It's Back to Research, YAY!

Hi again! I'm still kind of freaking out because my group still doesn't have a solid idea. It's just really hard for us, who are all very different people with very different opinions, to all decide upon one idea. It's not like we haven't tried, it's that we haven't really been successful when it comes to sticking with an idea and fully developing it so that it can be well-produced and easy to follow while simultaneously grasping the audiences attention. Since we're still unsure of what our video opening will be, Bella and I decided it'd be a good idea to research some suspenseful thriller film openings for inspiration and to see what each opening did differently.

The first movie intro we looked at was Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock. It is categorized as a psychological horror film, with suspenseful aspects incorporated into it, and portrays a stressed female who is under a lot of pressure, who after stealing a lot of money, runs away so that she can marry the man she loves. She winds up at a motel, where she spends the night, which turns out to be a fateful decision. This film though really thrilling has an intro of opening credits in white lettering on a black background. One thing incorporated in the intro however, was music, which really helped to set the tone for the piece. It gives off a suspenseful tone with a fast melody and low octave, which drew the audience in. 

Gone Girl is another film we researched. This movie portrays a man, Nick Dunne, who is the leading suspect in the disappearance of his wife. The pressure from the police and media frenzy cause Dunne's image of a happy union to crumble, which questions him and his wife's relationship. The opening of this film, is different from Psycho's because it includes a voice over of what seems to be the husband talking about his wife and their marriage in a negative way while a close up of his wife is shown. The music while all this is going on also adds a suspenseful tone to the whole scene, translating to the audience anxiousness and keeps them at the edge of their seat waiting to watch what happens next. 

The last filmed we researched was Identity. This movie portrays three strangers who are stranded at a motel in Nevada during a storm and realize they are being killed off, one by one. The opening of Identity, Bella and I noticed several elements that helped establish information that will prove to be relevant and important later on during the film. There were some aspects that stood out, for example there was a tape playing, so there was some sort of voice over and it is of a psychiatrist and his patient, and montage of pictures and newspaper articles of deaths, murders, victims, and suspects are shown, and a guy who appears to be professional is seemingly listening to the tape and looking at the articles. The opening coordinates with the tape and both end at the same time, and while all this is happening, there is also eerie music in the background adding to the suspenseful tone and hinting at the audience that something is about to happen, keeping them interested.

Watching these videos seemed to help to expand and broaden our understanding of suspenseful thrillers and what elements they need in order to capture the audience. I took a lot from this so now when it comes to the point where we have to film our film opening, we can consider this research and maybe utilize a voice over to establish and share important information to the audience or use sound to match the tone of the scene. We have limited time left so I'm really hoping this research pushes us into the right direction and so that our project can finally start to pick up speed. Wish us luck!

--Blogger Buitano

"Plot Summary." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
"Plot Summary." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
"Plot Summary." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
Unknown. "Psycho." N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
Unknown. "Gone Girl." N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
Unknown. "Identity." N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

Starting From Scatch?!

Okay, so Hi! I'm kind of frustrated while typing this. And don't worry, I'll explain exactly why I'm so frustrated and stressed all of a sudden. Are you ready for it? Yeah, I think you're ready. So... my group decided to completely start over and throw away our previous idea. That means it's back to the drawing board for us, I guess, since it's two against one, me being in the minority, who want a completely new plot and opening.

After the meetings we each had with our individual groups we all talked about the recommendations we received and somehow that led to Nico and Bella thinking they want a whole new idea. I was getting excited about our previous plan and with the new ideas, I thought it was going to work out even better, but apparently no. And since that's not what my partners are feeling, and since this is a group project, we have to all compromise and vote on ideas. So, now since they want a new idea, I guess it's back to square one.

A main concern that Nico and Bella shared was that creating a sci-fi thriller wasn't the best genre option to go with, because it can be difficult to portray it well as amateur film creators. Nico then came up with an idea that was very different from our original idea and which Bella and a lot of other classmates seemed to like. He thought of a film opening that was very heavily based on dialogue, while still going to be a thriller, but now more of a suspenseful and mysterious thriller. His new idea is mainly to have the main character be a guy who wakes up in the middle of the ocean, confused as to where he is and how he got there. The scene continues and a sketchy-looking man approaches him on a paddle board as a form of "rescue" and offers to take him back to land. The majority of the intro would be the dialogue between the man and the guy who is confused, the protagonist. Through the dialogue, the identity of the protagonist would be revealed to show that he still is aware of who he is, but his knowledge gets extremely hazy besides that, for example not knowing what he was even doing that resulted in him being stranded in the middle of the sea. The man on the paddle board would eventually go on to say something misleading that creeps out the main character that creates tension and suspense that the audience can interpret. This would hint at the fact that the main character while being "rescued" is actually just being placed in another dangerous situation that would be elaborated more on throughout the entirety of the hypothetical film.

