Hey blog! So,

me and my partner, Andreina, have decided on the most important parts of our video. Our character will have a off-putting aura to them, causing some suspicions from people who are close to her. Our video will also not directly announce any major events that happen/happened, but will hint them, giving the mysterious effect we want. We definitely will add symbolism and "foreshadowing" to what has actually happened. Our actual plot is still very foggy, but me and Andreina are getting closer and closer to figuring it out everyday. 

Solidifying a good plot is our first big step, making the little details will come later in the storyboard. Our plan so far is that a really good daughter/son is in a courtroom pleading guilty for a crime. However, the actual action they are charged for gets cutoff and a backstory begins. This is unrealistic to us though, because we do not have any access to any courtrooms. I've suggested that the scene takes place in a mental hospital, where mise en scene and lighting can come to play, and that it would be more realistic to film in Andreina's room since almost every piece of furniture in there is white. Looking into this level of detail really helps us to carefully plan what we are doing and how it affects us. Thankfully, we have put the previously mentioned form, from my last blog post, into play and realized that for a mystery, there may have to be some sort of detective. For now, maybe the interviewer at the mental hospital can be the main character, who knows?

For the future, Andreina and I will definitely be approaching our later steps with more detail than anticipated. Our plot will obviously change, dramatically or even a little, because we feel as though some things are missing in the story, or maybe it'll be really come to life when we add all the small details while storyboarding. 

Progress

 Okay, I have been researching the needs in a mystery genre and came upon this document which could really be handy when it comes to needing a checklist. I’ve also been trying to watch a few openings such as this, this, and this, and tried to guess their genre as well as find out why the specific elements contribute to the genre conventions.

Researching these openings as well as seeing the document helped me solidify what makes up a mystery genre.

For the story itself, I now know to not mention a problem head on, but instead to hunt towards it. This will obviously add towards a mystery. Me and my partner, Andreina, are still unclear about the plot itself. However, we just began researching and I’ll probably spend the next few days getting inspiration from other openings.

Until next time, bye blog!

 Brainstorming Ideas For Our Opening

Me and my partner, Andreina, originally wanted to make a film opening with Frank ocean's music in the background, and we would work backwards from how the song made us feel to put it on film. This unfortunately did not work , and we have decided on making a coming-of-age film opening where the main character has to come to terms with growing up. We both wanted a realistic sort of approach. This choice would be easiest for us since we are both mildly interested in this genre. However, we have no idea what to do, how to do it, or even considered anything filming. Me and Andreina both realized that this idea would be mildly difficult with no plan or idea. We've been researching film openings such as this one, this one, and this one. Me and my partner decided a suspense/mystery genre would be best. We have an idea with an interrogation like scene, as we both have ideas of a storyline, mise-en-scene elements, outfits, makeup, and dialogue. This idea overall was an extremely rough draft. 

After receiving feedback, our teacher recommended to change the interrogation in an interrogation room to a almost-interview at the main characters house. Our idea was overall extremely cliche and me and Andreina are working on tweaking this plot to make it less predictable.

We have decided that the plot will start with a welfare check on the main character's mental health, ending with the main character going into some kind of psychosis. This will provide a lot of opportunity to insert technique within the opening. The main character will have a mental illness where a loved one, like her mom, had called welfare workers to come help with her because she thinks she's at danger of harming.

This new plan will allow me and Andreina to practice all sorts of techniques and skills to make a mysterious effect. Overall, I'm excited for the future of this project and what I'll learn along the way.

 Transition Post

Hey blog! From now on, all my posts will be in relation to my Cambridge portfolio project. This includes the overall process of filming, brainstorming, storyboarding, developing, and all other factors that are included. There will be around 3 posts a week, spanning over about 8 weeks. Because this project was just assigned, my mind is basically blank with no ideas. Brainstorming has to be the first step.

One of my first approaches may be a coming-of-age genre, filled with character vs. self conflicts or some character vs. society. So far there is no other idea for how the film opening itself would look like. This plot would probably take place in a low-class area with low-class main characters. I am hoping for a sense of realism in this project but the most important ideas are still brewing.

Another one of my ideas could possibly be an idea where a character has family issues. Obviously this approach would include a character vs. character conflict but could have some character vs. self and would use lighting and coloring heavily to maybe hint some sort of separation between the main character and the rest of the family.

These are just some very shallow ideas that may be used, or I may even do an entirely different story. I guess we'll have to see!

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

The music marketing project was a more of a difficult one in my personal experience. The freedom of being able to express whatever you please at your own pacing is a new kind of approach to a project. Because of the amount that my group had to cover, we had to plan our entire process. However, because of the little due dates and the entire project being due in over a week, we were often distracted and off-task. This is a choice that we regret as when the due date came closer, the stress of a huge project being due set in. The team's first step was to plan out what to do first, and that was to design our brand and what our artist would look like. Brainstorming was a long a process because there are various ways to go in terms of style, hair, and personas, but we eventually ended on a loving persona and soft style as we felt it would fit our genre, pop, the best. We had come up with potential distribution and marketing trends, including making a TikTok trend with the #MAISTIME. (Our artist's name is Melvin Mais, pronounced "my").

When discussing our video, the song we were given was replayed multiple times as we all tried to pitch in our ideas for what we felt the vibes of the songs are for the storyboard. This process was also slightly difficult as all of us had different ways and ideas to capture the music's melody, shots, angles, movements, and colors. After days, our group had come up with a solid plan, using friends as actors, and establishing all our filming days and locations. The filming process in itself was much less difficult than we had imagined it to be, as our storyboard was a well-founded plan and we all knew exactly how to execute it. Minor tweaks were done during the shooting just to ensure the smoothness of the music video, too. The video shooting process also allowed all of us to pitch in our different ideas of how the shots would end up and the entire team was able to learn more about the importance of angles, composition, and movement. The shooting process was in the span of around a week since some of the teams schedule did not match up and other actors were busy.

