Props

    To start the week off, I decided to create a basic list of specific props and set pieces I need to get for my film opening. Creating a checklist helps me to keep track of everything I need to get and what I already have.

                                       

   I was lucky enough that one of my friends told me I could use her old salt lamp for Cecilia's room. That same friend also gave me the idea to print out music posters for Roman's room rather than going out and buying a bunch of posters because it'll end up being cheaper. As for the fairy lights, although they aren't marked off in the photo above, I do have some from an old birthday decoration I used a few years back. 

    For Cecilia's room, I wanted a vase of the Cecilia English Rose, so I went online and found some faux flowers that look very similar to the real thing that I plan to order later this week so that they arrive by the beginning of next week (here's the link in case you want to get a better look: https://www.amazon.com).

This week I plan on developing my storyboard as well as my screenplay for my project!

Mood Boards

    To create any sort of film or film opening, it's essential to establish the looks and vibes of the characters, primarily since my entire film opening focuses on introducing Cecilia and Roman and the dynamic between them. The best way to do this was to create two Pinterest boards, one for each character. 

Cecilia

    For Cecilia, I wanted to give her a soft feminine look, almost princess-like to visually illustrate her hopeless romantic personality. She wears many soft colors (white, light pink, etc.) and floral patterns to highlight her femininity, as well as a lot of flowy and lace-trimmed tops. 

Roman

    For Roman, I wanted to go for a more "down to earth" type of vibe. Unlike Cecilia, he is not the type of person to spend his day daydreaming about happily ever after and he likes to take in the world around him. That's why for Roman's look I decided to still go for a very cozy welcoming look where he wears a lot of sweaters and a lot of Earth tones. 

Opening Idea !

    As mentioned in my previous post, this post will focus on what I want to do for my film opening.

    The opening is going to take place in Cecilia's room and Roman's room. It will show Cecilia in her room sitting on her bed or at her desk typing away writing yet another short story romance, while Roman is in his room messing around with his guitar. He decides to call Cecilia in an attempt to ask her out on a date, but when he asks she's preoccupied with her writing and doesn't realize she's being asked out, even suggesting they bring along one of their friends. Roman agrees to go out with their friend anyway and hangs up defeated.

The Rooms

    Each of the character's rooms will be showcased in the opening, and I want them to have almost differing aesthetics. For Cecilia's room, I want her room to give off a very cozy, warm vibe with books all over her room, candles, fairy lights, and some fake plants. 

{Image of inspiration for Cecilia's room}

    Roman's room, however, will be more simply decorated, with some LED lights in the room, and some instruments scattered about, with a few posters of different artists on his wall. I have already asked a friend of mine if he'd be willing to be in my project, and he agreed. If all goes well, we will be able to use his room to film as well which already has the exact environment I'm looking for. While I sadly don't have a picture of it to show here, I did find a picture of a room on Pinterest that does have a very similar aesthetic.

Group Critique

    Today in class, we spent some time in groups getting some advice for our portfolio project. I heard some really awesome ideas, and I'm really excited to see what my classmates will end up creating. 

{My awesome classmates and I!}

    As for my project, I presented my classmates with my idea and they seemed to like it! I talked through my idea for my opening (more details on that in the next post) because I wasn't too sure if my idea would work very well and my group said that it was a good idea. I had given background for why I named my characters Cecilia and Roman, and one of my group members pointed out that there is a flower named Cecilia that I could incorporate into my film somehow. I looked it up and it's a beautiful flower! I will probably include the flower in my title screen, and maybe try to find some to put in Cecilia's room!

{Cecilia English Rose}

Project Plan: The Schedule

     To start this new week off, I decided to properly organize myself, and create a schedule to go by for the rest of this project. I thought the best way to split up and schedule the project was by week, so I  created a page on Notion to keep track. This page allows me to then edit and check off any tasks that I need to complete, or have already completed while working on my portfolio project. 

    The goal of making this schedule is to help me stay more organized and to be better prepared for what needs to get done every week. I find that having a schedule set and written down makes the tasks I am doing feel more urgent, and makes me want to complete them in a more efficient manner. It also helps me stay on top of my work and lets me make sure that I do not miss any component of the project.

Film Opening: Film name and Characters

    After coming up with a basic idea of the plot for my film, I decided I wanted to name the film "Short Story Lover", which hints at the whole idea of the short stories that one of the two protagonists writes. Once I had the name of the film, I realized I also needed names for the characters. I wanted to make sure that the names had some form of meaning and not just random names I pulled from a hat. So, I named the girl Cecilia, which means blind and represents the fact that she is blind to the romantic advances her best friend is making. Her best friend, our second protagonist, will be named Roman, which from Italian origin means "romantic lover".