I think that going the dialogue route is more unique and something different. I feel that it can give us more freedom with the direction we want to take our film in and I'm now genuinely excited to see how this develops, but as you can tell, we need help. We have a NEW idea now, but still, we only have pieces of it. We need to stick with an idea, hopefully it's this one, and develop it more to actually have a solid idea we can film and begin to edit. I'm very worried about my group's pacing because I feel that we are still so behind and confused as to what we want to do. I'm also nervous about the production process because I'm afraid it's going to be more challenging than what we expect. All I know though is that we need to start pulling our shit together or this project could start going on a downward spiral and quick. Wish us luck, we are going to need it.

--Blogger Buitano

Phoning a Friend!

Hi guys! Monday was quite an eventful day in class. Our teacher took my entire class to the media center, where we were placed in groups. In these groups of about five people each, we pitched our ideas and discussed any concerns with our fellow students seeking for advice, comments, or criticism.

To be honest with you, at the beginning I was really nervous, because I volunteered to go first and wasn't sure how the process was going to proceed or how they were going to react. When I actually started explaining my blog and video idea however, I eased up and simply had a conversation with them and I think I and everyone else in my group, benefited from what we all had to say. Getting in groups was actually very helpful. I was able to think out my group's idea more thoroughly since I had to organize my thoughts better so that they could easily understand and grasp our idea.

So for my presentation to my group I started out by explained to them what I've explained here already and gave them a briefing of the plot we had in mind. I went over my blog postings, but the majority of the time I was explaining the plot to them and asking for their input. They said they really liked our idea, that it was interesting and different, and would easily entice the audience. They also gave me a few new ideas in the meantime. One person in my group mentioned including a symbol. This symbol would serve to represent the government, or more specifically the government division that is conducting the experiment. They also suggested to place the symbol on the protagonist's friends', the one he says hi to at the beginning of the intro, watch, and to make him be the one who hypnotizes the main character at the party. Then, when the protagonist emerges in the middle of the ocean he would have the symbol too, or see it when he goes to shore. I also mentioned to them the idea of incorporating the color blue in each shot because blue symbolizes remoteness and how we were considering giving the main character blue eye contacts when he emerged on the main land to make more obvious that what he was experiencing wasn't reality. They really liked that idea and said it would add a deeper meaning to the plot and utilize the props accurately and effectively in order to portray the idea better. The only concern my group had was the limited time frame available to us. I plan that everything we have in mind considering the plot of the intro can be done in two and a half minutes or under, so I think I'll be fine, but I'll take into consideration their concern and stay conscious of the time.

Overall, having this meeting with people from my class helped me a lot because they helped better my group's idea and film opening. They also made me feel even more confident about my group's plot and intro, reassuring that the direction we are going in is a good one. I'm ready and excited to tell my group about the new ideas that were presented to me in this meeting so we can revise what we have as of now. I'll report back to you on what they said, so stay tuned!

--Blogger Buitano

...And More Research!

Hi again! So me and Bella met up today at Starbucks to do more in-depth research on our genre selection. We decided that instead of researching more important elements of our genre like my last post, it’d be better to look at case studies as to further our research. We decided upon two movies which we would closely examine, those two movies were Inception(2010) and The Matrix(1999).

So the first movie that we chose was The Matrix, which portrays a dystopian future where people are in a simulated reality known as “The Matrix.” This simulated reality is created by sentient machines in order to control the human population, while their bodies’ heat and other electrical activity are used as sources of energy. The protagonist is Thomas Anderson, also known as “Neo,” who is a computer programmer living a double life. He believes something is wrong with reality and is constantly taunted by online encounters with a cryptic message reading, “The Matrix.” Trinity, who is an infamous hacker, reaches out to him saying that a man named Morpheus can explain the matrix. Neo then meets with Morpheus, who presents him with a set of pills. He first offers him a red pill that allows him to find out the truth behind the matrix, and then offers him a blue pill that will return him to his old life, leaving Neo to determine his own future. This film is considered to be a Sci-Fi thriller due to the fact that there is an alternate reality, use of technology, setting in a type of futuristic world, and a presence of good and evil.

