Title Research: Grease

Grease

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? 
 Around thirty-four in total titles including names were used in the opening sequence, including, the main cast, the directors, set producers, the production agencies, and the artist responsible for the opening song. 

What images are prioritized in the opening sequences of the film?
  The images were of the main cast, also of what was big at the time like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, famous places to eat at the time like diners, famous baseball players, the things teens may have in their rooms at the time, and it's animated to be like a caricature of the people. 
What connotations do the images carry?
 The images represent a time period, showing what the adults may see, as the teens try to slick back their hair, and the girls act like princesses. Illustrating the time period of the 50s..

How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
 The genre is shown by telling the audience they are teens when they show up at the high school. They also have many things in their rooms that teens at the time would have like posters etc.

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?
  It lets the people know what they are like but not at how they all relate to each other this makes it very mysterious as to how they all fit together. Also, the way the directors made their personalities show to the audience makes the audience curious as to what kind of people are they really.

What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience?
  They include all of the things that the teenager at the time would be interested in like the things are for males and females or every type. for instance, they look at the people who use grease for their hair to slick it back to look cool, they show the girl whos like a Disney princess and can talk to animals, they show a bad boy and him fixing his car, and they also show a girl who is punk and rebellious who doesn't wear what other people want her to wear.
How has technology been used effectively? 
 Technology has been used very effectively as for the time period all this was new so the fade from the animation to the actual scene of the high school was very cool. When they showed the different peoples names on the individual signs the transition was the pollution from the car to act as sort of a transition piece. The way it was animated made each of the characters show their characters in a split second, with the short time they showed the characters they were able to tell the audience what they were like.

Title Research: Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians 

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? 
 The entirely of the opening was a very short sequence with only four titles consisting of names of the main cast the directors, and the producing company. 

What images are prioritized in the opening sequences of the film?
  The opening had no direct images but it had wallpaper with an Asian theme behind it.

What connotations do the images carry?
 The images portrayed the message of a colorful and a romance with cultural undertones

How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
 The many colors symbolize the many personalities and many aspects of the culture that will be going into this movie and leave the audience to desire the experience of a different culture.

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?
 The audience is left to wonder how culture will play out throughout the story and how these colors or symbols might be relevant.

What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience?
  The music isn't in English due to the attempt to stray away from the American version of what a romance is.  Tough targeting the American audience, the directors chose to diversify. The film honestly appeals to everyone, not just a specific race, culture, or ethnicity; attempting to bring material to the table.

How has technology been used effectively? 
 This opening was very fast and didn't have many transitions other than a few colors or backgrounds being changed, the director was probably trying to make it fast to fit the whole story. It didn't showcase any of the other factors that went into this movie like a costume or leaving the effectiveness of the title portion a tad dull.

Title Research: Married To The Mob

Married To The Mob

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? 
 A total of twenty-six titles were used in the opening sequence, most of which were the names of the participating actors, the rest being a credit to producers sound supervisors, custom designers, the artist of the opening song, the casting crew, and directors.

What images are prioritized in the opening sequences of the film?
 The opening sequence is a montage of train track and lights with miscellaneous people scattered about.

What connotations do the images carry?
 The images give a sense a fast-paced and dangerous situation

How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
 The opening gives the audience a clear sense of danger, introducing them to a presumed theme of the movie.

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?
 By introducing, arguably nothing, until the opening credits end, the audience is left anticipating the end of the tracks; being stimulated for the entirely of the opening with no clear rhyme or reason.  

What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience?
  Music was used in the opening scene, it's fair to assume that the music used must have been favorable or at the very least recognizable to the audience of that time. (1988)

How has technology been used effectively? 
 The opening sequence is shacky, and loosely put together; being filmed in odd angles. Like super low (face down) when on the tracks and centered angle for higher placed objects like the light lining the tracks. The nature of the effectiveness creates a sense of reasonable unease disorienting the audience with no clear purpose but to introduce danger.

Title Research: Title Research: 40 Days and 40 Nights

40 days and 40 nights

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? 
 A total of twenty-eight titles were used in the opening sequence, most of which were the names of the participating actors, the rest being producers music designers, writers, the casting crew and directors.

What images are prioritized in the opening sequences of the film?
 The opening sequences prioritize the daily activities of what the audience can assume to be a couple 

What connotations do the images carry?
 The images portray a sense of blissful and peaceful existence being infatuated with the other company

How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
 The opening gives the audience a clear sense of a romance, introducing them to the characters.

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?
 By introducing an already established relationship, the audience is left to wonder what will happen to the lovely couple we are introduced to 

What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience?
  Music was used in the opening scene, it's fair to assume that the music used must have been favorable or at the very least recognizable to the audience of that time. (2002)

How has technology been used effectively? 
 The opening sequence is shacky, vintage, and loosely put together; being filmed from the perspective of the couple, transitioning to an insert of video editing software. The nature of the effectiveness creates a sense of relatability to the characters the audience is being introduced to.

