First Group Discussion

     Hey guys I’m back! OK so today in class, we did a group discussion based on our ideas and where we are heading to with the portfolio project we were assigned last week. So basically, what we do in a group discussion is that we are put into groups of about 6 people, each in a different group in this project, and we discuss our future plans and what we have in our minds going into this project. I have to say, it was very helpful and when we finished I had a ton of new ideas to tell my partner about. This discussion helped me gain some insight into what kind of style I want to approach this film opening. There was this really cool idea that I wanted to implement in the opening scene but I was not sure how I was going to make it work or if I should add it, so I asked the people in the group what they thought and they actually helped me solve my problem and told me it was a really good idea. The idea was that in the opening shot of my film, I wanted to have a drone shot of the family van in which family that was moving into Miami was in. The problem was that I was not sure on how to make it obvious in the drone shot on which van I wanted to show since there are many cars in the highway at once, making it more difficult to target our van with the shot. They gave me the idea of going to the highway State Road 27 on a morning because there are not many cars there at that time. If I am not making any sense right now, let me show you guys what I want to do with this drone shot. Here is a link of a video you guys can watch to see what I am  talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnEEbCfvbCw

                                

     Another thing that my group members made sure to point out was that I need to be careful with the time because the Portfolio project can only last 2 minutes. I am still not sure how I am going to squeeze my whole idea of a new family having to restart their whole lives in just 2 minutes, but I am working on a storyboard and outline to help get myself more organized on our plan. I will let you guys know on how our progress in unfolding our story line continues once we have everything in order. Talk to you guys soon. Peace!

Finally Figured Out What I Am Doing

OK guys, so my partner, Valeria, and I have finally decided to stick with the genre, teen drama. Vale and I met up today and began to brain storm for about 2 hours as we watched different film openings about drama and horror. In the end, teen drama really caught our eye and made us want to make a film opening about it.

After all the extensive research we did on the genre, we figured out the key of most Drama film openings. There is always a main character which is always the protagonist and sometimes the victim of the story and there is always a conflict which could be a person or situation. We also realized, after watching about 13 different film openings, that many start off with a voice over of the main character explaining his/her life. Another popular way of starting off a drama film was by using many establishing shots to show where the film is taken place. An example of a voice over is Gossip Girl and an example of establishing shots is sex and the city

                                           

 We plan on making an opening scene in which a new family is moving into south Florida because of job offers for the father which forces the family to start from scratch. We are still not 100% sure how we are going to make a story out of this, but we are starting to get all the ideas sorted out. We are going to have to figure out how to get adults to play father and a mother. This is just the beginning and we are going to start a storyboard showing what we plan to do next week. Ill show you guys that in the next blog posting. We are most likely going to go with the establishing shot method since there could be many problems with the voice over method such as the timing and the tone of it. We are going to take pictures of palm trees, the beach, and Miami to show where the opening scene is taking place.

                                

We have also seen that in every drama opening scene that takes place in a school, there are always different groups of people presented in different ways. There are the cool people wearing their cool school sweaters, there are the cheerleaders showing their uniforms off, and then there are nerds dressed up with khakis and a button down with glasses.

       

We are not sure yet what music we want to put in our opening scene as the theme song but we are most likely going to get it from killer tracks or YouTube Audio Library and we also know that we want it to be a high pitched, happy song.

                               

Next week I will be posting our progress with our ideas put all together in a storyboard. I can’t wait to show you guys.

First thoughts! We Can't decide what Genre!!

This is officially the start of my AICE Media Final Portfolio Project. I have to say I am excited to begin this journey, but I have already encountered a problem. Me and my partner honestly have no idea how we are going to go about things. We have been arguing back and forth trying to decide what genre we want to make this 2-minute film opening and we are stuck between two genres: Horror and Drama. We are leaning more towards the drama genre since we know more about it. We plan on doing teen drama since we can relate to it and therefore makes it easier for us to come up with a story line. We have a couple of ideas but nothing to elaborate and create a story about. Here’s what we know about the two genres.

