Possible shots

 We have come up with a list of different types of shots we are considering using for our opening:

-Long shot of the girl in her room packing fast

-Close up shots of certain things she puts in her bags

-Close up shots of the picture frames in her room

- Long shot of her parents in the kitchen cooking

-Two shot of parents cooking together

-Medium shots of parents whispering to each other

-Long angle shots of the stairs

-Close up of the mom calling the girl

-Close up of the mom cutting vegetables

-Close up of her turning around when her mom calls her

-Extreme long shot of the house

-Point of view shot of girl walking downstairs

-Over the shoulder shot of her looking at her parents together in the kitchen 

-Point of view shot of her room right before she leaves it

- Tracking shots of her running around her room- fast paced

-Zoom in of the girl after looking at her room all messed up

Costuming options

     Costumes are used to represent a character and emphasize their personality. Clothing choices help determine time zones. If the movie is set in current time costume designers may decide to incorporate current trends.It can represent their social status and tastes. It helps the audience understand each characters relationships to each other. For example, in Mean Girls the three main girls all dress similarly to each other. When Cady first got there she dressed very differently but once she started joining their friend group her style became very similar to theirs.

    For our opening we are going to have 2-3 characters. The teenager running away and the parents. While we want the teenager to represent our current generation we also have to use clothing to represent her mental state. Because of that we may consider dressing her with something more casual like sweatpants and a big shirt and messy hair. We want the family to be very traditional so that's how we will dress the parents. We can have both parents in their business attire. Suits and high heels while cooking dinner with aprons. These clothing choices help show the relationship with her parents and the contrast between them.

Sounds

     While creating our film opening we need to keep in mind the sounds we are gonna be using. In thriller movies, we need to emphasize the major sounds to create suspense. For example, in ring they emphasized the TV static to create suspense about the girl climbing out of the screen before it even happened. We need to find our major turning points in our film and incorporate music and sounds to create tension and suspense. 

    For our opening we plan on having a teenage girl running around her room and packing all her stuff. After she packs her stuff she is messing up her room and making it look like someone came in the room and stole her. While she is doing all this her parents will be downstairs cooking dinner. We can use sound to create suspense by having the sound of her parents walking upstairs while she is in the middle of leaving or her parents repeatedly calling her name and adding suspenseful sounds when she doesn't answer till last minute we hear her answer.

    

Developing lighting schemes

    Thriller movies commonly use specific lighting schemes to create suspense and mystery. They do this by spotlighting, underexposing, and shooting through something on the screen. By doing this they are focusing on one main thing and eliminating everything else in the frame. While viewers can't see what else is in the frame, they spend time trying to figure out.

    A lot of movies also use silhouettes to create shadows. They use silhouettes rather than real people because it creates a sense of mystery. We see the person going to do something but we don't know exactly who they are or their motive, this will also lead the viewers to try and figure it out.

    There are five major lighting techniques used in thriller movies that we have to consider using. First, uplighting which is placing a light under the subject. This can distort the subjects face and look unnatural. Second, backlighting which we can achieve by placing the light behind the subject and having them move around.Third, spotlighting by placing the light on the subject and making everything around him/her dark. Fourth, saturated red which we can do by using red gels. Lastly, shadows which can be created through people or silhouettes.

Color Schemes

     Thriller movies usually have darker color palettes consisting of reds, blacks, and blues. The color scheme is used to set the mood of the film. We relate emotions to colors without realizing. For example, we think about romance or love, we think about reds and pinks. So when we think of thrillers we think of the reds for the violence and blues and blacks for the mystery. 

    Most colors in the wheel will work in a thriller movie if they are dark and bold. Since we are taking inspiration from Gone Girl we studied the color palette for this film. They used mostly greens, blues and yellows. The director of Gone girl, David Fincher talks about how he used blues in the opening scene to foreshadow the dead body. He described the yellow as a "sickly yellow."We are definitely taking into consideration incorporating those shades of yellow to demonstrate our main character framing her parents.

For reference Gone Girl color scheme:

Target Audience

     Thrillers usually leave the audience thinking about the deeper meaning of the film, more specifically in psychological thrillers. Because of this, the target audience for most thriller is usually male and females from 18-30 years old. Most thrillers are aimed at people 18+ because of the violence or mental illnesses portrayed throughout the movie. These films are known to be more intense for a viewer compared to a drama or romance. Younger generations are attracted to these films because they like unraveling the plot and enjoy studying the intensity and realness.

    While taking all of these factors into consideration we are most likely going to have a similar target audience. Males and females 18-25 years old. We are going for a younger audience because the film is about a teenage girl. Because we chose to do it on a younger person it would appeal to people who are closer to the age range because it could be seen as more "relatable" to them and they can get a better understanding of the characters thoughts and emotions.