    Cecilia and Roman are best friends since their childhood when they met in the third grade. They both enjoy the arts, although Cecilia is more of a writer while Roman is better with instruments. Cecilia is a first-generation American with her parents being of Colombian descent and she speaks both English and Spanish. She is a sort of hopeless romantic who spends a lot of her free time writing short story romances, that she hopes to one day compile into a book of short stories to publish. She has a younger brother who is around 10 years old, Cecilia is 17, and she is often left at home to babysit her brother while her parents are out, which usually gives her plenty of time to write.

     Roman is also 17, and his family is of European descent, mainly from Italy. He is a fun-loving person, enjoys hanging out with friends during his free time, and is overall a pretty extroverted person, especially compared to Cecilia. He has an older brother who is around 19 and who he is very close with. In the movie, the idea would be that Roman goes to his brother for advice as to what to do about winning over Cecilia, to which his brother will, almost jokingly, suggest that Roman uses the romance short stories that he finds in Cecilia's room as inspiration.

    For the upcoming week, I plan on further developing characters, maybe even doing some mood boards, as well as finalizing any ideas for my film plot, and starting to properly map out what I want to do for my opening.

    

Film Opening Movie Idea

     For this week, I spent a good majority of it doing research on my specific genre researching movies within it and some sub-genres. I was not sure what to research next and thought that it was about time I actually started paying a bit more attention as to what I want to do for my actual film plot. I wanted to be able to still incorporate my idea of writing love letters, but every idea I had to do with writing love letters reminded me too much of the Netflix rom-com To All the Boys I've Ever Loved, or I would not seem to find a way to get a cohesive plot going. I also wanted to involve a childhood crush type of situation, where one of the two protagonists is head over heels for their friend, while the friend has no clue what is going on. I was absolutely stuck. That's when I remembered how in a lot of romances, there's almost always a character who comes up with some sort of scheme to get the girl (think 10 Things I hate About You). 

    That's when I got the idea to change the love letters, to romance short stories instead. The idea is that one of two best friends will be a writer, and she spends her free time writing all kinds of short stories about fairytale-like romances but she doesn't really like people reading them. Her best friend has always had a crush on her, but doesn't know how to get her attention. One day while in her room, he finds the stories and decides he will copy whatever the stories say the guy does to win her over, and It works, until she catches on and finds out he's been reading her stories and thinks that he is mocking her. For the opening itself, I'm thinking of having a back and forth of the two, the girl writing her stories, while the guy is getting ready to go pick her up to hang out (or go to school?). I'm not sure if he will see the stories during the opening or if I should reference to the fact that he knows about them yet. Either way, I am so excited to finally have an idea for my film plot, and a general idea for the opening!!

    

Research Part 2

 Sub-Genres Within Romance

    I want to better familiarize myself with the romance genre as a whole and explore different films within the genre before I begin to fully conceptualize any ideas for my film opening. I feel the best way to go about this is to explore the two main sub-genres that fall under the category of romance,.

Romantic Dramas

    Romantic dramas are essentially dramas whose plot centers around romantic conflict. The conflict typically involves outer circumstances keeping the leading couple apart, although internal conflicts can also get involved, and the film revolves around how they must overcome these circumstances in order to be together. These types of movies typically end on a more somber note, usually with the couple not being able to be together due to reasons like illness or the social situation within their environments. 

    A great film example of this sub-genre is The Notebook. The movie follows Noah and Allie as they fall in love but are from very different social and economic backgrounds, with Allie growing up in great wealth, and Noah growing up relatively poor. Allie's parents are severely against the relationship as they do not approve of Noah, and forbid the pair from seeing each other.

 Romantic Comedies ('Rom-coms')

     Romantic comedies also have plots that revolve around the love between two characters, although they tend to be far more light-hearted than romantic dramas. Like dramas, a leading couple may be placed in specific circumstances threatening to keep them apart, however, the circumstances tend to be presented in a more wild and comical light, oftentimes breaking the tension of more serious scenes with some type of comedic comment or mishap. 

 A movie that immediately comes to mind whilst thinking of romantic comedies is the 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You. The movie is about a girl Bianca, who is not allowed to date until her sister, Kat, does, much to the dismay of the new kid Cameron. To fix this issue, Cameron pays off "bad boy" Partick to go out with Kat and break her out of her shell. While the two don't get off on the right foot, Kat and Patrick end up falling in love. This movie is also an excellent example of the popular romance trope of enemies to lovers.