The second film that we chose, Inception, depicts extractors, who perform corporate espionage, using experimental military technology on their targets and remove certain information deemed as valuable through a shared dream world. Their latest target Saito, a Japanese businessman, reveals that he arranged their mission himself, as a kind of test, planting an idea into one's subconscious, or "inception." This film is considered to be a science fiction due to the main concept of dream sharing, which connects different peoples’ subconscious, so that subjects can experience the exact same dream space, and even build their dream space themselves, by visualizing a specific location.

I’m really hoping we learned a few things from this research and that we’ll be able to apply the knowledge that we gained from these case studies to our film project. One thing Bella and I noticed almost immediately about these great sci-fi movies, is that they each have a very unique and original plot that makes them stand out from the rest by avoiding cliches. We also realized that there’s usually a psychological element within them to mess with the audience's mind and give the film more depth. With these case studies now at our disposal, we have a more concrete idea of what direction we want our plot to go in, and I’m pretty excited, so keep an eye out for my next few blogs!

--Blogger Buitano

Shmoop Editorial Team. "Inception: Genre." Shmoop. Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

"Inception (2010)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

"Why Is Matrix a Sci-fi Movie?" Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Unknown. The Matrix. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Unknown. Inception. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Ready, Set, Research!

This is the beginning of the actual project. The research, the basis on which my film will grow on. This is also the part, if I'm being honest, I'm dreading. I know it's necessary and that whatever research I do has to be relevant and in depth and can heavily impact the direction in which my film goes, and that's why I'm scared to take on this part of the project. It's essential and everything we do from here on out is going to be based on the step were beginning today so it's extremely important. But I can't prolong it anymore, I have to start, so here we go!

First thing's first, we researched the genre, which is Thriller and it's main sub-genre, Sci-Fi. Thrillers have certain elements that can make them great. Some of those elements include starting the film with an action scene. This gets the viewers interested in what's going on on-screen by enticing the audience. This also introduces a potential conflict that could arise in the production, or even foreshadow that something bad is awaiting. Another element of a thriller is that the protagonist is both ordinary and heroic. It's more satisfying to viewers to have a relate-able main character who experiences a stressful situation and struggles throughout it than to have an indestructible protagonist that can defy all odds. Ideally, the main character is an ordinary Joe Schmo who has to use up all his courage to overcome a struggle he faces, and throughout his struggle becomes heroic by defying some odds and defeating his opponent. A thriller should also have a lot of suspense to it. This is necessary to keep the viewers at the edge of their seats and keep them interested and in a state of high energy throughout the duration of the production. Obstacles in the protagonist's path are also a key component of a thriller. Having conflicts in the main character's way keeps the audience interested in how they are resolved and what can result because of them. This also adds to the plot by giving the protagonist more of a struggle in order to reach his goal, while also revealing more about his character by observing the way he goes about what he confronts.

Then we researched some elements of a scientific-fiction film. Sci-fi's usually include futuristic elements and technologies for the film and director to be able to explore certain issues prevalent in today's society. Heroes and villains are usually present in sci-fi's to create a conflict in the plot that the audience can follow. A sci-fi also normally includes unexplored territory which the protagonist sets out to discover. This adds a mysterious element to a sci-fi while creating an adventure for the character to take part in. Fantastical quests and advanced technology are also important elements in a sci-fi because they create a hyper-reality world in which the protagonist is now indulged in. Also, it gives the director more room to be imaginative and create a unique world in which these extreme, and often unrealistic, circumstances can occur.

We now have a better understanding of what is expected of us in this film opening and what are considered important elements of our selected genres. This knowledge will be used in our production process and will be explored and analyzed in greater depth in my next post where I examine case studies, so stay tuned!

--Blogger Buitano

Buffam, Noelle. The Script Lab. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

Milchman, Jenny. "20 Essential Elements of a Bestselling Thriller, by Jodie Renner." The Thrill Begins. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

"10 Basic Ingredients of a Successful Thriller." WritersDigest.com. N.p., 12 July 2011. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

"12 Ways to Hook an Audience in 30 Seconds." OPEN Forum. N.p., 11 Apr. 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

It Finally Clicked!

My group and I owe a BIG "thank you" to the inspiration Gods, who finally came through and planted a good film idea into our brains. I'm about to explain the whole process we went through in order to end up with our movie idea and let you see how our brains eventually formulated this concept, so get ready.

