Figuring out the Technical Aspect of Creating our Film Opener

Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers, 

  Since my group thinks we have the overall plot and character concepts figured out for our film opener, we have decided to start thinking about the technical accept of making the idea a reality.

  First, as a group, we discussed the type of film camera we would need to shoot on. Since none of our group members have the best camera, we came up with two plans to get camera equipment. Plan A was getting a c100 from my father’s work because he works at a media company or Plan B was to shoot on a Canon 6TS. We also debated shooting some of the film opener on an old fashion film camera to get an aesthetic similar to Mid90s, but we thought instead of purchasing a film camera we may just buy overlays in for Adobe Premier to make the footage we take look like we shot it on an old film camera in post production. We thought this may be a better option than the film camera because it could save up time and money.

   We than thought of the lenses we wanted to shoot this film opener on. We noticed that a lot of the shots in Mid90s were very wide, so thought the best lenses to get would be a Canon 24-105mm f4 L lens. In order to get shots with a greater depth of field, we were thinking of using the Canon 50mm prime lens. These were the only two lenses we thought we would need for the whole film opener. I think we are going to need try other lenses because my group wants to make the film look a certain way and I definitely feel like there are a lot of other lenses we should try to make the whole film opener with.

  We also started to discuss the software we wanted to use to create our film opening. We thought that the best software to use was Adobe Premier. I recommended that we use Final Cut Pro X, but my group thought it would be hard to color grade in Final Cut Pro and put the overlays in because my group members have never used Final Cut Pro. I do think using Adobe Premier was the right software to use in order to make this film opener incredible.

 We started to discuss some other gadgets we might have to get to shoot the film opener such as: a Mavic DJI Spark drone, a gimble, a couple lights, etc. We are going to have to discuss more about the equipment we are going to use when we get a more concrete idea for our film opener.

  After we discussed the overview of what film equipment we wanted to get, we discussed a brief plan on how we were going to complete this film opener. We only really planned up to the first day of shooting. We plan to add a lot to the plan over the process of planning out this film.  I have attached the plan below.

Week 1:

-Start brainstorming ideas for the film opener

-Start getting together a camera equipment plan

-Start coming up with the overviews of characters

-Start coming up with plot ideas

Week 2:

-Finalize the idea for our film opener (have characters all planned out and have plot of story all planned out)

-Start story boarding our film

-Start finalizing supplies list  we need to buy to make film

Week 3:

-Have all the supplies and camera equipment purchased and stored at one group members house

Week 4:

-Start shooting film

   As you guys can clearly see, my group worked really hard this week to get this project off the ground. I hope we make even more progress this upcoming week.

Sincerely, 

Matthew Liebman   

Filmmaker 

February 24th, 2019 

Example of a wide shot in the Mid90s film. 

This shot was the reason we felt we needed to 

get a wide angle lens such as the 24-105mm. This 

Picture also shows the film look we are trying to make 

our film look like. 

This is also another example of a wide shot in the 

Mid90s film.  This shot was  also one of the 

 the reasons we felt we needed to 

get a wide angle lens such as the 24-105mm.

Closer to Choosing The Genre and Storyline

 Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers, 

   Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers, 

    I apologize, I haven't uploaded a blog in a while. I have been super busy.  I finally have some time to sit down and write a blog and thought I would update you all on what progress we have made with our portfolio project.

    This past week, my group and I met up to start brain storming ideas for the film opening. We started by deciding the opening genre of the film we are making. With much deliberation, we all collectively decided to make a film opener for a story using the drama genre. One person in my group wanted to create a horror film, but we felt that to make a good horror film we needed a lot of resources that we didn't have access to. After we decided on the genre, our group did a lot of research.

   Throughout our research, we discovered   typical conventions of a drama movie are as follows: they capture real life situations, they have characters and the settings that  are real, and a story line that is real. Drama films are really rooted in the conflict portion of a film. They mainly focus on a character's journey. To keep the audience engaged these films usually have very intense social interactions. The purpose of a drama film is to capture a dramatic story line. This helps to move the audience emotionally. Most of the time, they capture the struggles, hardships, difficulty, and pain characters go through. These types of films usually follow the same plot line such as: the beginning of the film is usually very sad and the ending is usually happy.  Generally, it portrays a journey that a character adds to its own development. During the film, there's a lot of intense social interaction filled with climaxes to keep the audience emotionally attached to the story. We also found that dramas also could be about a specific character’s hardship through a task. Once we found this in our research, our group started to come up with a really good idea.

