Saturday, January 25, 2020

The PowerPoint Blog

For this power point I put a lot of time and effort into making it a good powerpoint. This took a lot of time but it helped when trying to understand our project better. This assignment helped when creating our project to be able to make our film more like this genre. The reason this helped is because our research told us the type of camera angles people use while creating this genre. We also got to learn about the lighting usually used in out genre. We used natural lighting because this genre usually does this. This is  why researching our genre is important to know what should be included in out film.

Chasing Mavericks - Inspirational Drama

Beginning of Movie:

Lighting in this movie plays a big role as it gives the audience an understanding of the ambience of the current scene. Since the movie starts off at the beach it continues to show natural lighting, rarely using any artificial lighting, unless if necessary. In the beginning of the movie the characters are introduced and we are shown that the little kid is the protagonist of the movie and the other actors are going to be supportive characters for the main character's story. We are given a little glimpse at the aspect of make-up 5 minutes into the movie, as the main character "Jay Moriarity"stumps his nose against the surfboard and begins to bleed out of his nose. The props that are shown in the movie are the tennis ball, the letter, the bottles, and then most importantly the surfboard. Now the reason as to why the surfboard carries so much meaning behind it is because at the beginning of the movie "Frosty" a supporting character saves Jay only due to the fact that he was surfing. Then later on, it's seen that Jay wants to go learn how to surf and the only reason he is able to even go out with his old and broken board is due to the fact that he gets parts which Frosty owns. This indicates and foreshadows the idea that Frosty and Jay will have a continuous close relationship as the movie carries on.

Middle of Movie:

Camera angles are very important in this part of the movie. The reason for this is because most of the scenes we saw in the middle portion of the movie were while the actors were surfing. This provided the audience a better understanding of the perspective of the character and the difficulty of surfing giant waves. Some of the angles that were used were: High angle, low angle, POV angle, Two shot, Master shot, and Over-The-Shoulder. Camera movements also helped in creating the feeling of the audience practically being in the movie themselves, as they gave many different perspectives and dimension to the movie. If it hadn't been more camera movements like, Zoom, Pan, Tilt, and Tracking shot. the movie would have been very basic. It would've taken away a lot of the beauty of the movie. Two big camera angles and movements that were used and stood out a lot was God's eye and POV. The reason for this is because God's eye allowed us to see the difficulty of what the surfers were doing. Furthermore, the POV allowed us to see the danger's of what it really is to be in the water when surfing these colossal waves.


End of Movie:

Sound has a powerful impact in the movie due to the fact that during the end of the movie the drama occurring is at its highest. With the waves crashing, and the panicked and worried crowd. it plays a big role in giving the audience understanding what's happening in the movie. As well the music at then end allows us to understand the shift in the mood of the movie. It went from uplifting when Jay surfed the wave, to sad when we find out Jay had died, and then back to uplifting as we find peace in knowing that Jay left a mark on many people's heart and touched the lives of many. The ending shows a true clip of Jay and this was done by the process of editing. The use of this makes the story more powerful as it how's that this was a true story, and allows us to see who he really was.




Deciding Final Genre

Deciding the final genre was probably the hardest thing we had to do as a group because each of us wanted to do a different genre. Our group came to the final decision of doing drama as our genre. We picked drama due to the reason that it is one of the most interesting, easier to comprehend for the audience, and fun to do for us genres. one of our group members really wanted to do horror, which seems very fascinating to do but it is harder than it seems. We would've needed a lot more props and make-up in order to have a very good film. Luckily our group member understood the problems of doing horror as our genre and agreed to do drama as it is what the other group member and I wanted to do. I think that our final film will be excellent because the chemistry in the group is very high and we are all ready to put effort and work hard to achieve the best work possible.

Two New Genres

Epic films are a genre in the filmmaking world with high scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. Like epics in the classical literary sense it is often focused on a heroic character. Usually an epic movie tends to use natural lighting since they are filmed in nature. However, movies nowadays are filmed inside with green screens, so they have to create their own. There is softer lighting.  In  an Epic movie there tends to be a lot of aerial shots, this is so they can show the audience the extent of a journey. An example of this would be in a lot of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings shot where they show the entire group walking up a mountain. They also use long shots that show the extent of nature of the beauty of their environment. Additionally, in an epic film they use tracking shots to show a conversation through some terrain.   In these films there tends to be 5 types of movement: The camera moves in relation with an object , The camera moves in relation to people,  People move in relation to the camera,  People move in relation with each other and other objects in a frame,  Framing elements move in relation to themselves or each other But when it comes to epic movies you will see a lot of tracking shots to carry the conversation. Epic films can really be put into two categories, mythic/fantasy epics and war epics. In a mythical/fantasy epic you would be heavily relying on nature, using costumes that represent the time period or the storyline. The same goes for epic, but the costumes would be more of a rusty, torn look. You would also see maybe broken trees or devastated areas. Some examples of epic films are, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit, 300 Apocalypse Now, and Ben-Hur.   

