Genre Selection

 My Genre Selection

For my film opening, I'm leaning towards the horror or drama genres. The ideas I've brainstormed for my opening have all leaned into these sort of genres based on my research, so I know my final choice will fit in best with those. Both have the approaches I discussed wanting to include previously, mystery and conflict, so I know whichever I go with I'll be able to include either approach. I researched both horror and drama to give myself a better understanding and compare both to what I had in mind. 

Horror

Horror's goal as a genre is to evoke fear or disgusts into it's audience. These films usually deal with dark themes and topics like monsters, apocalyptic events, and religion. The horror genre has common factors like fear, suspense, and plot twists. These help ensure that the audience will continue to stay engaged with the film. Both sound and lighting also play a huge part in a horror film, the use of low-key lighting and shadows develops the mysterious aspect necessary for the plot twist. 

Sinister (2012) used a lot of important elements to create an extremely fear evoking film. The element of suspense and mystery throughout the film creates a fear in the audience. 

Drama

Drama's goal as a genre is evoke emotions or thought into it's audience. These films deal with social themes that are told by storytelling and performance. The drama genre has key elements like plot, characters, and conflict. These elements work together to develop the story and keep their audience watching. Sound plays a huge role in drama. The delivery of lines from actors, music, and overall soundscapes help bring together the overall tone the film is conveying to their audience. 

Good Will Hunting (1997) had an incredible use of line delivery to develop the story and emotion of the film. The use of both conflict and characters in the film hooks the audience in the plot of the film, connecting with the audience. 

Transitioning to Cambridge Portfolio Project

 From now on in my blog, the posts will center around my portfolio project. Everything discussed in my blog previously helped me better understand and develop my skills to create my film opening. The posts I made previously encapsulate my knowledge of different aspects of the film opening that I'm hoping to now discuss. 

In class, we talked about what the film opening was supposed to include as well as the different approaches to a film opening. The samples and notes I took helped me better understand what exactly a film opening is and it's significance as well as purpose in a film. 

With the information I gathered in class I was able to figure out I wanted to take a more mysterious approach in my film opening. I thought that the idea of leaving the audience wondering and waiting to see what happened was exciting. This approach also gives me the opportunity to do a lot in two minutes without having to give anything away or develop a story or plot. I only have to include some key elements, leaving the audience wondering of their significance. 

I also considered a more conflict-oriented approach. This approach has a lot of different possibilities in the way it integrates not only characters, but external variables as well. I thought it would be good to consider because in the short time I have, I can have the same wondering effect as the mystery approach, only with the relationship dynamic in my opening. 

Music Marketing Project: Behind the Scenes

This is the behind the scenes for our music marketing project on country!

Music Marketing: Country

Country Music

    For my music marketing project I got assigned the country music genre. At first, I wasn't very excited about the genre, but after doing the research and learning more about the genre, I realized that there was more to it than I knew previously.

    I began by doing research on an artist and understanding how they market themselves and their brand. I learned a lot about the genre by comparing what I found with what the others in my group found on their artists. There were a lot of similarities in the way these artists chose to depict themselves to the public as well as the values they chose to promote. 

    I chose to do my research on Kacey Musgraves, one of the more popular country artists currently. I learned that she, like the other artists we researched, promote ideals of individuality, self-empowerment and authenticity. The country genre as a whole promotes similar ideals with different artists focusing on their own individual preferences geared towards them. 

Music Marketing Project: Planning

    Our music marketing project took very strategic planning. We had to make sure our work was evenly distributed between both the days we had to work on it and the people available to work on it to make sure we were as efficient as possible. 

    We were able to create a rough schedule of what we thought we could achieve with the individual roles being flexible enough so anyone to switch if necessary. The days were also able to be flipped around if something wasn't ready for us to complete like we'd scheduled. 

    Overall, I think we took great advantage of our time when planning our project. 

 Horror

    The horror genre is one that's goal is to evoke fear and disgust into its audience for the purpose of entertainment. Horror films usually deal with darker themes and topics, including elements like monsters, apocalyptic events, and religion. 

Content

Fear - Fear is the key factor in any horror film. Both within the film and as a part of the audience. The idea of the film is to instill fear into the audience through the content being presented to them. This is achieved through the fears of the characters in the narrative world of the film. Different sub-genres of horror explore the different fears of the characters more in depth, strengthening their connection to the audience. 

The Unknown - This could also be referred to as suspense or foreshadowing. It’s the build up to the climax of the film while still instilling that same fear. Since both the characters and the audience don’t know exactly what they are scared of, it creates this psychological thrill, which is what they crave from the movie to begin with. 

