Reflection Of Group Meeting

During todays class, my teacher put students in group and we each discussed our early ideas on each of our projects. I was placed in a group with four other students Nico, Lucia, Amanda, and Ricardo. We took advice and learned from each other's feedback and ideas.

Ricardo was the first to share and his story consisted of a similar theme as mine. Following the sports/drama genre his idea started off with a teenage boy that is being bullied because he has some sort of disease and he is motivated to start getting into shape and working out. An idea that I suggested for his plot was showing flashbacks of him being bullied and/or being rejected by girls etc. while he was working out to motivate him to work out harder. He also had a color scheme in mind for his film opening which is inspired by many sports/dramas by having a lot of greys and blues. He is also planning on shooting in a make shift garage gym to have more control of the lighting.

Then I explained my ideas and a common question all my group members had was what is the goal in my film opening because it is going to consist of two best friends trying to one up each other in various aspects. There question was well what are they working so hard for? I tried my best to explain that it would act more as a traditional opening to a show or movie not a short story type of thing. I am considering adding an end goal of football season starting soon which is motivating the characters during the off-season.

Next was Lucia, she did not have an idea but as we went through her various blog posts she had decided she wanted it to be in a coming of age genre. Her final idea which I suggested is the story of a typical mean girl bully. But not the ordinary depiction of a fun, cool life. It dives deeper into the roots of her home life and why she is the way she is and many things she struggles with by her self. 

Nico's project had the most developed story and was in the horror genre. His plot starts off with a woman setting up her home for a date and is getting various flashes of blood everywhere in her mind and then her phone displays a message from a man saying "I'm here" but in the background you can see a couple of other old messages saying the same thing as the last message. Which then leads to the doorbell ringing and then that's it. He discussed wanting to use multiple different horror lighting, sfx, and camera techniques. 

Finally, Amanda's idea was simpler and straight forward. She wants to tell a story of a young teen with a drug addiction and her life. She didn't have much of a plot idea yet but she's going to play the character and was discussing her research on how to portray that type of character and what mannerisms, speech, and costumes she would have to utilize to give off a convincing young drug addict.

I think this activity was very productive and greatly benefited everyone that had participated!

This Is The Research Blog Of My Choice

I'm not going to lie I lowkey do enjoy this blog stuff more than I'd like to admit. Anyway, I do not have the biggest-scale project in mind but I do want it to have a connection with the audience. Inspired by the real-life relationship with my best friend who I would call my brother we both push each other to be great whether it's football, academics, the weight we move in the gym, or who dresses better. We always have had a friendly competition during our everyday lives since the second grade. I want my film opening to have a realistic representation of a friendship as strong as mine that can resonate with anybody who watches it. It's going to contain a montage-like thing of us competing in an assortment of things. I'm planning to film on the fields, weight room, a classroom, and a road or some running trails. It'll show how hard we push one another and the blood, sweat, and tears put into our everyday 24/7 grind to be the best version of ourselves together and the never-ending strive to be great.

Creating The Project Schedule

 

This is my 6-week schedule for my film opening project.

6 Week Schedule

Week 1 2/10-2/16: Research & Planning 

• Research film openings and plots.
• Finalize movie idea and start scripting.

Week 2 2/17 2/23: Pre-Production

• Finish script.
• Find crew and locations.

Week 3 2/24 3/2: Production

• Film scenes.

Week 4 3/3 3/9: Editing

• Edit footage.

Week 5 3/10 3/16: Revision

• Finalize the film.

Week 6 3/17 3/25: Reflection

• Research and write reflection.
• Edit and submit.

Discussing Credit Sequences

 Rocky II (1979)

Directed by Sylvester Stallone the credits are shown at the end of the film and I really like the artistic and bold approach taken. The credits are very readable with a nice contrast between the gold and black.

The Iron Claw (2023)

Directed by Sean Durkin the end credits are accompanied by pictures of the cast and the real-life family the film is based off of. I like the inclusion of the pictures of the main cast. Very simple and classic but well done.

