Week Two Post #1

     Hello and welcome to another blog posting by yours truly, Richard Leon. Monday's Media Studies class was an interesting and productive class period since we discussed this project, looked at blog samples, analyzed some finished products, and had class time to work with our group after. My partner and I had a great brainstorming session during then. We came up with several ideas and possibilities for our film opening, thus begins our planning process as we work towards our finished product.
     I learned a few key things from that class period to keep in mind as my partner and I work. Number one being to keep in mind this is meant to be and play as a film opening, not as a trailer. Secondly, a simple and low-budget filming location that worked well for other groups in the past is a garage. So, my partner and I have our garages as possible filming locations now. I also learned that I should space the opening credits out for most of the opening to support that it is in fact a film opening, and not a film trailer.
     Moving onward, my partner and I are going to stay in touch closely and, through the magic of technology nowadays, communicate every day. We have been texting and calling each other outside of school hours to discuss our plan and the project in general. Thus far, we've concluded we want our film opening to be of a spy, or some sort of undercover agent, getting ready for a mission since that is what is intriguing to us and what we believe we will be able to capture well because it will be fun for us, which will generate a great finished product organically.
     It will be a dramatic action/adventure or crime drama as the genre. We also decided on this genre after researching the greatest movies of all time, which showed the majority of them as dramas, and most of the top dramas were crime dramas. For example, "The Godfather" is acclaimed as one of the greatest films ever made and is a crime drama.

Another drama movie ranked as one of the greatest films ever made, and a personal favorite of mine, is the "Shawshank Redemption." What I specifically liked about that movie is the character development, and the relationship formed between the characters "Red" and "Andy." Perhaps I may draw on their character traits for inspiration in creating our film opening characters. 

An American spy television show that was on the network NBC called "Chuck" is another source of inspiration from which I will draw from since it is well reviewed show by fans and critics alike, but also because it is one of my favorite shows of all time. The main reason I loved the show so much was because of the characters, specifically the main character, "Chuck." He becomes an unlikely, underdog undercover agent after he got sent an email from an old college friend embedded with classified Government files in a computer program called "the intersect" that upon viewing gets downloaded into the brain. Chuck is excellent, the character and the show, so it would be good for me to use him as inspiration in creating my own spy character.

Excited for what's to come!

     Hello blog, it's nice to speak again since it has been an exciting week with the official introduction of the media studies portfolio project film opening! My teacher gave an extraordinary presentation that prepared me for it and made me super excited for what's to come.

     I have been communicating with my partner, Ryan, more now, planning and brainstorming for our film opening. We've grown closer as friends, bonding as we research for this project. We know it must be an original fiction piece, but we are drawing from notable media as inspiration.

     My preferred choice of genre is drama. The drama genre has a broad range of sub-genres that expands my partner and I's options for what we can do. I am inspired by the drama "Cast Away" to shoot the film opening outside in nature with the drama focused on man vs. nature. Nature shots tend to come out beautifully, especially if filmed on the beach like "Cast Away," and the sun being the source of beautiful natural lighting. For this genre, we'd have only one human as the character and then all nature as everything else, including many extreme close-ups of the flora and animal life to show that although the character feels alone, this couldn't be further from the truth as nature is alive. This concept intrigues me since I often think about leaving society to live in the wild, a dream that I'll probably only dream of, or now I can make a film opening about, and I'd want to act as the main character. 

     One show that inspired me to do a fictional dramatic piece of someone struggling with an internal conflict is the FX show "Legion." This show is a a good example of the fictional superhero/ psychological drama, a genre my partner and I would be interested in doing. We could utilize many unique shooting techniques to capture the internal conflict, including shaky and off kilter shots. 

     It is important to keep in mind my limited resources, and I believe these two genre ideas have great potential with limited resources and creativity. Therefore, they are my top candidates for my choice of genre in this planning process. I am going to keep looking for inspiration though as I always feel improvements can be made. I am excited to continue working on this project as we work towards a beautiful finished product. 

Music Marketing Pro.

     It's been a while since my last post, and oh how so much has happened since December. The biggest thing being, I made a music video. For my Media Studies class I was tasked with creating a music video and an accompanying music marketing campaign for the musician. My artist was named "Loveman Hudson." My group and I chose this name since the artist is a romantic soul singer, which is the reason for Loveman, and Hudson is a Southern name, which is where our artist is from, Austin, Texas.  We figured Loveman Hudson would be an appealing name for a wide array of ears to hear.
     For our music marketing campaign, we created an excellent instagram account and website, with each converging by having links to the other.

https://victoriacmilano9.wixsite.com/lovemanhudson

https://www.instagram.com/lovemanhudson/

     The group and I decided it was best for the target audience, as well as staying true to the nature of our artist's music, to have the black and white be our theme. After doing through research we concluded it was best to have a simple, minimalistic black and white theme for our target audience of soul listeners aged 16-40. The music video is about love, a concept that is absolutely not black and white, which is another reason we chose the theme to be black and white since when we did introduce the color, it would be a stark contrast to add emphasize.

     Overall, I had fun with this project and also learned a bunch in the process. I know that what I learned from this experience will benefit me for the final portfolio project. The major way being I feel more comfortable with my filming and editing skills, as well as my choice of shots and angles and how I utilize them for my storytelling to achieve deeper meaning to my product as a whole.