Group Meeting

Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers,

   Today, during my media class my instructor had people from different groups get together to discuss our project plans and give other pieces of advice. I am going to be very honest, I didn’t really think this meeting was going to be very productive, , surprisingly, this meeting was very productive.

   One of the women in my group, was having the same problem my group was having which was trying to come up with a plot for their film opener. She gave me the advice of just writing my ideas on a piece of paper and than analyze each idea based on their practicality.

  After she told me this, I immediately started writing out all of my ideas. After writing them all down, I noticed very quickly that almost all but two of my film openers weren’t very practical. This exercise made me realize that my original idea of making a film opener like Mid90’s may actually be the best idea because it is the most practical, as well as, none of the other film opening ideas I had really establish the conflict in the film and establishing that is something that I think needs to happen in a film opener.

 Another women in my group, also shared cheap websites to purchase more luts and places to get cheap camera equipment.

 In terms of the advice I gave to other group members, was another female in my group was doing the magazine project and needed advice on how to edit her pictures for her magazine. I introduced her to Adobe Lightroom. I explained to her what it is and how to use it. I may even meet up outside of school with her to show her how to use the features with in the program at a more in-depth level,

  Overall, as you can see, this meeting was very productive and I hope to have more meetings like this in the future. Everyone in my group was extremely nice, supportive, and caring which made the beginning process of getting this film opener off  so much easy.

Sincerely,

Matthew Liebman   

Filmmaker

February 28th, 2019

Research, Research, and More Research

Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers,

This week, we researched and planned more for our film opening. We looked more into seeing if our Mid90’s feeling film opener was actually practical. We even came up with another idea for a film opener. I’ll explain our other idea, later.

 In terms of the research and planning, we looked more in-depth on how we would get our film opener to have a similar look and esthetic that Mid90s has. We first looked at where the film was mostly shot.  Our group noticed that the film was mostly shot in Southern California. I have attached pictures below of most of the locations that the film was shot in.

Location #2

JJ Cellular Phones and Beeper Store

Location #3

AM/PM Mini Market

Location #4

The Taqueria El Atacor #8 was the restaurant used in this scene.

street view: 6506 Whittier Blvd – East Los Angeles, CA  90022

As you know, we didn’t have the budget to travel to California. We noticed that most of the buildings and architecture were similar to  that could be seen in Oakland Park, Florida or Miami. We decided that next weekend we are going to travel to both of these locations to do some location scouting and planning out where we are exactly going to shoot the film.

We also did some research on how to color grade all clips in post production because we feel like that could further help us get the film look we are going for.  We did some research and stumbled on JR ALLI’s lut pack. We found a lut called: Hoodie. We think this is the perfect lut to use to color grade out footage because it looks similar to the look of the Mid90s film. I have attached a picture of how the lut looks and a picture of the pack that we are buying.

We are also looking into camera equipment. We decided we are going to shoot the film on a canon 7d ii and a canon T6s. We decided to rent a cinema lense to shoot the film opener, to not only make it easier to color grade the images because the cinema lense will give us a better quality image, but also to get a similar look to the Mid90s film because the whole film was shot using cinema lenses.  I have attached a picture of the cinema lenses we are looking to rent.

So, that is all the research we really did this week. We are going to do a lot more next week. We are hoping to start shooting in a week.

Sincerely,

Matthew Liebman   

Filmmaker

March 2nd, 2019

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

Media Representation

 Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers, 

I have to admit, sitting down to write this blog was pretty hard. There were so many groups, issues, and events that I could choose from to represent in my project. After going back and forth for about an hour, I finally came up with a plan about what to write about. I decided that a very important issue I should talk about in my film opener is the issue of  gender roles. In today's world, the media constantly reinforces certain characteristics that embody males and females. The media usually portrays males as being muscular, non-emotional, and being very ridged. On the other hand, the media usually portrays females as being very emotional, warm, and having alot of care for people.

A couple examples, of films that gender roles were enforced very heavily where: Magic Mike and Pain and Gain. These movies all portray males as being very muscular, adventurousness, strong, and independent. For example, Magic Mike is about Mike and Adam two males who are strippers. Since the movie is about strippers, it is almost a given that this movie has males in it who are very muscular and visually appealing. Specifically, the movie portrays the two main male characters as being very strong and independent. Similarly, the movie Pain and Gain is a movie about bodybuilders at a gym in Miami that kidnap a member of the gym that has a lot of money. The movie portrays the main characters, which are both males, as being very strong, non-emotional, and independent.

Personally, I feel like the gender constructs that the media helps to reinforce are not good. I feel like they are an overgeneralization of the male and female figure. I don’t even think they represent males correctly at all. Personally, I know that a lot of males that are very emotional. Furthermore, there are only a minority of males that are very strong and overly muscular. A majority of males have average strength and in today's society a lot of males are overweight, especially in the United States. Similarly, I don’t think the media represents females properly. I think women are not always the gossip crazy, emotional, and caring individuals that the media makes them out to be. The majority of the women that I am around around gossip  and/or emotional. Furthermore, I feel like the media exaggerates the characteristic that women are caring. While I do agree that usually women are more caring than males, I don’t think they are caring to the extent that the media makes them out to be. So, with that said, I really don’t think the way media represents the characteristics that embody both males and females are correct.