Genre Research

Thrillers

    Thrillers are movies that are fictions or dramas that create suspense.There are a few main conventions to follow while creating a thriller movie. First, creating the narrative, which includes the aim of creating suspense, the 'outsider' protagonist, and all the violence incorporated throughout. Second, the mise en scene, dark costume design, dark lighting, etc. Next, music. The sound is an essential part to the thriller genre. Even the silence plays a huge role in the scene. But when you do use music you aim for slow or eerie music. Following with the angles and shots, tilt shots, high angles and close ups are seen as a 'must' in thrillers.

    After researching conventions and the main factors that play out in a thriller movie, I studied opening thriller films.For example, I watched the US film opening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm82qvn5Crs

The film opening seems simple but you can see it already starts with a close up shot of the rabbit with intense chanting in the background with a red, sharp font for the credentials. All of these conventions put together are already creating confusion and intriguing the viewers.

Choosing a genre

    Every movie I have ever seen has been running through my mind trying to help me picture an idea for my film opening. While thinking about all of our favorite movies I kind of took inspiration from the movie Gone Girl but turn it into something that stars a teenage girl so we could turn our main character and story into something us, teenage girls, can understand better. This is when we got the idea to make our film opening about a girl running away from home but messing up her room and making it look like she got taken mixed with parallel editing of her parents just downstairs cooking dinner. Ending the scene with them walking into her room and seeing her gone.

    Romance, drama, horror, these are just some examples of genres we considered, planned out a story for and ultimately crossed them all off. We actually came up with our idea first without deciding the genre. Once we came up with our storyline we went through the different genres we could consider. We could have turned it into a horror film or a romance. After considering each one carefully we chose to go with a thriller. 

    Now that we have picked the genre our next steps are to study the thriller genre and incorporate the techniques used into our opening. For example, adding suspenseful music in the background.

Intro to portfolio project

     Over the course of the first semester we studied all the techniques and methods that we are going to be applying to this project. The whole year we have been preparing for this project and now that it’s here I'm a little nervous. Not because of my knowledge on the subject but because of my time management skills. I have had experience in lengthy projects but nothing this long that runs through several weeks. Personally I believe that the blog posts are what is going to help me stay on track and space out the project.

    For starters I still have no idea what my film is going to be about, let alone the genre. While it seems like an easy pick, it's one of the biggest most thought out parts of the project. Choosing the genre is what determines how our whole opening will play out. Establishing the genre will allow me to start the planning, blogging, and production process.

After I figure out my genre I need to do quite a bit of research before jumping into the opening itself. Researching and watching film openings within the same genre will help get a feel of the mood conveyed through these openings and help us figure out how we are going to achieve that.

Figuring out the genre and conducting research will allow us to start the whole project and finish it effectively. 

Music Marketing

 Reflection 

    The first step of the music marketing project was doing research and finding our case studies.While doing the case studies we chose two record labels that have signed a lot of pop artists, which was our genre, so we chose Columbia Records and RCA records. Our four artists were Harry Styles, Chris Brown, Tate Mcrae, and Tyler the creator. Studying their marketing, history and distribution plans helped play a large role in the way we presented our artist. We took bits and pieces of each artist to get the general idea of ours.

    While we were brainstorming the first thing we did was come up with the music video. We knew we wanted to keep the storyline similar to the song which represents the girl he falls in love with during the video and is almost like his muse. He starts off struggling with what to write his song about and struggles with confidence on stage. When he met the girl he wrote the song, Electric Feel about her and when he saw her in the audience all his fears went away. The song and the video built up the tension between them. The filming was super smooth and all our actors helped and understood what we needed.

    Because of our case studies and we saw the way Tate Mcrae was able to blow up on tik Tok and build her career from there we relied a lot on social media presence to get our artist out there. Because of this we didn't think to take other aspects of marketing into consideration. We mainly focused on Tik Tok trends, snippets, and instagram lives, which can all be beneficial to an artist but after our presentation and feedback we learned that this can’t be the only way to present an upcoming artist and building a career from this is not guaranteed which is why it shouldn't have been our first resort. While it was not guaranteed it still plays a major role in artist today and through our instagram we were able to capture the artists personality a little bit.

    During the duration of the project I learned a lot about time management. In order to complete this project correctly you had to space it out and do things over time rather than just the night before where it is all rushed. I also learned about all the factors that play into an artist's success. A lot is ‘behind the scenes’ work such as the marketing and distribution plans. I plan to take a lot of the things I learned from my campaign and all the other campaigns and presentations created into perfecting my Cambridge portfolio project.