Plot twist - The defining element of a good horror film is the plot twist, the defining moment of how the events will play out. A plot twist can make or break the film, it can change the trajectory of how the audience will perceive the film, react, and respond to it. 

Production Techniques

Sound - Sound is a major element of horror, without it, the fear factor is removed. Many people say that if you watch a horror movie without the sound you realize that you aren’t affected in the same way. Sounds affect you just as much psychologically as what you see on screen. The use of sound effects especially as well as music can help create the atmosphere that is necessary to generate that sense of fear in the audience. 

Lighting - Lighting in horror films is essential. They use low-key lighting to create shadows as a way to develop mystery, create sudden reveals, or delay reveals. This all helps with the elements of the unknown and plot twists. All of this combined further stimulates the audience into having a more immersive experience. 

Marketing

    Horror films need to establish their audiences in their marketing to be successful. Typically this audience ranges from 15-30 years old and primarily male, but can depend on the film and sub-genre. This is because of the levels of bloodiness throughout all horror films. 

    Typically all horror films are marketed the same way, dark colors, shadows, eerie music, etc. The characters are usually scared to further establish the level of intensity of each movie. Finally, horror movies take advantage of psychological elements to convince their audience to watch their movie with only the few seconds they have in a teaser or a trailer. 

Samples

    The film Scream (1996) is about a town being terrorized by a masked killer (Ghostface). The movie follows a teenage girl, Sydney Prescott, as her and the people in her life get tormented by this masked killer. Sydney receives phone calls from him, threatening her. Sydney eventually figures out who Ghostface is and is able to kill him. Ghostface’s identity remaining a mystery to the end of the film helps create that fear of the unknown and strengthen the climax as well as the plot twist at the end of the film. Different levels of sound, sound effects, and the ringing of the phone are used as cues for the audience to know when something is about to happen. Small elements like specific camera angles give the perspective that the characters are being watched, giving the audience the perspective of the killer making them fear more for the characters. 

    The film The Shining is about a family who goes to live at a hotel during the winter while it isn’t in business to keep it maintained. Here, they experience different abnormal behaviors. Their son, Danny, sees things, the man, Jack, completely loses his mind, and more. The woman, Wendy, and Danny are able to escape leaving Jack behind. The Shining primarily ties the violence to emotional connections in the film, connecting them to the audience’s fear. Working together with the sudden changes in sound and lighting creates a chaotic environment. The audience doesn’t know what’s gonna happen next, creating that suspense and fear. 

Other Horror Films Include:

Representation

     In the iconic 90s sitcom Friends, many groups have minimal representation, only selected as side characters. The main cast of the show only represent the majority and stereotypes at the time. One of the main characters, Ross, was previously married but she ended up divorcing him for another woman. Most LGBTQ+ representation in Friends is done like this, referencing either their relationship or other side plots with similar story lines. 

    In addition, the show also uses humor as a form to discuss more serious issues like mental topics. For example, Chandler uses self-loathing humor to cope from his insecurity and things from his past. He is depicted making different kinds of jokes throughout the show and explaining how he uses humor as a coping mechanism. 

    Finally, one of the least talked about forms of representation in Friends was in 2001. After the September 11 attacks, the show payed tribute to the first responders and New York City. For example, they used the board in the guy's apartment to pay respect to the New York Fire Department. This is significant as it illustrates how a major event can impact everything. 

Sound

     During the sound lesson I learned that sound has a much larger impact on film than what I thought. Without sound the full meaning of the film can't be captured. I also learned that all sounds in a production are put together after filming apart from dialogue. These can be created from either previously recored sounds or foley sounds. 

    For our sound projects, we had to create a soundscape to represent a 1-2 minute scene. We had to find all of the sounds and create foley sounds to fit the scene as well as edit them together ourselves. We came up with an idea pretty quick, but we struggled to make it long enough. However, the sounds were easy to identify and list. Our outline of sounds made it easier in the editing process so we wouldn't forget anything. In addition, it helped us figure out what sounds we would use as foley sounds and which we would look for online. Finally, I used Adobe Premiere to edit our project as it's the one I've been familiar with the longest. However, I had to learn how to use the different sound editing tools since I wasn't as familiar with them. I figured out how to change the pitch of the sounds and fade them out to make them all smoother and also layer them to better fit together.

    We made our soundscape on a girl transforming into a mermaid. We decided to do this because we thought that there were a lot of possible sounds we could both use and create for this scene. The foley sounds were made well, but I think they could've been edited into the other sounds a bit better. I also think if some of the sounds had less background noise and were more clear it would be smoother, but overall I think it was alright. 

Sound Project Link