References

Subgenre - romantic drama. AllMovie. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://www.allmovie.com/subgenre/romantic-drama-d540#:~:text=A%20type%20of%20drama%20that%20centers%20its%20narrative,united%2C%20frequently%20ending%20with%20tragic%20or%20downbeat%20circumstances.

IAC Publishing. (n.d.). What are the Characterisitcs of a romantic comedy? Reference. Retrieved        February 16, 2023, from https://www.reference.com/world-view/characterisitcs-romantic-comedy-3bb04018b4b0ccc0

    

Research Part 1: The Romance Genre

   For this first week, I plan to focus on overall genre research and the full planning and scheduling of the rest of the project.

    People sometimes assume that a romance film is simply a movie that happens to include some kind of romantic relationship. In reality though, for a film to fall under the genre of romance, the plot has to almost entirely revolve around the love/relationship between two characters. These loves can be presented using various tropes including love triangles, forbidden love, enemies-to-lovers, and love at first sight to name a few. 

    Romances don't always have to end with the starring couple being together, however. Movies like Casablanca, portray a protagonist who in the end cannot be with their lover due to outside circumstances which make the protagonist choose their lover's well-being over their relationship. This trope has always been intriguing to me, as it shows how people can put their wants and needs to the side for the sake of someone they really care about. Other movies such as La la Land, showcase two protagonists who fall in love but ultimately grow apart during their relationship and end up going their separate ways, and showcase the reality that sometimes certain people you come across push you to grow or be a better version of yourself in one way or another, and then grow out of it. 

    The latter is a trope I personally really like as it is something that happens very often in real life and I would really like to see if  I can incorporate this trope into my project somehow. I think it would be interesting to play with the idea of a movie that takes place after the fact of finding someone who helped you grow and has just left, almost like a show of the initial aftermath. I could include my idea of the love letters by having my protagonist read letters or even write letters to their past lover, updating them on their life as they parted ways, and are trying to move on.

 

Buffam, N. (2011, March 26). Romance. The Script Lab. https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/994-romance-sp-1570419489/#:~:text=Romance%20film%20can%20be%20defined%20as%20a%20genre,The%20tone%20of%20Romance%20film%20can%20vary%20greatly.

   

Film Opening Project: The Start of a Journey

    This post marks the official beginning of a long and grueling process of what I hope will turn out to be a fantastic project and film opening. 

    Truthfully, I was initially very overwhelmed with everything that I was told I would have to do for this project. My first thought was "how on Earth am I going to pull this off?" However, once I took a step back and looked over everything again, I realized that this project is a matter of simply staying on top of things, and allowing myself to create something that is both creative and of quality. I decided the best way to go about working on this project was to set up a rough schedule like I've done with previous projects. I feel that having set days to work on this project, and knowing what I'm going to do on said days will help me to stay on task, as well as keep me from getting overwhelmed or stressed out. 

    For the film opening itself, I am not too sure as to what exactly I want to do yet. I do, however, know that I will be doing an opening within the genre of romance. I picked this genre because I have always loved it. Ever since I was little, my favorite part of the movies I watched was when the protagonist was able to find love, even if it didn't last till happily ever after. I have always liked the idea of writing love letters to someone, so I will absolutely try to incorporate it into the premise of my film opening. 

Music Marketing Project {Pt. 2}

     The Research

    The first thing my group did while we were assigned our music marketing project and had reviewed the rubric, was pick what song we wanted to use for our music video. We decided to choose "The Man" by the Killers because we all thought we could do a very fun campaign and music video to go with it. After that, we set up a schedule for us to follow so that we'd be able to stay organized and get the whole project finished before the day it was due. 

{Image of research chart used for project}

    From there, we began to do research within our genre, alternative/indie music. We decided to first find two artists who fall under the alternative/indie genre who have released an album within the last five years, find the record labels they were signed to, then find two more artists from each record label. In this specific case, we decided to research the Arctic Monkeys and the marketing tactic for their 2022 album The Car, and Owen Pallet and his album Island (2020), who were signed to Domino Recording Company. And from RCA Records, The Strokes and their album The New Abnormal(2020), and Steve Lacy and his 2022 album Gemini Rights. 

    While conducting our research, we made sure to get as much information as possible on how these artists market their music, and what they do to interact with their audience because we wanted to make sure we knew how to market our band within the alternative/indie genre appropriately, as well as get some inspiration from various marketing tactics. We found that the artists we researched use very similar, if not the same, tactics in marketing and audience interaction, spare from a few instances where they did something else like creating an email newsletter like the Arctic Monkeys.