Crime fiction is the genre of fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives. ... First there is the crime, usually a murder; then there is the investigation; and finally the outcome or judgement, often in the shape of the criminal's arrest or death.  The Key Lighting in the crime genre is: Back Lighting, side Lighting, low key Lighting, high key Lighting, and ambient Lighting. Common movements in crime genre is hand held Shot, Flash,  Zoom, Trunk Shot, and   Tracking Shot. Common Mis en Scene in crime is,
location- Office Space, Crime Scenes, Medical Centers, Alley, Homes, etc.
Costume- Police Costumes, Criminal Costumes, Prison Jumpsuits, etc.
Make-Up- Fake Blood, Materials to make Bruises and Cuts, and Special Effects, Prosthetics.
Props- Fake Weapons, Fake Vehicles, Fake Illegal Substances, Crime Solving Tools.
Lighting Design- Dim lighting, Shadows, Ambient Lighting Color Design- Black, Grey, Navy Blue, Brown. 

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Pitch

We have narrowed down our 3 pitches now to 2. Our group to a lot of time discussing witch pitch we would eliminate. We decided that we would cut the soccer player pitch. The reason we decided this is because it would be too hard to film someone breaking their leg. I do not know how we would film this. Also there would not be enough to film. The reason we think this is because we need to film the beginning of the film and the beginning would not interesting. We thought about the audience and if they just say the soccer player playing and then breaking his leg I don’t believe that the audience would be interested. The soccer pitch is hard to film and hard to keep people interested. That is why we choose to eliminate the pitch.
         Our first pitch about the teens in the graveyard is very good. It would be easy to film because all we need is a Ouija board and some candles. Also I think it would be very intriguing for the people watching the film. The first part of the film will catch the audience's eye. The reason for this  is very suspenseful because you don’t know if the teens are going to be able to save the girl or not. One aspect that is bad is we would have to go into a graveyard. This might not be allowed and it would be scary. Another thing is that filming when it is dark is hard. Even though there will be candles it could still be difficult. Being able to see the actors is critical to the film so the audience knows what is going on.
           Our third pitch is most likely the best option. The reason for this is us being at a funeral the second it starts is super interesting. Our audience will be intrigued and they will want to know why they are there. To add, our costumes would be black clothes and this is a common thing. One reason this may be difficult is creating a fake funeral would be difficult. The reason it is hard is because you need a lot of people. It will be easy to do a voice over for the flashback. The actual flashback will be people running away from something. This is very easy to film and edit together. The third pitch is the most practical and the best idea. This is why we are choosing this pitch to film.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Starting The Final Task

Hello my name is Luca Guerra Montes and I’m a student at Fort Lauderdale High School. I’m an exchange student from Italy and I have spent all my four years of high school in the United States. I am  a senior, and next year I’ll be going to college, where I will start a new chapter of my life, learn new things and meet new people. I think that meeting new people is one of the best things in life because by getting to know them, you can learn from their best qualities and also from their worse ones. I consider myself a very lucky and unique guy because I can speak three languages and I can almost do anything on my own. I will be working with Ryan Brooks and Camilo Prado, I’ve known them for a while and this will help with our film because having a good group chemistry will help us make a excellent film.
In the first semester of being in this class, I’ve learned many helpful things that I will need in the future but especially when I’ll be working on the final task. Something that this class has taught me is how to manage my personal time in class and how to be responsible. When I have blogs due I try to do them as soon as possible because if I don’t I will keep procrastinating and end up staying up late at night to finish them. Before joining this class I wasn’t fluent when working with computers, cameras, and editing; but now I’m a lot more familiar with this stuff and I’m getting better as time goes on. This class has grown on me and now, when I watch movies, I automatically analyze them in my mind. For example I notice camera angles, sounds effects, and light effects.
A pitch is a Hollywood term to describe an idea where a film is encapsulated in twenty-five words or less, usually with one sentence. Our first pitch is all of us at a cemetery at a funeral with a voiceover. After it shifts back to the past showing what happened and the voice over starts telling the story of why we are at our friend’s funeral. Our second pitch is teens going out to a graveyard on Halloween night with the Ouija board and eventually one teen disappears. For our second pitch a soccer player is in the a pro and he breaks his leg and eventually hits rock bottom.



Friday, December 6, 2019

Editing Day Blog

My group has now completed the film. I’m very glad we were able to do it efficiently without any inconveniences. We now move onto the editing process. On my previous blogs there a few points of interest in our video. These would all be different memories. There is a jump cut from when our main character grabs the book and the opening of the book. This will then play into the oversight of the memories. We will have him skim through the pictures, which is a POV shot. Then he finds one and zooms into it. This moves into the vital transition.

This is the zoom-fade. This is where the camera and the editing software have to work in a perfect combination. We will have the camera zoom into one of the pictures, this will be a picture at the beach. Then along with the zoom we will have sort of a minor light-out so that it appears that a picture is being taken. This is probably the hardest part of our entire video. If we mess this up, then it will kill the flow of the video. Flow is one of our main objectives of all of our entire video. We are attempting to make this as professional as possible. There are also a few other transitions that will need to be perfected.

Most of these transition will be ditto to the first. They will contain a zoom in and a minor light-out. There are also; however, some similar yet different edits. This will be the zoom outs of these picture. This will be important as one picture will have to transition to another in the video. After the storyline is completed then the transition will come in. We will have the zoom out, but the picture will start off with the minor light out. Next, we will slowly reduce the light out as the camera zooms out. The final edit with have a jump cut to a wide angle of the husband sitting next to his now wife. Then finishing our editing for the video.