Drama: The purpose of a drama film is to emotionally attract the viewer by making the situation relatable. Drama story lines are usually about physical pain, affairs, conflicts, and difficulties. Drama films use many close ups to show specific emotions and clues, high angles to show how vulnerable a character is in a situation such as a bullying scene, and low angles to show superiority. The location of a drama film is usually in school or home town in which most viewers can relate to. High key lighting and low key lighting are both used to set the mood. An example of a drama film that I watched and has all theses aspects is The Notebook. The notebook is about two people, Allie and Noah, who fall in love at an early age, but later Allie moves and falls in love with someone else making it an epic love story. Many close ups are used to show what the two are feeling in certain situations. Lighting is also used to set the mood, for example, in the beginning of the film high lighting was used to show the exciting and happy mood of falling love.

     

        

Horror: Horror is a genre that could include aspects that are fiction and non fiction and its purpose is to create a feeling of terror by a story line that causes suspense. There is almost always a hero, a villain, victims, antagonists, and a helpful force in a horror film. Horror usually tells a story about an unusual human fear such as violence, death, the belief of the super natural, or the dark. Drama films have to focus on lighting as lighting is used to create a mood or create suspense. For example, by using a low key lighting and implementing shadows and flickering lights, one knows that something big and scary is about to occur. The location of a horror film is typically in isolated areas or in the middle of nowhere to create a sense that if something happens there is no one to contact or get help from. Sound is also key in a horror film. A Quiet Place  is and example of a great horror film. The film is silent almost throughout the whole thing and it is obvious that sound played a major role in making the story scary. The lack of sound makes the viewer uncomfortable. Also the lighting in the film is dark and dull to create a gloomy and creepy atmosphere.

        

As you can see, it is obvious that we did extensive research on both genres which makes it even harder for us to choose which one we want to implement in our final project. What do you know, maybe we create a combination of both genres. I honestly do not know we we are going to do but ill tell you guys this, it is going to be great.

Music Marketing Campaign Experience

Whats up guys! About a week ago I was assigned a very exciting but challenging

project about a music campaign. During the music marketing campaign project my partners and I had to create a music video on a rock song that we chose out of three that were given to us. Based on the genre that we chose, we had to create a marketing campaign and act as promoters for the band/artist that we decided to create.We had to be creative and think of many ideas as we had to start off from scratch even trying to figure out the name of the artist and a logo that could represent the artist. We decided to go simple and safe as we named him JonnyVivas (J.V).

We had to pretend that our artist was not known at all and that it was his first time producing

a song. We came up with a plan or outline on how we are going to get the artist popular and out to the public. In order to come up with ideas for our promotion plan we had to do some research on already established artists/bands in the music industry. By doing this, we had an idea on what route that we to go with our plan. We came up with ideas such as starting off small and creating fliers that we can hang up in cafes and bars, performing live in local bars, and making an album to introduce our artist to the music world.

We also created a well organized website in which everyone can navigate through and find where everything is. We utilized this as our central point for giving fans information on new music releases, videos, upcoming tours, and updates. Our link to our website is https://vale1116.wixsite.com/jonnnyvivass . Our website includes merchandise, blog posts, tour information, and upcoming news. This website was challenging and we spent a good amount of time trying to perfect it and make it look professional. Here are some pictures of what you can find on the website.



One of our key strategies to introducing JonnyVivas was by the use of social media. We used Instagram for the younger target audience, Twitter for the older target audience, and Youtube because it is the most used streaming app currently. We decided to chose these specific apps because it revolves our target audience which ranges from female to male and from ages 16-50. Here's what our social medias looked like in the end.

As you can see we were constantly updating and active and all our social media platforms which is essential and promoting an artist. Making the music video for this project was challenging as we had to think and create a storyline that could portray the true meaning of the song. We spent a lot of time filming our music video and in the end it was worth it. It was fun and I got to know my partners a little more. I really liked how our finally video ended up. Here are some scenes from the video that we created.

After finishing this exciting but challenging project, I learned many things that I will be taking on with me and considering when I do my final portfolio project. I know know that anything relating to media has to directly relate to the target audience that one chooses to represent. Target audience is the core in marketing even if it's just a music video. Because of the research we had to do to develop our campaign and outline I learned a whole lot more that I thought I would from just making a small campaign. I now understand how technology contributes to everything. This experience exposed me to many new things and will will impact on how I will be approaching my upcoming projects.