The Brainstorming

    Once the research was completed, the next step in our plan was to discuss and brainstorm our band, their campaign, and the music video. We all had varying ideas for what to do for the music video, and our first thought was to do a music video inspired by decades like the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s since the song we had chosen gave us a "vintage" sort of vibe to it. This idea stuck for a while, however, we were having trouble building a brand off of this idea, not to mention we didn't even have a name for the band yet. This was when we took a step back and decided to start with the band's overall campaign. 

{Cover photo for single "The Man"}

    While trying to think of ideas that we could use as the band's sort of purpose, my head immediately went to the Spice Girls, and how they each went by a different name. Then I remembered a girl group I had discovered on TikTok called Boys World and how their whole concept was that even though they each had very contrasting aesthetics and come from different backgrounds, they are still all able to come together to do something they love, which is creating music. When brought up to the group, we all agreed that we wanted some form of gimmick that an actual band could use and build from. We took a look at the lyrics to "The Man", and noticed the song seemed to depict a self-centered, cocky person. This was when we got the idea to create a band based on the seven deadly sins. 

  The idea was that each album the band would create would be themed around one of the seven sins: pride, gluttony, sloth, wrath, lust, greed, and envy. The first album would be themed around the cardinal sin of pride be called "Vainglory" and would include the band's first-ever single "The Man." With that, we had a gimmick for our band and one that can help draw the attention of teenagers and young adults within our target audience. All we needed was a name, and after going through a few different options, we decided to name the band Seven Sevens with an upside-down "v" in "sevens".

{Story board of music video}

 The music video of the Seven Sevens's first single would, of course, visually depict the sin of pride. The idea was to have the frontman of the band portray a cartoonishly self-absorbed and cocky person by doing things like kissing a photo of himself, throwing money away like it's nothing, and even writing himself into the Bible. Along with that, we wanted to make sure to include shots of the band playing together, and goofing off since this would be their first music video. We felt that it was important to show audiences within that same music video that the band was "down to earth" and were able to just laugh and have a good time. We also wanted to have a distinct look, so while the frontman wore an oversized dark suit to make his pridefulness seem a bit more ridiculous, the other band members wore bright-colored blazers. We kept a similar aesthetic to our original idea of the decades and based the wardrobe and even some of the props on the 80s.

Production and Post-Production

{a photo of all group members on the second day of filming}

    The actual filming of the music video took two days. On the first day, we filmed at one of the group member's houses, and the day was spent mainly getting shots of our frontman playing the self-absorbed character. While filming one of us noticed a really cool-looking yellow van that we thought would look good in our music video, so we asked the owner if we could get a few shots in front of the van, to which he obliged. On the second day, we filmed at a park, where we got shots of the band "playing" the song on the drums, bass, and guitar with the lead singer singing at the front. This is also where we got shots of the band members dancing around and lip-syncing to the song, as well as pictures that would be used for Seven Seven's social media and a cover for the song. Once filming was done, we had three days to get the video edited and the presentation of the campaign finished.

The Presentation

{screenshot of the merchandise slide}

    For our presentation, we needed to make sure to incorporate all aspects of our campaign as well as the music video. We made sure the presentation itself fit the aesthetic we were trying to go for, which was the 80s inspired. Within the presentation itself, we included information about the alternative/indie genre, information about how we structured our campaign, examples of merchandise, and Seven Sevens' social media pages. We wanted to make sure we covered every base when it came to the campaign and that we made sure there was little to no detail spared. We even included locations for a possible tour after the band's first album comes out. Before actually presenting the project, we made sure to split up the presentation so we all knew what each of us was saying, and even wrote out notecards of what we were going to say so that the presentation would go more smoothly.

Final Thoughts

    Overall, this project is absolutely my favorite that I've done during my entire high school career. I learned so much about what it takes to put together even a small production, like part of a music video, and how much time and energy goes into planning a marketing campaign. This project also made me realize how important research is, especially in our case where we were creating a band and its entire brand from the ground up. You don't realize how much you learn from simply observing and taking note of what others have done before you and what others are currently doing until you actually put it into practice. 

    I think the overall planning aspect and ironing out even the little details before actually moving forward with the project will absolutely help me with my portfolio project. The ability to take inspiration and use the example of others while still making something completely our own like my group did with the gimmick idea with Boys World and the Spice Girls, as well as the artists we researched will be of great use for my portfolio project, and any future project for that matter.