Okay, so first we started our group discussion in class, not unlike our previous team brainstorming-sessions. We put our desks together and, knowing we wanted to come up with a plot for a thriller film, discussed different types of thrillers we could produce. We began with the idea of creating a scientific fiction (sci-fi) thriller and searched up conventions of sci-fi thrillers, along with some examples we might know of or use to gain inspiration from. We then considered more specific elements that could potentially be part of our plot. We took into consideration having a specific color appear in every shot we filmed. Choosing the color would occur later on in the development of our plot and require research about what each color can represent, as to make it symbolic and meaningful. My group also wanted to keep the idea I discussed in my previous blog, where a man dives into a pool surrounded by his friends and emerges in the middle of the ocean completely isolated. We considered incorporating a parallel-universe or a world of a different dimension in this one particular plot. We strayed from this idea, and started to consider the idea of a brain washing that would somehow connect to the man's newly found isolation. We didn't think it tied into the type of sci-thriller we were hoping to create, and instead contemplated the idea of hypnosis, researching more about it. We discovered that hypnosis is "the induction of a state of consciousness in which a person apparently loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction." We thought we could take this idea that makes someone more susceptible to suggestion and fuse it with the "man emerging isolated" idea. 

Picture of my group's planning page

The idea we formulated was that a man would be hypnotized without his knowledge by a governmental official (or government employee). His trigger would be water, which would explain why when he dove into the pool, he came up for breath in a different "realm," when he's really just in a sleep-like state induced by the hypnosis. The government is hypnotizing random people and is being alerted of when the subjects activate their subconscious, or state brought about by the hypnosis. Their purpose behind it is to assign certain difficult tasks to the subjects, the main character's task is still unknown, and observe their progress and see if they can achieve it, which would return them to reality. The few that can accomplish their assigned tasks are different from the rest since they can activate the other side of their brain most humans don't use, which is the only way one can succeed in the task. Those who can activate the other region of their brain are revealed to the government who is recruiting them so that they can complete a task for them (which is, as of now, still unknown). The main plot of the film would consist of the main character discovering what his task is, trying to complete it so that he can return, while also finding out what the government is planning and is hoping to accomplish with this information. 

While we have the plot for the whole film, we still have to do more research on it so that we can grasp a better understanding of our topic and discuss how we are going to plan and shoot the intro of this film to make it so that the audience is intrigued. I'm glad we at least finally have a concrete idea of what we want to do with our film (though the plot is most likely to still be edited) and of what direction we want to move towards.

Now it's back to the planning board for my team so that we can plan the intro for this film in the hopes of starting filming this weekend. More information about our plot and development of our intro is soon to be revealed, as we ourselves uncover it, so stay tuned! We won't disappoint, scouts honor.

--Blogger Buitano

NathanR10 Follow. "Genre Conventions of Sci-Fi Thriller." LinkedIn SlideShare. N.p., 23 Oct. 2014. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.
Unknown. "What Is Hypnosis?" North Carolina Society of Clinical Hypnosis. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.
Unknown. "Hypnosis - Google Search." Hypnosis - Google Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2017

Forecast Says It's Brainstorming!

We finally decided on our film's genre: THRILLER. Their purpose is to make the audience feel suspense and excitement throughout the duration of the film. I did some research on thrillers to see what the genre's conventions and what most thrillers contain. This is some of what I found:

• It usually consists of a battle between the protagonist and antagonist 
• The plot shows a series of bad events that build up tension and suspense for the film's climax
• The protagonist's intentions are to restore justice, while the antagonist's are to destroy it
• Low-key lighting, quick cuts, shadows, high-tension music, etc. are usually incorporated in a thriller
• The story line is usually created so that the audience believes it could happen to them, causing them to be scared
• Close-ups and extreme close-ups are used frequently and quick cuts are used with antagonist in order to hide their identity and tot focus on the emotions of the main characters.
• Jump cuts and cross cutting are commonly used editing techniques 
• Music is a key component in a thriller, correlates to what the people in the film are experiencing and portrays that feeling to the viewers. The music often starts out at a slow pace and increases to dramatize the scenes for the viewers, helping to create tension and suspense that is conveyed to the audience.

So that's a start. We still haven't selected our sub-genres though. Those will be selected as soon as our story fully develops and we have a clear idea of what we want to do with it. For right now though, my group has come up with a couple ideas that we are considering. We also have some elements we want to incorporate into our film but that we haven't built upon yet and developed into full-thought out ideas. Our possible film ideas are:

• A girl confuses a murderer as her boyfriend, we liked this idea but we thought that it was too similar to another iconic horror/thriller movie featuring a young Drew Barrymore.
• Then another idea was proposed, in this concept, a guy dives into a pool with several people surrounding him and comes up for air in the middle of the ocean, completely isolated. This could be filmed with a drone that Nico has, but the idea hasn't been developed at all yet, but we could definitely build a story around this scene.
• There's a type of alien/government take over or invasion and the main subject is compromised and becomes a mind-controlled drone. This idea sounds familiar so we have to do some research to see if it's been done before and make it more detailed because some aspects could be changed to make it better and more original. 

