Group mettings

 Today in class we had meetings with the other groups. We gave each other critiques that were super helpful. We did not know we had these today so we were not able to film our fake news story, although we will film it next class.

One of the students I was discussing with told me he was using a landline phone in his film opening. I thought this was a cool idea. I have an old style phone so I might use that one instead. 

My main critique was too develop the "why" the book goes missing more, which my team and I will figure out tomorrow. 

My team and I also need to design this book. I am thinking of making the papers look old. I know how to do this. You burn the edges then put instant coffee into a cup of water then heat it up. After that you put a light coat of it on the paper with a brush, then cook it on the lowest setting for a couple minutes. 

Working on the news story

 Yesterday in class my group and I worked on the fake news story. They had already written the standup and voice over while I was sick. All I had too do is make the graphic. I took this responsibility because I am certified in photoshop for some reason... My groupmate Clara and I decided too make one similar to CNN. This is because CNN has simple, but pleasing graphics. 

This is the graphic before making the logo. I think we might change it to blue to match where we are filming, which is the CBTV studio. Our school's colors are blue and yellow, so that is the color of the studio. We are going to try to avoid the blue in the studio from getting on camera, but if we cant we will change the text to blue. 

After making that I worked on the logo for the news network bellow.

I inspired this based off Fox News. I liked their logo because it was simple, yet pleasing, like the CNN graphics. We decided to make it Hialeah because it is a large city near us. We also decided too choose this because both of our actions are Hispanic. There is a big population of Hispanics in Hialeah so the location fits well.

I then put it all together and got this finalized graphic. 

We plan on filming the news story next class. I am bringing a polo I own to anchor in it. We will use our schools camera, audio, tripod, and teleprompter. For the rest of our project we are going to use a different camera. The ones from school are canon and the one we are going too use is Sony. The Sony and canon cameras have a significantly different look. The Sony cameras have a different looking color.  I thought it would be a good idea to use a different camera for the news story, since its going to be a video playing int he background. It establishes the news story being separate from the opening better.

Preparing the process for filming

 This weekend, my group and I discussed when we would be filming. One of my group mates, Clara, is leaving this week Thursday for a school trip. I will be going to a school trip March 13th-18th. Also, almost my whole group will be gone spring break. We know that we need to film starting next week, so we need too get the pre production done this week. 

Progress made while I was sick

 Last class, I was not here because I was sick. My groupmates forwarded me the message bellow with a script and shot list for our video that they started

I decided to wait to look over it until next class, so I can give my raw opinion. 

Conflict finalized!!

 My group and I were talking in the group chat and decided to go with the idea Clara had, although we developed it more in class. 

We decided to add the Biorhythm to the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory to create our own little thing. We will have one of us (undecided) act as the main character and another one of our classmates act in it too. 

My instant thought was how we were gonna use our little resources to get this done. We wanted to incorporate some sort of office. I instantly made sure we had one available, which we do. One of my groupmates have an office in her house. We will also film some of the scene in a house, where the main character is doing her research.

We all thought the whole turning on the television thing was so cool to create our own fake story. We decided to have the rising action to be the tv having the book being "found" on it. And the ending cliff hanger to be the boss of the girl writing the book telling her how serious the mistake is. 

I have done many news stories in the past, so it will be easy to do. I am going to act in that part so one of my groupmates will be the main actress. 

After discussing this we decided to go into more detail about the mise-en-scene. We decided the girl was going to be a "professional mess". We decided the boss was going to be a quirky colorful man. I am extremely excited to work on the attire for this character since I really like fashion. I am still debating who to get inspiration from, maybe Elton John. Something around that realm. 

Going into next week we will work on costume and set design, and finishing the storyboard, then we will get to filming! 

Progress made on the conflict

My group and I decided to go with the whole pseudoscience thing. One of my group mates, Clara had a good idea. She sent the text listed bellow. 

I thought this was a good idea. I wanted to mix this with the whole math patterns one. We are going to discuss finalizing the conflict tomorrow.  We have all been busy this weekend so we decided to discuss it then. 

Deciding our genre gone wrong....

 Yesterday in class my group and I shared our blogs. We all agreed on the mystery genre. Everyone wanted to have the mystery introduced being a flash forward of the main character going insane. We developed a little bit to this film opening, with the notes listed bellow

We then realized, this is WAY to basic. We all agreed to do something more creative. I elaborated on the pseudoscience idea. At first, my group was against it because they said it was "to hard to incorporate it into two minutes". Although, after showing examples and discussing it more in our group chat, they were starting to like the idea. I showed the examples in these text messages. 

Here is the basic definition of all of these concepts:

• Biorhythm- Predicting aspects of some ones life based off math cycles.
• Strauss-Howe Generational Theory- A cycle of generations has specific patterns that repeat over time.
• Poly water- A form of water having different properties of ordinary water.
• Time cube- A webpage made in 1997 by the "wisest man on Earth". He claimed that all modern sciences were a conspiracy theory. 
• Seances- An attempt to communicate with the dead in 1760s.
• Crop circles-Odd flattening of crops that is believed to be patterns from UFOs.