Title Research: Artofthetitles.com

Art of the Titles

Continuing with our research my group and I looked at the website called Art of The Title. We plan on using this in conjunction with Wacththetiles.com to focus come up with ideas for our titles. Art of the Title gives use a  secondary method of setting the scene and feel for our film. Similarly, Art of the Titles gives allows us to see many different movies. With various movies to chose from, collecting ideas will be much easier.  We get to see how actual movies portrayed the sense of romance when opening to their audiences. 
    This website is organized in a way remittance of Watch the Titles. It introduces and recommends titles, helping us chose the direction we want to head in. This site also doesn't section titles off, giving us a wide range to chose from. For us, viewing each meant a new possibility and route we could take in filming. 

Title Research: Watchthetiltles.com

Watch the Titles

    Today my group and I are focusing on researching titles through a helpful website called Watch the Titles. With this research, we hope to focus on coming up with cool ideas to emphasize our titles. Since our film will be only two minutes, the titles are very important as it will take up the entirety of our screen time. We plan on using the titles to not only inform the audience who took part in creating the film but to also set a scene for the movie.

The titles though do need to focus on crediting the actors, and producers while including leads and other facilities we haven't thought of as yet.

    This site (Watch the Titles) gives us a sneak-peek into different movies. It shows us how their titles set the course and feel for the movie as a whole. This website was easy to maneuver and helped us learn many ways to go about our titles. For certain titles, the feel of the movie had to be dark and scary like a horror or crime movie title others like romantic titles, held a warm feeling and alluding to the greater feelings of joy and happiness in the movie. This website is well organized, introducing the main aspects of each title This site also sections titles off for us to view categories without having to look for a specific genre. It's not great, but it only serves as a way to expose us to movies we had not thought of. The sections we have though are; Feature Film, TV shows, Event titles, and Student projects. We are exclusively looking at Feature Flims to get the best quality in relation to what we are creating our selves.

 

Genre Research Movie Example: To All The Boys I've Loved Before

 Next up was the heartthrob, Everything Everything. We chose this movie due to its popularity amongst our peers. I also featured a prominent woman of color which, to me, was a nice bonus.

To All The Boys I've Loved Before

Screen Behavior: included closeups, medium closeups, high angles, wide angles, establishing shots, inserts, tracking shots, zooms, low angels, over the shoulder shots, pans, eyeliner matches, cutaways, and jump cuts. Natural lighting is heavily used, switching to manufactured light at night.

Sound: Favors diegetic, with little non-diegetic, and many voiceovers 

Makeup: Little to none used 

Setting: Home, high school, and various outdoor locations

Elements of the Genre: The story focuses on a typical male, female relationship, the two subjects, however, do not face obstacles in order to be together, but rather avoid the notion before actually uniting

Elements of the film I liked: Extremely relatable in my option, far more than the others

Elements of the film I disliked: No complaints about this particle film honestly.

Genre Research Movie Example: Everything, Everything

   Next up was the heartthrob, Everything Everything. We chose this movie due to its popularity amongst our peers. I also featured a prominent woman of color which, to me, was a nice bonus.

Everything Everything

Screen Behavior: included closeups, medium closeups, high angles, wide angles, establishing shots, inserts, tracking shots, zooms, low angels, over the shoulder shots, pans, eyeliner matches, cutaways, and jump cuts. Natural lighting is heavily used, switching to manufactured light at night.

Sound: Favors diegetic, with little non-diegetic, and many voiceovers 

Makeup: Little to none, except on occasions where is it used as an element to impress the surrounding characters

Setting: Home, liberty, the beach, vacation home, inside a plane, bookstores, various outdoor locations

Elements of the Genre: The story focuses on a couple determined to be together despite unfavorable circumstances. The obstacle is presented as an illness, physically separating the two main subjects for the progression of the story.

Elements of the film I liked: It was classic without being stale 

Elements of the film I disliked: It wasn't very moving for a romantic film; major issues in the story could have been easily avoided and were arguably predictable...the sense of urgency,  desperation started to fade here and there

Gere Research Movie Example: Crazy Rich Asians

 Moving on, my group and I looked at the movie Crazy Rich Asians. Assuming that it would have something do with Asain-culture we thought it another good choice for examination. This as the first is also labeled under drama.

Crazy Rich Asians

Screen Behavior: included pans, tilts, track shots, high angles, medium closeups, two shots, wide shots, establishing shots, subtitles, jumps cuts,  eye-line matches, inserts,  over the shoulder shots, and point of view shots, 

Sound: The film, used primarily diegetic sound with each setting, changing to the use of non-diegetic sound when music was involved.