When We Were Kings (1996)

Directed by Leon Gast the credits are shown in the beginning accompanied by dynamic pictures of the cast in action and because it is a documentary it shows pictures of them in real life. The contrast again with the gold and black is beautiful and very pleasing.

Discussing Film Openings

 The genre I chose was sports. Many incredibly real, and emotional stories within the genre inspired me to finalize my decision on a genre. I will discuss the opening sequences from three films I will be taking inspiration from. 

Rocky (1976)

Directed by John G. Avildsen the opening scene of the film begins with panning across huge text saying "ROCKY" in big bold letters. It then zooms out of a mural of Jesus and shows a boxing event taking place in an old rundown church-turned-boxing ring. Here we see Rocky fighting and looking very beat up. He goes on to beat his opponent to a pulp.

    This scene is very raw and shows what this man does regularly. I enjoy the realism of his struggle and again the rawness of the whole scene displaying two men trying to kill each other while in a religious place with a mural of Jesus Christ watching them. The zoom-out of the mural of Jesus which is a symbolic representation of peace and kindness then shows two men fighting represents the realness of the world Rocky is living in. I'm greatly inspired by how something so little that isn't even talked about holds so much symbolism.

The Iron Claw (2023)

Directed by Sean Durkin the opening scene in black and white shows a lit-up ring with darkness all around it then fades into a wrestler's screaming face while he is beating his opponent up. It then again fades to display text saying "THE IRON CLAW" in black bolded letters. The rest of the opening sequence contains the wrestler greeting his wife and two sons outside the event their father then begins talking about how to be successful and that you have to be the toughest. There is an emphasis on one of his sons while he is talking showing that he is really listening and taking this to heart.

This scene inspired me because of the way it depicts the grit and fearlessness in this wrestler to then him being vulnerable to his family and having a meaningful heart-to-heart with his sons.

Facing The Giants (2006) 

Directed by Alex Kendrick opens during a football game and we are immediately shown a player tackling someone. We see the coach on the sideline call a play and then the players break the huddle. This next play is important because the announcer reveals that if they win the game on this play it will be the first winning season for this head coach in 6 years. After the play is started the player just can't make the throw leading to a big loss for their team. At the end the announcer while blocking the microphone talks about how the head coach might not be keeping his job next year.

I enjoy this opening scene because it displays something that happens quite a lot which is losing. As a football player myself this was realistic. Not every play is going to go your way. It sets the rest of the tone for the film and does a great job of expressing how important a moment it is for the head coach.

 

Exploring Possible Genre Choices

 For the 2 minutes of a film opening, my first thought of a genre for this project would be sci-fi due to being mainly inspired by the film TRON: Legacy 

While also being one of my favorite movies it also has a lot of great cinematography and stunning visuals. This movie's genre is science fiction, or "sci-fi", a genre of fiction that explores the possibilities of the future through advanced science and technology. It often features space travel, time travel, and other imaginative concepts.

The second genre that came to thought was sports movies. While being underlined with motivation to get you going Rocky is a generational classic. 

This would inspire my film due to the many training montages and high stakes set for the character. It wouldn't have to be a good guy. It could be menacing, vigorous training depicting a certain character. Either take on this could be great.

Transitioning into the Cambridge Portfolio Project

 My blogs for the next few weeks will be all about my Cambridge Final Project. With all the notes I've taken, I'm starting to form some ideas. I looked at and studied many film openings and how to make them interesting.

My main idea consists of developing a character in 2 minutes that the audience finds mysterious. I need to find out how to make a 2-minute film opening without giving too many details about the character. To do this, I need to figure out how to grab attention and make people want to know more, but without giving away too many details. I’m exploring different ways to make it work.

The second idea consists of focusing more on the character's world and surroundings. Which could consist of a couple things shown in the film opening that revolve around making it feel familiar to the character in a way that the audience understands and believes this is a "real" person going through the motions of his "routine". I'm using that term loosely because my video will not be a getting-ready type of thing more of a montage to go hand in hand with my first idea of developing the character and his surroundings.