocal cords don't have the talent for that. But not need to fear because a while back Mery and I (yes we work together on almost every project) did a sound project WHICH WAS SOOOOOO MUCH FUN might I add, and we got most of the sounds from a website and it was very interesting how we playing with the sounds; overlapping them, making some a higher frequency and others a lower frequency
                                                     



and that is exactly what we want to have in our opening scene now. During the nightmare, there will be overlapping sounds in the background that will give into the irony that we want to portray. Of course some sounds that are easy to recreate or do we will do them ourselves but the more complex ones we will have to use that website. No joke this will probably be my favorite part of the entire project.
                                                     

week 3 update #3

We are trying to put together our story board but tbh its kinda hard this time around. Like for the music video project, putting together the story board was a lot less complicated. Every time we try to put our ideas together, something doesn't make sense. Its getting super frustrating! But we will get through it. The thing is we want our scene to have irony in it and we have the base for our opening, its just finding something that ties it all in, makes the viewer want to watch more and BE IRONIC. And it has to be 2 mins I believe. UGH. The life of a film maker.

                    

week 3 update 2

Location is a key factor in this film opening. Mery and I have a vision that the girl on the dream will be running through meadow, but what's difficult is finding a meadow... IN WESTON. I mean it doesn't necessarily have to be in Weston but somewhere convenient, like Davie or Pembroke Pines.


What we want the actual scene to look like is a meadow or garden full of dandilions or some pretty flower like this :
                              
jk this won't be possible there are not mountains in Florida. A more realistic one is like this:
                                                  
There is one place in mind that could work. Mery and I filmed part of a music video in this location that could be used and work perfectly but we need to get it right at the peak when they are ABOUT to cut the grass. If we are a second too late, this location will not work because we can not film a meadow scene in a meadow with NO GRASS. so we shall see.

Week 3 update

Something weird happened today. As Mery and I were walking through the mall we were thinking of what the girl in the opening scene should wear. If she should wear a ling flow dress or just basic close because this is all part of her character development. Anyway, back to the story, so we walked into American Eagle and saw this picture on the wall.

This is the exact vision we have for our opening scene. Obviously there is only gonna be 1 girl in this part and she is gonna have pants on but I just found it crazy how we both as saw this as we mentioned it.  Now back to character development. We are trying to figure out how we can dress our main characters to help show their roles in the scene and what type of person they are etc. For the girl we either want like a flow dress like this or,
                                                  
just regular clothes showing that he is having a flashback during his dream rather than just a dream of her in a dress, if that makes any sense
                                                          

We are still trying to figure it all in great detail so stay patient! 

The end of week 2

So after consulting with my respective group member, Mery Ramirez, we both agreed that the ideas put forth during the group discussion in class were very much gonna be included within our project.

SO IF YOU WERE IN MY GROUP DURING CLASS, YES IM TALKING TO YOU, WE ARE MOST LIKELY GONNA USE YOUR IDEA. WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now we have been thinking about the actors. The opening scene is going to mainly include a guy and a girl and as we all know, Mery nor myself can play the guys part... OBVIOUSLY, so we have been asking around and might have found the perfect guy to play this part. He is in nice media as well and also has Stoklosa, How funny is that. Well anyways, if all goes well he will be our actor. OMG I almost forgot! okay so one of the ideas given to us was like the switch from a quick good dream to a nightmare and Mery and I thought it would be cool if during the fast pace editing of the dream that they will be filmed during different days. The good dream of the angelic girl will be filmed as sunset on a gorgeous day and the nightmare will be filmed on another day and will include special effects makeup from party city. Mery is super into halloween and all of that so she is most excited about that part. So that is what we have in mind as of right now. 

Tune in next week where Mery and I are going to start the story board to see exactly what we are going to do. Neither of us can draw so brace yourselves. 

update #3

Fellow humans, We had a group discussion is class. 10/10 would recommend.

IT WAS FREAKING AMAZING!!

Tbh, I thought it would be weird and not effective because sometimes when I have group discussions everyone usually just agrees with me. But not this time folks.

Basically we all talked about our ideas for our final project. I got to hear such interesting ideas and got such good ideas in return.
So as you guys know Mery and I are doing thriller where our inspiration was the goofy movie opening. I shared that in my groups and told them that we wanted to do the film opening kinda like ironic. Its gonna be a beautiful scene with scary noises but my group gave me the idea that in the dream there should be quick flashes of something scary instead of the noise in the background which I kinda like. I have no idea if I am explaining this right so I will try to find an example on my best friend, ~YOUTUBE~ but it's hard to find what I'm looking for but I won't give up.

Update #2 (week 2)

I'm a little stressed because thinking on how to act in a thriller is hard. Because I know its not real so I worry everything but the acting will be good.
Acting like you're scared is not easy.


 So I started watching some thrillers and focused on the ACTING only.
The call was really good, it gave me GOOSEBUMPS... GOOSEBUMPS
Hush was also really good too but it was weird, it had barely any audio. Maybe because in the movie, the girl is deaf. *Oops spoiler alert*
Ive been doing research by not only looking at conventions but also looking at movies that display those conventions so I can get a deeper understanding of what to portray in my very own thriller opening.
I will gave you guys the trouble and just link the scenes that I thought was best in those two movies below.  Yes, I know, I am the best

WARNING: MAY CAUSE NIGHTMARES... JUST KIDDING (MAYBE)

The call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdsG_kCtqgE

Hush: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cDBiqNIJVw 

update (week two)

Well guys, Mery and I have a lot of ideas on how to approach this thriller genre. It is a lot harder than we thought. But right now we are just planning how we are going to do this project exactly.