Makeup: Minimal makeup was used, being a sign of high status, it was heavily used in certain scenes 

Setting: Various countries such as Singapore, London, New York, and smaller areas like the beach

Elements of the Genre: Mood was directly linked with color along with lighting, pushed to affect the audience's interpretation with bright and muted colors. Wealth was the obstacle in the film

Mis-en-scene: The color blue, both in name and color, represented the second lover in the story and presented itself whenever a person would be assumed to be said person.

Elements of the film I liked: The wedding was very well put together. The emotions present were very exhilarating 

Elements of the film I disliked:  A little too fast, editing personally
seemed to jump around a lot

Genre Research Movie Example: Love, Simon

    Deciding on romance, my group and I looked at four movies underneath the genre. Starting with Love, Simon, we chose a movie closer to our obscure image. Being LGBtT+ representative we thought it would be a good movie to examine. This movie is also labeled under the genre of drama.

Love, Simon

Screen Behavior: followed the previously listed conventions for a romance film, featuring fades for the opening and exiting scenes, jumps cuts, wide shots, two shots, with close-ups, over the shoulder shots and included an aerial shot (or high angle). We saw many shot-reverse shots along with crossing to move along dialogue. The film also made use of inserts when the characters "texts" (really emails) came into play.

Sound: The film, for the most part, relies on diegetic sound, only using non-diegetic music when transitioning from one large plot tread to another, (In the entirety of the film, non-diegetic sound only appeared twice.) and voiceovers present to accompany inserts

Makeup: No over the top makeup was used, being kept at a minimum

Setting: High school, home, party, and fair 

Elements of the Genre: The story was fairly compelling, being that it was of two young men who had fallen in love without knowing one another. With a clear obstacle, the film seeks to resolve this a bring the lovers together in the end. The mood is set to be happy with moments of sadness to provoke the audience to root for the couple.

Mis-en-scene: The color blue, both in name and color, represented the second lover in the story and presented itself whenever a person would be assumed to be said person.

Missed elements of the Genre: Unlike most romantic films, we aren't truly introduced to the other half of the love story until the end. The story was written with an element of mystery, keeping the audience guessing along with the characters in the film. Along with that, this story was not the classic male and female love story the genre is used to seeing, and rightfully so due to its intention.

Elements of the film I liked: LGBT representation is big; going against the convention of the genre speaks volumes. I also admired the progression of the story and how the audience wasn't thrown into these characters but rather got to know them over the course of the movie until the reveal. 

Elements of the film I disliked: Even though it was intended I didn't like the selfishness of the story's perspective; it was isolated and limited to the one person instead of two, or less common for the genre none. 

Landing On Our Genre

    After researching various genres, we finally decided on one. We plan to go with our second pitch and shoot a romantic film. We still liked our original pitch after researching so we will be implementing bits and pieces of the other two genres, making it a "romantic, crime drama.". We're not focusing so much on crime and drama per se, but where we envision the plot going includes areas of those two genres. That said we also plan on going against the larger conventions of the romantic genre. We are only considering labeling as "romantic" because it has to do with a couple.

Further Genre Research

    For the two pitches we narrowed down, they would be considered "romantic" and dramatic". When researching we went through it with the same methodology as the powerpoint, looking at the convections of each genre as a whole. Between the two, a lot of commons were found since they are often used together.

Romance

Common Camera Behavior: high angels. low shots, medium to medium closeup shots, with some point of view shots, and many two shots 

Common Lighting: very bright and well-lit with of use of colors (tints)

Acting: encompasses and hinges on various emotions such as envy/ jealousy, happiness, sadness, and anger

Make-up: more often than not, makeup is little to none for casual look expect when the scene calls for more

Props: no real commonalities found within this genre expect for the arguably infamous book/paper fall with wedding attire, alters, and rings being a close second

Setting: most contemporary settings would be a highschool, seeing that there are many "teen-love" stories

Liked Elements: The pacing of a movie matters most to me, and I feel, within most romance movies, the pacing is executed quite nicely

Disliked Elements: Though classic, the Romeo and Juliet trope as been played over and over; with the lovers always having to overcome some major and unreasonable obstacle to be together

Drama

Common Camera Behavior: high shots. low shots, aerials, and over the shoulder shots 

Common Lighting: very bright and well-lit with of use of colors (tints) often changing to envoke responses from the audience

Acting: focuses on feelings and responses to different situations, often needing a cause-effect/ conflict, resolution styled story

Make-up: makeup is often used in turning points of movies when a character experiences growth (in the case of  drama, usually a female character)

Props: no common props found 

Setting: a wide range with no restrictions, however, scenes within dramas are often in walking distance of each to keep its fast-paced nature 

Liked Elements: a good back-and-forth relationship between characters can be refreshing; agreements, bickering, and so forth is a personal favorite

Disliked Elements: there usually is so much happening in a drama that the audience can get lost and swept up in sub-plots

Shared Commonalities

 Shared Camera Behavior: both use over the shoulder shots, high angles, isolated close-ups, tracking shots, zooms, pans, many establishing shots, two shots, and wide shots

Shared elements: extremely focused on character development,  and the relationship of characters...a female, male dynamic is most common in these genres with romance taking the higher occurrence of the two.