Those three ideas listed are what we're bouncing off of right now, granted we still have to choose one and then develop it a lot more and take into consideration all the filming and props we'd need to do our idea justice. This is as far as our brainstorming has taken us, but stay tuned, next time we'll (hopefully) have our idea down and already have started developing it.

--Blogger Buitano


JasonsA2Media Follow. "Codes and Conventions of the Thriller Genre." LinkedIn SlideShare. N.p., 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.

Ideas, Ideas, Stress, and More Ideas!

We meet again! This time around, more thought has gone into the actual product itself, the film opening, and more thought has conceived more questions.

First off however, I thought I'd be a good idea to introduce to you my partners who will be working on this film opening with me. I'm working with two of my good friends, Nicolas Garcia-Bonaduce and Isabella Tolkov, who will be referred to in my blog as Nico and Bella. We decided to work together because well, we were the only ones we really knew at the time, but also, we just so happen to all have very different styles and opinions, yet we still manage to work well together since we can always discuss our individual ideas and build off of one that we all like and support. 

When we met up to discuss this project, several questions started to pop into our minds. What type of film do we want to produce? What will our film be about? What genre will our film fall under? Will we conform to the genre conventions, or will we stray from the norms? 

At the beginning of the year, before I was exposed to all the elements of film one has to take into consideration, I thought selecting my idea for the film opening would be rather easy. I'd just choose one idea, film it, and boom I'd be set. I now realize that this is no easy task. I have a lot to consider and a lot to research and plan so that my film is as authentic as possible. For this entire process to kick off though, my group has to select a genre so we can research it, get some inspiration, and eventually produce our own film idea. There's several options, such as action, comedy, thriller, adventure, drama, horror, romance, and so many other film genres to choose from. This led us to really consider which type of genre we all enjoy, since we will have to analyze some films from that genre, and also which genre we feel that we could each contribute to.

Film Genres 

It's an incredibly long and difficult process, especially when just getting started. But, my group is finally starting to get some ideas and look at the project as a long-term commitment, from start to finish, and let me tell you, I have a good feeling about this. We still have a long way to go, but we're starting off by crawling and we're all pretty confident it's in the right direction.

--Blogger Buitano

Unknown. "Film Genres." An Award-winning, Unique Resource of Film Reference Material for Film Buffs and Others, with Reviews of Classic American-Hollywood Films, Academy Awards History, Film Posters. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.

Hi, Hello, and How Do You Do?

My name is Alessia Buitano. I'm just a junior here taking AICE Media Studies, just like everyone else whose blogs you're reading, preparing to take on a huge challenge.

I've never been one for film, literature, or any type of art really. Don't get me wrong, I binge watch shows as much as the next teen, but I never sat down to appreciate and analyze a piece, and if I'm being honest, never had much interest in doing so either. That was all before this class, I now depict every small detail in film, ranging from music videos, to documentaries, to Hollywood movies. The amount of thought and consideration that goes into creating a film is nerve-racking and intimidating to me. The production team has to specifically choose the music, mise-en-scene, shots, angles, and of course the editing. These elements and more make up the film and are what make the audience adore and value a film, or can also be what makes the viewers think, "ehhh."

I'm creating a film opening for my project, so now I'M the production team, and let me just be straightforward with you, I'm terrified. This is a huge challenge to undertake, and I know I'm prepared, I can do it, I know what I need to know in order to succeed. But, you see, getting there, getting to the final product, one I'm hopefully extremely proud of, is what's hazy to me. I want my idea, which is still not developed yet, to be portrayed clearly to my viewers, A.K.A. you, without getting the meaning and purpose lost in translation. In order to help sort out my thoughts, ideas, and mistakes, I'll be writing about them and my experiences as they occur. My blog will express all my thoughts and concerns and is what hopefully helps me better organize and convey my ideas.

Well, I've expressed my concerns, but now it's time to get pumped because although this is probably going to be one of the hardest assignments I've ever taken on in my sixteen years on this Earth, I having a feeling it will also be extremely rewarding to see my final product. So get ready, because this is going to be a long, exciting, and bumpy road, and you're riding shot-gun!

--Blogger Buitano (I'll be signing off with this from now on, since, you know, I blog now.)