Before the video was finished, the team also considered starting the presentation just so all the work would not be left until the last minute. We made sure that the presentation had the appropriate colors as well as a style we wanted our artist to be associated with. We had plenty of fun coming up with brand deals, what to include in the slides, visual elements, picture layouts, and merch designs in the slides. We were able to split up the work and work smoothly through about 3/5 of the presentation. The video was on plan to be finished with more than enough time to edit, and embedding the music video was one of the last steps involved in finishing the presentation, right after setting the social media accounts into the slides. 

However, with around 2 shots left and around 4 slides of our presentation left with multiple days to monitor and edit our project, something unexpected happened.

One of our team members as well as one of our actors had a tragic event happen to someone close to them. This left the rest of our team to have to improvise and cut the music video short. Even though multiple days would have been enough to finalize our project, assuming all would be going well, we were unprepared and stressed that we would not find a resolution in time to submit. The team was forced to improvise, cutting the video short and replacing one of the actors for 1 shot, and entirely removing another shot. Because of the sudden changes, our presentation was left unfinished until we could find a solution about the time and missing members. Our group had discussed what each of us could do, all with different schedules. Since some had a wide open timetable while others were busy until late night, or even dealing with something personal, we all realized we had to finish this project quickly with the due date virtually running at us. With each passing day, we slowly but surely completed the music video. It had not looked exactly how we planned originally, but nonetheless we all loved how it looked given the circumstances. This allowed us to continue on and finish our presentation and finish the project in time. 

Overall, this project was moderately heavy on my team. It has helped me realize, more than anything, that time, alongside quality, is one of the most important aspects when approaching a large, or even small project. If our team had started earlier and did not spend the first few days getting carried away, we would've been much deeper into completion with our project by the time something unexpected could happen, causes days less worth of stress for everyone. An aspect I will be using for my Cambridge portfolio is having a firm and steady plan. A plan allowed us to film our shots and know exactly what to do with no delays in the days that my team was working and all was well. I now know that next time, plans have a possibility of failing or something unrelated may interfere with progress, which is why I will leave more space for improvement. 

 MUSIC MARKETING BLOG POST #1

After thoroughly reading the instructions, I immediately began brainstorming how to approach this project and how to start to get on the best track. When thinking, I realized that a good amount of detail and planning ahead was needed to execute this correctly. Me and my team first began with the research; we researched popular pop artists and then proceeded to find their label company, along with another pop artist under that label. We had no idea what direction to go in but we ultimately decided on a sweet, feminine persona would be ethical for our song. 

The team knew being an upcoming artist meant starting at 0, and that meant thinking of the smallest yet most effective ways to market the artist. However, we initially started too big, being an opener at a concert for a big artist. After gaining feedback, we were able to tone down our beginnings much better. When planning our storyboard, we all gave thoughts about shots and angles we could include, as well as providing feedback on each others ideas. This allowed us to create a storyboard that we all agree on and could work on together without difficulty. 

After planning our meeting times to shoot the video, we began to start our presentation. We face the difficulties of too much freedom to create whatever we wanted; school had always portioned out what to submit and exactly when and this project was essentially on our own. Our next steps are to film our music video, editing and reshooting necessary shots throughout the week, and finishing our presentation. This includes filming our voice-overs, making visuals like posters and merch, and making our social media pages. 

Picture of the beginning of our storyboard

Screenshot of our unfinished presentation

                                                             REPRESENTATION

The movie Parasite represents the wealthy and poor classes of Korea extremely well. Some of the main reasons why it grew so popular was because of all the details and events that solidified their main point, the difference between the rich and low class, and simply because their representation was done extremely well. 

    The movie used multiple ways to separate both classes. The lower-class buildings and living areas were not only of much worse quality, but literally under the ground. This gives the viewer an automatic impression of those that live in the area. Not only that, but when the poor area was on camera, a yellow hue was used to color the scenes, creating a dirty and unkept environment. The rich house on the other hand has solid and light colors, giving a put together, clean, and formal environment. The house itself is modern and the building is built above ground level, people who come have to drive upwards. 

Mise-en-scene was used heavily to portray the difference of class. The character's clothes are also an important part of the representation. The rich family is always well dressed, clean, and put together. Their clothes are solid neutral colors, always washed, and their hair is always presentable. The poor family has sloppy, unmatched, and weirdly colored clothes. Their hair normally looks as if they had just woken up and some of their clothes even have a dirty look to them.

Parasite also portrays the rich family as more naïve and innocent in contrast to the poor family, who are masterminds at lying and acting in order to survive. The mother is very sensitive, cries easily, and is hesitant to say things that are not appropriate for children. She shields her kids and as a result, they also lack knowledge on the world around them. The poor family knows how to live and what they have to do in order to survive. This is realistic representation because people born wealthy or those who became rich at a young age are shielded from the bad world around them. Those who are low-class were forced to grow up early, giving them a more "street-smart" intellect since they could not afford to be protected from the world. 

Video link to Jessica (poor daughter) manipulating Mrs. Park (rich mother). The mother is very sensitive and gullible.

Parasite represents the difference between low-and high class citizens extremely well. They give the rich family a pampered, naive, and gullible look with their put together outfits, modern house, sensitive personalities, and the placement of their house. The poor family is the opposite, seeing the world a different way.