Shared editing: both make use of jump cuts, inserts, action, and eye-line matches, split screens, and fades. 

Shared sound: both favor diegetic sound, only sometimes exempting music when introducing a new scene, must of the time though, sound and music would be attached to cars, radios, or cellphones

Genre Research Powerpoint

     Our Group put together this little powerpoint for a research assignment. While we were discussing genre we looked into the commonalities or rather, conventions of the crime genre. We tried to look at the special and subtle differences and similarities that made up films we classified under "crime", focusing (as shown above) both on-screen and technical elements. We reviewed how the camera was used in these films and how what the audience saw, affected the mood. We took scenes of varies films to help illustrate certain aspects, like dimly light scenes.

Narrowing Down Our Pitches

    Out of the four pitches we thought of, two really stuck out. We ultimately chose on the basis of which would be the most fun to do, seeing that it would be a project that would take multiple days to complete. Over the span of the next few months, I believe,  motivation will be harder and harder to come by, so we tried to pick something we all would have a relatively easy time doing. Together we landed on pitches three and four.
    For pitch three, (the about religion), we honestly just thought it would be funny. It would be very fun to shoot as well since we thought about playing with fire (in a safe environment of course). The concept itself has a lot of flexibility so once it comes down to storyboarding we can fit a lot of ideas into the time allotted. That said, the concept is fairly original, out of all the films I can recall, none seem to go in the direction we're heading. We want to add more mature aspects, while still making it laughable, kinda like horror-comedy. The only hard parts would be finding a suitable location. For a religious movie, no matter how obscure, its tradition to include at least one church scene. We may not be allowed access to a church in order to film and replicating one would be just as difficult. We also wanted to feature a pastor, an adult preferably. It would the same as before, we may not be able to find someone willing and being the only guy, I am not the best at acting.
    For our fourth pitch, we wanted to do a pair of cabalistic lovers. On the upside, it has amazing potential. I haven't seen anything close to the dynamic we're trying to portray. The only thing reasonably close would be the Netflix Original "Santa Clarita Diet". The only similarity would be cannibalism and the focus on a "loving couple", but the show has the twist of zombification but we aren't doing that. The downside, consumes are going to have to be a tad more high-end if we are going for a "famous" look, and the editing is going to take a lot more due to the cuts needed to give the graphic scenes emphasis. Maintaining good lighting is also going to be a challenge with the multiple settings we want to include.
 

Starting The Final Task

    Today we learned about the ins and outs of a pitch. More specifically we learned the definition for an elevator pitch. Our instructor defined this pitch as an overall summary of our film, shorted to the length of twenty-five words or less. It was said that we should encapsulate everything we need to. to sell the film but enough to keep the mystery of it and not give too much away.
     Moving on to our final film, I feel I have learned a lot. I have so much more knowledge than I would have imagined going into this class. We recently learned that companies such as Disney are made up of just more than "Disney". We learned that a company can basically assimilate smaller companies and then allowing said companies to work together in order to produce something greater than its individual parts could go personalty. We also learned that big companies like Disney can also combine efforts with other companies to promote and produce films, sometimes sharing in both risk and revenue. With all that and the many skills I 'v picked up over the course, I'm confident we will do well on the exam.
     In this year, Iv learned that my strongest area is in editing, and planning. For this final assignment, I aim to surpass my last attempt at editing. I recognize the mistakes I made and will try to improve upon them. With our ideas, I think I'll have many opportunities.  My group and I have a total of four pitches, two of which are amalgamations of numerous spur-of-the-moment thoughts. We tried to best fit all of our ideas into one film and came up with four different options. The pitches are as follows:

1. Random teen found dead at her apartment, local cops make it look a suicide, no one questions it and leaving it to her friend to find out the truth.

2. Abandoned frat-house gets crashed by a group of teens hosting a party, little do they know, they aren't the only ones having their fun that night.

3. What do you do when your faith abandons you? You become a satanist, or at the very least seek revenge against the man who did you wrong.

4.  A red carpet couple never seems to get along behind closed doors, not even in the middle of a crime.

                                                   We really had fun coming up with pitches