    One individual in our group, brought up the idea of making a drama film opening about a boy trying to learn how to skate board because he wants to fit into the popular culture of his neighborhood. This prompted me to bring up the movie, Mid-90s directed by Jonah Hill. My group really liked this idea. We all really liked the esthetic of Mid90s and thought we could create the same kind of esthetic that Mid90s had in Miami, a city near where our group lives. 

  Once my group had the Mid90s film in our heads, we all had a burst of inspiration. We started to come up with characters and the overall plot. We thought we  would need at least 3-4 characters in the film. Three of the characters would be the teenagers that have been skating a long time and were in the so called "popular crowd." The other character would be the main character of the film. He/she would be the person trying to learn how to skate. Instead of making the main character a male, we thought go making the main character a female to play with representation in the film opener. 

  After we had a basis for the characters in our film opener, we decided to discuss the overall plot, in order to properly make the film opener. We came up with the idea of making a film about a teenage girl trying to learn how to skate to be with a group of guys in her community in order to be with the "cool kids." We thought the film would be about this girls’  journey to become a part of the group, the reasons why she wants to do this and how it impacts her. 

  There is a lot more work we have to do in order to get a more concrete idea for our film opener, but this week we made a lot of progress. I am currently very satisfied with the group I am working with. I have recognized that each group member is going to bring their own skills and talents to this group to make a very good film opener. I am extremely excited to see how this project ends up. Well that's all for this time. I will hopefully write another blog soon. 

Sincerely,

Matthew Liebman   

Filmmaker

February 24th, 2019

Media Marketing Project Helps Aid in Creation of Portfolio Project

    Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers, 

 A lot has happened since the last time we have spoke. Over the course of the last few weeks, my team and I have worked incredibly hard to create a marketing plan for a new band we created. We decided to create the band named, “Breaking Borders.”  The concept behind our band was to create a team of musicians that use music as a media to spread positive political messages and through music create conversations about important issues in the world such as: gun control, immigration, and women’s equality in the work place. The items we included in our marketing plan included: a presentation that outlined how we would introduce the band to the world, how we would market the new band without a lot of capital and with revenue, and how we would distribute the band’s music. We also a played a music video for the band’s first song which we showed during the presentation.

  Before we even began working, we some did some research to decide what band we wanted to create, how to properly market this new band, and how distribute our new music. Through our research we decided that we wanted to create a band that was in the indie genre. We looked at the record label Nonesuch Records, a label that signs a lot of indie artists, to get an idea of how record labels market their bands. Looking at case studies from bands signed to this label such as: The Fleet Foxes and The Black Keys, we set up a marketing campaign that mirrored many of the successful marketing strategies that were deployed to help both these bands. Throughout research we also found the best target audience to cater to.

  We first decided to show in our marketing presentation was photos of the band to put on all of our social media. Below, I have attached pictures from the photoshoot for our social media and of the social media. 

Visual Examples: 

  

    The second thing our team decided to create was a website. A couple things we put on our website included: a description of the band, merchandize, the bands new released music, and our music videos. I have attached pictures and a link from our website below. 

Visual Examples: 

Link to website: : https://breakingboardersof.wixsite.com/website-1 

  The last thing we created was a music video for the first song our band would release to the public. Our music video shows a young Mexican boy’s journey to cross the Mexican American border to be reunited with his sister. The song is all about finding a better life, so we felt like the concept behind the video went hand-in-hand with the message of the song and it also fit perfectly with the band’s name “Breaking Borders.” I have attached pictures from behind the scenes of the music video and a link to the music video below.   

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhlvXZ87Sic

  Overall, my group and I learned a lot from this project. Most importantly I learned about the importance of genre, target audience, and brand. I learned that it is extremely important that if you are going to create a video or band that is going to produce a specific type of music in a specific genre you will need to work hard to produce content that has elements that have common characteristics. Due to the fact that, if you don’t produce content that have common characteristics in that specific genre than it will be hard to capture the attention of the target audience you want to market your content too. Also, I learned that when you create a brand everything that you produce, say, and create should all promote the type of brand you want. All of these things will be considered when my group makes our portfolio projects!  

Sincerely,

Matthew Liebman   

Filmmaker

November 11th, 2018