First we are going to just think of ideas. Or ~brainstorm~ if you will.
                                   
Then we are going to create a story board. I find that story boards help a lot. Im not the best drawer but this is a safe space. We DON'T judge.
In a perfect world we will start to film as soon as we get our storyboard together but knowing us we will find a way to complicate this ideal schedule. WE WILL SEE FOLKS WE WILL SEE

Update (week One)

Hey guys, little update. We chose Thriller as our genre. We are gonna use irony to emphasis the contrast of the plot of the story. Thrillers are usually suspenseful and we got our inspiration from this video I found on Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS0vYIXgd8I ). We are going to captivate the audience and make the opening very intriguing. Some great movie openings are "Get Out", "Spilt", "The Call", and "Hush". They are all dark and confusing and our opening will start off confusing as it is linked to the plot of the film. As of right now Mery and I have a big picture in our head of this film opening and hopefully w will be able to bring it to life. It is not meant to scare you, it is supposed to confuse you. Keep you thinking and wanting more. If there are any interruptions I will let you guys know but as of right now our master plan is a thriller opening with irony and darkness.
 

Media Project

Well guys, I'm officially starting my media project. HOW EXCITING!!!! Mery and I haven't quite made a final decision yet on our film opening in terms of genre yet. We are stuck between horror or thriller. Similar genres yes but trust me they are very different. With horror, it's more scary, frightening, horrifying, and hs the most predictable plots. Whereas, with thrillers, they are a bit easier to watch, not as scary and just a little more plots twist that aren't as easy to figure out, to keep you on the edge of your sits. With whichever genre we choose, both Mery and I will be the the main characters. Mery is much better at editing than I am so she will probably do most of the editing but the cinematography will be shared equally. Im excited for this. Mery and I work very well together. We will make a decision either today or tomorrow and as soon as I find out I will most definitely et you guys know.  Stay tuned (:

A wrongfully painted picture of immigrants

     An image that is very misinterpreted in this day and age is immigrants. Or more specifically, immigrants in the United States. People assume they are evil, job stealers, or criminals and the representations of them were often marked by negative connotations and labels such as illegal immigrants etc.
     Immigrants are mostly portrayed as Mexicans or Latin Americans, and the topic was often linked to crime, and one example of this is the entire "Build a Wall" debate that President Trump constantly tweets about. Donald Trump’s proposal is building a wall to keep undocumented Mexican immigrants out and banning what he calls “bad people” from countries like the U.S. Americans have been influenced that immigrants, mostly Mexicans, are a "threat" and should be treated as such. They argue that they are taking their jobs and are criminals which simply isn't the case. Fox news, another media platform, has also taken a dislike on immigrants which is linked to their political views. They dehumanize and talk about them as if they are of less importance than any other person in America. On any story they cover that involves immigrants, they automatically refer to them as criminals and I think this is completely unfair.
     As being an immigrant myself, I know first hand what it's like wanting to move to a country where you have better education, more job opportunities, and simply a better life and for people of this country to judge someone who has done no harm and label them as criminals and a threat for just wanting a happier life is wrong. Although crossing a boarder illegally is not right, I wouldn't go as far as labeling every immigrant a criminal as some are in fact here legally and are documented. Rather than being a pessimist and calling them job stealers I would challenge that characteristic by being optimistic and calling them economy helpers as most immigrants do take lower paying jobs Americans don't want which leaves room for Americans to get the jobs they do want. As for painting a representation in everyone's head that they are all a threat to this country would definitely be a characteristic to be challenged also as most, if not all immigrants come to the US for a better life and should be welcomed with open arms because at the end of the day, they are humans too, no matter where they come from.

Genre research #2

What's up guys? It's been a while since my last posting but I'm back with another genre research. This time its not as mature as my last one. In fact its on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Last time I did research on a genre that appealed to adults, this time I'm researching a genre that appeals to.... wait for it..... CHILDREN!!

1. Genre- Children Entertainment
2. Genre conventions (content)- Provide safe, fun, and educational content for their younger viewers. Playful and visually attractive and easy to understand/follow for a young audience.
3. Genre conventions (Production)- Represented with animated characters as well as inanimate objects or animals are brought to life. Name of movie is usually at the top or center of the preview and is complimented by the overall color scene of movie. Characters are also the first thing viewers see on the preview picture.

Sample #1


This film demonstrates these conventions because the movie involves animated characters, objects, animals who all interact like humans and this helped the story line be easy to understand for kids. Also this compliments the liking of younger audiences and makes this movie fun to watch. Also the color of the name compliments the over all color and vibe of the movie which makes this very visually appealing. Lastly, the characters are the first thing viewers see on so younger kids are more likely going to be more tempted to watch the movie.



Sample #2

This film portrays these conventions by having the name of the movie on the top of the preview and the colors go along with the overall color scheme of the movie. Because of this makes it very visually pleasing to the eye and attractive for younger audiences. Also, the characters are animated and are in the center of the picture which draws in attention of the younger audience to want to watch the movie. Lastly, the story line of the movie is very fun and educational and also allows kids to follow along easily.

Other examples: