The Start Of It All

 Hi guys, it's Paula!

Today seems to be the start of a very long, but exciting process: the creation of an opening scene. And it is all under my control and creativity, pretty nerve-racking. In just the matter of a few weeks, you will all be able to see what I come up with, but, luckily, you are all also going to come along with me on the journey. I will be posting here multiple times a week in order to keep you all updated on my thought process and on the progress of my opening scene. I'm looking forward to this journey and I hope you enjoy it as much as I will. 

Before diving right into this process headfirst, I wanted to let you guys in on my initial thoughts going into this. 

Ideas I have: Going into all of this, I'm not sure exactly what I want to do. There's so much possibilities my brain just isn't able to pick one idea. However, I have a specific genre in mind. I started off by thinking what some of my favorite movie genres are. A lot of my favorite movies fall under the thriller/crime category (movies like se7en, silence of the lambs, fallen) so initially this was a big idea in my head. However, I don't think I could create something to the best of my abilities under this genre. So, after thinking about it long and hard, I cancelled that out. After some more process of elimination, I considered some of my other favorite movies, movies such as Moonrise Kingdom, mid90s and The Florida Project. All of these fall under the drama category, which seems a little more in reach. This is definitely a category that I could see myself doing and executing to the very best of my abilities. All of this is still up in the air and some research is definitely necessary but, I think it's a very good place to start. 

What I hope to gain from this: I hope to gain a lot from this project. Since I will be recording my every step in this journey, I hope to adopt very good research practices. I also hope to apply all of my research into my work in the best, most logical way possible. I hope to learn a lot about the genre I decide to go with and about what makes that genre so unique. We have learned that in class and done research on it but I hope to learn about it much more in depth, especially because I have to apply my findings into an actual film.  I also hope to get comfortable with all the techniques and methods we have learned about in class, at least enough to effectively apply them in my project in a way that makes it 10 times better and that gives it much more meaning that just a video. I think learning more about the application of these techniques and having to do it myself will help me when I have to analyze these techniques in other pieces of media. Another thing I hope to improve is my editing skills. The media studies course has already helped with that so much but I am determined to make this piece look as professional and as real as possible so I will need all the editing techniques and knowledge I can get. 

Challenges I may face: Right now, I think this is all looking very optimistic; However, I do have some concerns that I will be trying to steer away from in the process of making my film. Time is definitely a big worry. A couple of weeks does seem like a long time for this but those weeks are going to be full of intense research that will lead me to the final product. I need to make sure I stay on task and don't procrastinate to get this done as best as I can. Another concern I have is having my opening scene not get a clear message across to the viewers. In order to avoid this I will need to put in a lot of time into the small components of my film and make sure that everything is planned and done correctly. If I stay on task, I shouldn't have an issue.

Music Marketin g#2

Hi guys! So a couple of days ago I uploaded a post about our most recent project: The Music Marketing Project. In this project, we were given a song and we basically had to come up with and represent a brand new artist. We had to make a music video with our given song and explore many concepts relating to distribution and marketing techniques. All the work has been done and submitted so I thought I would go over the process with you all. 

So at the beginning of the process, my group started off pretty slow. It was a really detailed and big project and we were all just a little lost. Once we chose a song, we began by working on case studies. We explored bands that offered music that was really similar to the one we had been assigned. After finding 4 bands that did the job, each group member did a bit of research and we compiled all the information we needed. When all of this was done, we took a different route from most groups. Other groups explored trending marketing and distribution techniques after this. They made it their main focus before expanding on the actual artist. Our group decided to really focus on our artist and who he was before anything else. In doing this, we could use more accurate marketing and distribution techniques that fit his persona. For example, we knew we wanted him to be a small town, family-oriented artist so we set up his marketing so that he could set up a personal connection with his fans and so that he was an artist that did not change themselves for fame. We incorporated marketing into this by really enhancing easy-going social media use, etc.

After really creating our artist, we moved onto the business side of things. We used marketing and distribution techniques that we saw the bands we explored in our case studies used, such as selling physical copies of their music and having personal social media accounts so that the fans feel a more intimate connection with the artist. We had to research trending marketing/distribution techniques, finding reliable and useful things was harder than you'd think. We came up with a demo website for our artist and shared our visions of how it actually would be on it. On this website there was also fake merchandise that we would hope to sell for our artist. 

Once we finished this side of the project, we moved onto the music video. First, we came up with the original plan of it all and based a story board off of it. We planned to make our music video a melancholy video of a heartbroken boy, but, as we got closer to our shooting date, we realized this didn't match the theme of the song nor of the theme we were trying to portray with our artist. The song was all about a boy who was so caught up in a girl and spoke of memories the two had. We didn't want something blue that would get a listener into that big head of theirs, we wanted something with a hint of reminiscence and an overall feel of memories being valued and cherished. So that is what we did, we created a video of a boy reminiscing moments with an ex-lover. At the end however, he continues with his life in a happy manner surrounded by friends.

In the process of making the video, we focused on getting a certain amount of different shots to add some variety. To elevate the quality of the production we practiced many video making techniques, such as  changing clothes in between scenes to distinguish the difference between certain moments. After compiling enough clips of what we needed, I took it home to edit. My group had decided to add some effects to add onto the memory illusion of the video. We also played around with the color scheme and raised the saturation whenever the main character, the boy, was content. 

When presenting our project, we all split the powerpoint up. The powerpoint was mainly made up of bullet points. We did this so we had the freedom to explain most of these bullet points how we felt could be most effective and in our own way. I thought this was very useful and made our presentation that much more effective as it showed that we knew what we were talking about and put the effort and thought into this project.

I really loved this project. To be quite honest, I think it really expanded my knowledge on the marketing and distribution world. Yes, the topics. are very easy to understand and to expand on but having to apply them is a different story, you understand them in a completely different way. I was able to understand why certain artists do certain things such as how they market their music on their social media platforms, etc. Applying our case studies to our overall presentation is also something that will really help me in the Cambridge exam at the end of the year. Applying that knowledge to the overall project and how we wanted to represent our artist showed how useful that information can be if done correctly. 

For all of you guys that are interested, here's the link to our music video (hope you enjoy!): https://youtu.be/cOEGNUDoRkE

Music Marketing #1

Hi guys, for AICE Media we have been assigned a project regarding the marketing of an up and coming artist. This is just a few thoughts we had regarding the manner in which he would be represented and marketed. 

    As a group, we decided to create an Indie Rock artist with a very detailed and important background. We came down to the conclusion that this rock artist originated from a lower-income area of a rural town, who broke onto the scene with a hit rock song produced and performed from his garage. This origin story effectively sets up the way in which we will portray such an artist so that his true personality and nature can be expressed to the audience of his music video. In order to portray his humble and honest upbringing, his social media would be limited to just instagram and twitter, and would be much more personalized than most other artists. His posts would be more intimate and include more aspects of his personal life such as friends and family, giving his online presence a sense of authenticity. Being a young man who knows the ways of the upcoming generation, he would readily embrace technological convergence and even use it to his advantage, interacting with fans online more than most artists and portraying him to be an easy guy to connect to. For distribution plans, we would begin with just utilizing SoundCloud and YouTube as a way to spread his music. Both of these platforms have an underground and especially young following, a trend that his given rise to many artists with similar backgrounds and beginnings. By beginning with these platforms, and reaching out to the younger generations that will generate his stardom, the artist will eventually mature into an artist with a big following that spreads across many demographics. Once he begins to reach this level of influence, he will begin to be more involved with platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, maybe even signing an exclusive deal with such a big platform. The performances, in order to relate to the “hype” culture of today and especially “wow” the younger audiences, will be a mix of live and pop-up performances. Ensuring that they are very energetic and charged with authentic personality unique to the artist, his following will only increase and his fame as generational and unique artist will only grow. Surprise appearances at late-night and talk shows such as the Jimmy Fallon show will also help the artist become known to different demographics, and such appearances in these specific shows will express the more human and sympathetic side of the artist, allowing more and more people to feel as if they know him and eventually support him as an artist. Because all of this, we are trying to make the video an energetic one that although it reaches out to the younger generation, it still portrays the humble, loving kid that began his journey in a garage. Since this video would be his grand debut, we went into great detail regarding his background so that those same details could influence the video in such a way that the audience could really relate to type of person this artist is. He would be portrayed to the world as not just another artist, but one with a lot of heart and roots. 

 

Representation Analysis

In the Axe commercial, an abundant amount of different groups of women in provocative swimsuits are running through jungles and swimming through the ocean in a savage manner. They are doing so in order to reach a smiling man who is spraying axe body spray on him. The commercial is using an appeal to pathos as it is trying to convince men (particularly young men) that if they use this body spray, more women will be attracted to them. This is also reinforced by the slogan, "Spray More- Get More- The Axe Effect."

Right off the bat, the audience is presented with the MTV logo. Just with this, we can assume that the commercial is attempting to reach a younger audience in a punk, young, and neoconservative way, which is just what the advertisement did. All of the women in this commercial are depicted as savage and desperate for this man's attention as they try to push and outrace one another to get to him. All of these women acting vulnerable and fighting over him make him be seen in a masculine, superior light which is supposedly due to the body spray. Additionally, these women are all in tiny bikinis and have bodies that can be deemed as sexy and attractive in society today. The women also are separated into groups by bikini color, all the women in a group have a characteristic in common, their appearance. Some women in a group have the same hair color, others have the same skin color and others have the same ethnicity. This shows the variety of women that the body spray could attract. It is also degrading to females across the globe and grouping them in ways they should not be grouped for. The savagery of the women in the video also serves to show how this magical body spray will cause women to do whatever is necessary to get the attention of a man wearing it. The "Get More," part of the slogan is also very degrading to women as it objectifies them and signifies that they are just a number and that more is better. This whole commercial represents men's sexual attraction to women and manipulates the concept so that a man's desires could possibly be fulfilled just by using this body spray. 

In the Tide ad, the representation is not much better than the Axe body spray commercials. In this commercial, a mother speaks, in a disappointed tone, about how all her daughter likes to wear are hoodies and cargo shorts. When her daughter left crayons in her pockets, Tide detergent, to the mother's dismay, washed all the stains away instead of ruining the clothes so that she had to throw them away. The slogan, "Style is an option. Clean is not." comes off as quite ironic. 

The mother in this ad is representing femininity. She does not have a hair out of place and is extremely well put together. She is wearing a pink sweater as well as a skirt and a hairpiece, an outfit that can easily be seen as girly in society today. She is sitting at the complete center of the frame, it is all very symmetrical giving us a feeling us tidiness and organization, a sense mostly provided by women. The furniture includes pink and feminine patterns and is all organized in a very neat way. There are flowers and a tea kettle, more elements that can connect back to women. Her daughter, however, is wearing gray, a dull color, with camouflage, a usually masculine pattern, on top. She is playing with cars and you can see toy dinosaurs on the floor, not toys that girls usually play with when they are young. Throughout the ad the mother is speaking of how she has attempted to get her daughter to wear more pink, or be more feminine, but that she simply will not give in. The mother's diction and facial expressions tell us all we need to know, she does not like this one bit and is not very accepting of it. The video represents the mother longing for her daughter to fit in with gender norms. She is even trying to look for an excuse to throw out the clothes her daughters want to wear and what she feels comfortable in just because it is not what a feminine girl would want to wear. This mother is portrayed as upset that her daughter does not fit the stereotype of a young female, which is wearing pink or playing with dolls or tea sets. I believe the slogan is a bit contradictory because it states, "Style is an option." Is that to say that anything other than the typical styles is not accepted? The little girl has just favored a different style, one that shouldn't be deemed as anything less than a feminine style.

 (Links to an external site.)

Horror Genre Research

The Horror Genre

A movie that falls under this genre is one that seeks to elicit fear in its audience for entertainment purposes. They are known for provoking and targeting a viewers’ worst nightmares as well as an anxious, uneasy and fearful feeling. The typical target audience for horror is the group of 15- to 24-year olds made up of mostly men. Although, it sounds dreadful, many people love to watch these movies as they can be seen as an opportunity to confront one's fears as the viewer withstands the horror. Others simply enjoy the suspense as it builds up a kind of excitement within. Whatever the reason is, this genre is one of the most popular. 

Content

The content of these movies usually revolve around topics like death and murder, revenge, religious beliefs, survival, supernatural occurrences and ultimately, the unknown. All of these topics are portrayed in a very similar way, evoking a sense of fear and suspense. 

The overall target of every horror movie is to incite fear in the audience. The genre does so by using different methods of scaring people. For example, a common method are jump scares where a frightening element unexpectedly and rapidly appears, shocking the audience. However, the plot of the movies always already have a sinister feel to them as the main characters are usually trying to fight off their own fears. Those fears can include, but are not limited to, possessed people, killers, dolls, monsters, ghosts, extraterrestrial creatures, large animals, demonic creatures, bad spirits, etc.

These movies also contain an abundant amount of suspense. As movies under this genre go on, the audience goes learning more about the main characters. In doing so, the audience forms an emotional connection with this character and begins to fear for them and actively becomes more concerned with their well-being. These movies typically use foreshadowing techniques to show how a certain element could later have a menacing effect on the plot. This creates a sense of anxiety in the viewer and keeps them on the edge of their seat. The anxiety is caused by the audience being presented with more information about the plot line than the character in the movie.

Production Techniques

The production techniques in films under this genre are all extremely similar. 

As for location, it can take place anywhere. However, these movies usually take place in isolated or abandoned areas. For example, a common setting is in a house in the middle of nowhere or in the woods. This also helps create suspense as usually the main character is in a secluded place with the antagonist or menacing element of the movie.

Lighting is also a very important aspect of horror movies. They are almost always shot in low key lighting to create an ominous and eerie atmosphere. This allows the protagonists in the movie to seem more vulnerable and also creates tension. Darkness is also a very common and basic fear. This also contributes to shadows and silhouettes which can add disturbing feels in certain situations. 

Costumes play a big role in these movies too. The antagonists are almost always portrayed as very dark and frightening to fit in with the ongoing feeling of mystery that these characters are supposed to bring to light in the movie. The protagonists of the movie normally wear lighter colors to signify hope. 

Props also have an important play in these movies. Things such as fake blood, masks, weapons, etc. play a big role in forming situations and inducing fear and suspense.

Colors help further the genre and its goals. Horror movies have a great use of colors like white, black and red. White signifies isolation, innocence, emptiness, a cold feeling and detachment. Black signifies mystery, darkness, fear, power, death, an outcast from society and evil. Red signifies danger, the devil, blood, threats and violence. All help build more suspense and fear subconsciously. 

I believe sound has the greatest impact on movies under this genre. Noir diegetic sounds are always playing in the background of these movies to help build tension. These slow paced sounds serve in creating an eerie and disturbing feel. Synchronous sounds are also quite common. These very sudden and loud noises help exaggerate a scary and shocking scene.

How is genre marketed?

As stated before, the typical target audience for horror is the group of 15- to 24-year olds made up of mostly men. Teenagers and young adults are normally more attracted to this type of movie as they are seeking to watch something exciting that will keep them entertained and at the edge of their seats. As males are the main target audience, a lot of blood and gory images are typically used to capture their attention. 

A common method used in posters and horror movie thumbnails consist of eerie elements such as props that will have a big impact and be used throughout the movie, the protagonist with a fearful or worried look on their face or even just the antagonist.

Sample #1: Hereditary 

The horror movie Hereditary, released in 2018, is a good representation of the horror genre. It is a movie based on a family. When the grandmother of this family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to understand and become aware of terrifying secrets about their ancestors, they fight to escape these evils secrets and sinister fate they have inherited. Throughout the whole film, noir diegetic sounds are played to disturb the audience and to foreshadow how their escape of these secrets will turn out. The unsettling editing methods also serve to create a disturbing mood. These editing strategies include the sudden and quick switches from night to day and how their house is seen as upside down (a method also seen in other horror movies). The constant use of ticking noises create anxiety within the viewer and foreshadows how things will not work out in the family's best interest, only creating more fear within the audience as they are now emotionally connected to the characters and concerned for their well-being.

Sample #2: The Ring

The Ring is a horror movie made in 2002. Throughout the whole movie a low saturation is used in addition to a dark blue, grey hue. This represents despair and a gloomy mood. The whole movie revolves around a woman fighting for her child against what seems to be a possessed video that leads people to their grave. As the story develops, the audience is presented with the actual antagonist, a possessed girl. This girl is dressed in a stained and worn out white dress and has long dark hair covering her face, creating a sense of mystery and suspense as the audience does not know what lies behind this shield of hair or what she went through to get her dress so wore down. The white also represents an ironic sense of innocence, making the audience even more curious about this character and her past. Big parts of the storyline are discovered in an isolated and abandoned home, fitting into the production techniques typically used in horror movies. The weather throughout the movie also usually remains stormy and grey to create a desolate mood. Suspense remains throughout the whole movie and as the plot advances sudden scares occur to induce fear in the audience.

Other film examples within the genre

Intro to my blog!

 Hi! It's Paula ☺ I'm creating this blog for my AICE Media Studies class. It's a course all about media and shows us, students, how it impacts our everyday lives. We analyze examples from existing media and examine why things are done in a specific way, how, and what they achieve. A lot of our work and opinions on certain topics will now be submitted through here, so if seeing any of that work interests you, please stay tuned!