I shortened all these definitions to be easier to understand. These concepts are all EXTREMELY confusing. My group and I will discuss whether we will go through with any of these ideas tomorrow. 

Researching Genres

 Today in class, my group and I discussed which genre we would want to incorporate. We all agreed on mystery, although we wanted to incorporate another genre. We decided to go more research on the mystery genre, and other genres, then share. This makes it easier for us to decide which genre we want to use for our film opening.

The basic definition of the mystery genre is "the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the end of the story." After reading this I knew I would want to have that suspense, but be more creative then just a "murder or other crime". I do not want to copy what is quite literally in the definition.

I then went onto https://www.britannica.com/art/mystery-story . Here I researched more about the genre. On this website I stubbled across the term "pseudoscientific". I had no idea what this meant, I have never been good in science so I decided to look it up. I found the definition to be "Falsely or mistakenly claimed or regarded as being based on scientific method." This is still a little hard to understand, the way to put it  into simplest words is a thing that can be both scientific and factual, but do not fit the scientific method.  Examples of pseudoscience can be astrology and phrenology. I know lots of information about astrology so after seeing that, it made it easier to understand. 

I think this study is really interesting and would be cool to incorporate into my group and I's film opening, although, I still want to research more genres.

I thought western could be really cool, but I do not know much about it so I dug deeper. I found out that the western genre uses wider themes. According to wikipedia, they have themes such as "justice, freedom, rugged individualism, manifest destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States.

I am still debating whether we would incorporate this genre into our film opening. I believe it is really creative but may be hard to deal with the mise-en-scene elements. 

On Thursday, February 15th, my group and I will put together what we learned about these genres and decide which one we will use. I cannot wait till discuss what I learned about the pseudoscientific elements. 

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Start of Film opening project

 Today in AICE media we had the second day of going over what is required in our film opening, which will be 50% of our Cambridge exam grade. This project will take over a span of 8 weeks. Immediately after being told about the project, I started to brainstorm what I wanted to do. I am so interested in cameras and the different types of shots and I want to incorporate.

One of my main goals in this film opening is having interesting technical elements. I follow this account on Instagram title @guerillafilmmakers . This account has so many cool camera techniques that I have always wanted to put into a production. Such as the Dutch angle, quadrant, and the pyramid. The Dutch angle is the camera titled at a slanted angle. The quadrant is the subject in a forth. The pyramid is the subject being in a long triangle with the 2 points in the two bottom corners, and the last point on the top of the frame and in the middle. I want to have creative colors in my film. I have not decided what type of coloring, since I do not know what genre I want to incorporate. The main color scheme I like is warm. 

I also want to significantly develop the background throughout the film opening. I want to clearly state where my production takes place. I am extremely excited to work on costume design. I am interested in fashion so it'll be fun. I have no idea what aesthetic it will be, but regardless it'll be fun. I also think having the whole show playing on a tv and the character watching it is so cool. Making my own production, to put in my production. 

Next week my group and I will start brainstorming. I want to handle a lot of the technical and I am so excited for that. I will be documenting everything I do on my blog. 

Music Marketing blog post #2

 We started off by making several social media profiles for our band to develop the brand and image for our new group since we understand how important it is for us to succeed in today's world. We feature "relatable" heartbreak tweets on Twitter, for example, that not only promote our company but also engage our followers. We kept these themes of love and tragedy in our music video, telling the tale of a person who fell victim to a love spell. It's a terrific way to introduce our band and what they're all about. 

One of the biggest challenges of this project was creating the music video. Since we do not have the budget of a professional music company, it was hard to come up with a realistic set. Therefore, we had to get creative. We used an old. little kids, science toolbox as the materials for the "love potion", and we found different techniques to edit the video that would make it look more advanced, such as adding another person in the mirror to give the effect of the "love spell".

We also had to pay attention to the way we were dressed for the music video and pictures. We had to dress in a way that fit the image of our brand, which is "alternative clothing", including a lot of black colors and jewelry. Style is a part of what we wanted to incorporate into our brands image. 

An interesting part of the project was putting ourselves into the headspace of our fictional band. For example, when coming up with different captions, tweets, and posts for our social media, we had to speak in a way that we imagine would not only cater to our audience, but would be natural for a rock band in today's age to be like. 

Overall, working on this project showed me that hard work is rewarding. We spent a lot of time being meticulous with the shots in our music video and making sure that we liked how they looked and the message they gave off. We also put effort into making a logo, coming up with a name for our band, and creating realistic social media accounts that would market our brand efficiently. This will help with my upcoming Cambridge project as we have to go through a similar process to create a quality film opening, and time and effort will have to be put into it just the same.