After doing my research on media representation, I have decided that in my film I want to portray women as caring and emotional like the media does. On the other hand, I want to challenge the way regular media portrays males. I want to portray males as emotional and caring. I do not  want to challenge the characteristic in which the media represents males as independent.

Sincerely,

Matthew Liebman   

Filmmaker

November 11th, 2018

More Research on Genre

 Dear Fellow Passionate Media Followers, 

After I wrote the blog about possibly creating a drama film opener for my media class, I had this thought in my head that I could even possibly do a film opener for a horror film. With that said, I sat down a couple days later and did some research on horror films. This is what I found:  I noticed that there are a lot of specific elements that go into producing and creating a horror film. In terms of content, horror films usually are set in isolated areas where there is no help for the characters and finding somewhere to run. For example, in the film Get Out the setting was in a home in the woods secluded from the town.  Furthermore, many horror films also seem to use natural elements such as: the use of thunder, lightning, and rain to further enhance the feeling of isolation or intense scenes. Specifically, I noticed that lightning is a specific part of almost every horror film. I did a little research and found that many times horror is use lightning because it  gives the effect of something bad is about to happen. For example, shadows and light flickering causes the audience to feel scared and nervous. As well as, lighting helps to cultivate a overlying tone in a horror film. In terms of costumes, I noticed that costumes vary based on the films setting and time period, In terms of props, I noticed that a lot of horror films use weapons or  a lot of antiques. Colours used within horror films are usually reds or blacks because they suggest danger and death. Lastly, horror films always use the same stereotypical characters which include:  the character that dies first (the blonde character), the character everyone in the film looks for guidance for guidance (the athlete character), and the character that usually survives and isn’t impacted by evil in the film (called the virgin character).

Not only do horror films have specific conventions of content, but they also have specific conventions of production techniques. For example, sound is a very important part of horror films, as it is to any other type of film,  Foley sound is utilized in many scenes in horror movies to help build suspense. There is also a lot of exaggerated diegetic sound to help build tension in a film and fast and loud non-diegetic sound to make the viewers “jump out of their seats”  like in the shower scene in Psycho. Furthermore, a lot of horror films are shot underexposed to give each shot a dark and dreary tone. As well as, many horror films, utilize a lot of extreme closeups, to emphasize certain things in the film. For example, during the bathroom killing scene in Psycho, there an extreme close-up of the womens face when she was killed.  The last two big production technique that are seen in almost every horror film is the use of haze and they are usually shot at night.

Two examples of horror films and why they fit in the horror film genre include:

Insidious: The Last Key

All the Insidious movies are horror movies, but I saw this one in theaters. That is why I decided to analyze how this film embodies characteristics of a horror genre. Right off the bat, this film takes place at Ted Garza house which is very isolated from the rest of the world and  a very common characteristic in horror films. Furthermore, the main characters in this film embody stereotypic characters of a film. For example, Melissa is the blonde character because she dies first and isn’t the smartest. Elise is the athlete character in the film because everyone kind of follows her lead throughout the whole film. Imogen is the virgin character in the film because she is not impacted by any of the evil spirits throughout the whole film. Furthermore, the majority of the film is shot very underexposed to give it a dark and dreary look. As well as, there is thunder, lightning, and rain in the movie. Lastly, Foley sound  is utilized in a lot of scenes to help build suspense and there is a lot of exaggerated diegetic and loud non-diegetic sounds in the film.

The Purge: with Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey

This is another example of a horror film. Right off the bat, you can notice that this film is all about isolation which is a major convention of horror films as stated previously in my blog. During this film, James Sandin and his family have to lock down their house to make sure no one can enter during the Purge, which is a night where all crime is legal. This causes the family in the film to be very isolated from the rest of the world because they only can be in their home. Furthermore, the film was mostly shot at night and very exposed. Like in all the Purge movies, foley sound is utilized in a lot of scenes to help build suspense and there is a lot of exaggerated diegetic and loud non-diegetic sounds in the film. Furthermore, like Insidious, the main  characters in this film embody stereotypic characters of a horror film. For example, James Sandin is the athlete in the story because he is the father of the home and everyone seems to follow his orders for most of the movie. Charlie Sandin is seen as the blonde character in the movie because he lets to wounded man in whom shoots at James. As well as, Zoey Sandin and her mother are seen as the virgin characters in the film because they are not impacted by the evil in the film.

Other examples of horror films include:

The Babadook (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5WQZzDRVtw )

It (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKJmEC5ieOk )

The Conjuring (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k10ETZ41q5o )

Split (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84TouqfIsiI )

The Cabin in the Woods (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsIilFNNmkY )

Sinister (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbQAJR9YWQ )

Paranormal Activity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UxLEqd074 )

Sincerely,

Matthew Liebman   

Filmmaker

November 11th, 2018