Genre Research

 

While thinking of more and more ideas for my film, I believe it would be best to do some more research on the genre and genre characteristics that I may want to include in my opening or overall plot. In this post I plan on discussing certain aspects I like about the genres Coming of age and Romance, and how I can reflect this in my own movie.

A “coming of age” movie or story is one that shows one or more young characters that are facing some form of personal growth that would help them develop from childhood to adulthood. Coming of age films allow writers or filmmakers to tell a story about their own life as a child; thus, the target audience can appeal to both teenagers as well as adults feeling some childhood nostalgia, depending on the time period the story is set. Since “first-love” is a common theme in coming of age movies, it may be a smart idea to cross over between both this genre and romance. 

A good example of this is the film “Call Me By Your Name” (2017).

This movie is a coming of age/romance that tells the story of a young 17-year-old boy, named Elio (played by Timothee Chalamet), and his father’s student intern, Oliver (played by Armie Hammer). “Call Me By Your Name” is a great movie that portrays the idea of two gay men during the summer of 1983 in Italy and their awakening of love and desire for one another.

Romance movies usually contain two different aspects: a central love story and a happy ending. This may sound cheesy but the romance genre strives to create a plot where individuals facing conflict are trying to fall in love and may be struggling to do so. During these films there is freedom for writers to introduce many subplots, though still keeping “romance” as the main focus. Along with the romance aspect, there should be a satisfying ending, whether the characters solve their issues or end up together. The great thing about this genre is that it can take place in any time period, for a variety of age groups, and having a different tone or style. Typically the target audience for romance films or novels are middle aged women, however some younger readers may be typically more interested in LGBT romances. A popular theme in romance movies are specific tropes like “enemies to lovers” or “forbidden love”, which gets the audience tied up into the story line.

“After” (2019) is another coming of age/romance film that tells a story of a guarded and reserved girl going off to college and meeting a boy, with a rebellious attitude, who changes her view on the world and teaches her how to love.

Though this movie is extremely cheesy, and maybe does not have the best plot, it still fits into the category of romance.

Going forward in my film brainstorming, I will be trying to fit the styles of these two genres and finding ways in which I can tell the story without overly dramatizing it.

https://www.liveabout.com/coming-of-age-movies-4690625

https://www.rwa.org/Online/Romance_Genre/About_Romance_Genre.aspx

Character Representation Pt. 2

 I said I would be back here to discuss how I will go about creating my characters, and here I am. I think a main question I should be asking myself is how should I create positive representations of these characters, if I cannot relate to them. Well first, I can definitely say I am not Deaf, nor do I have any deaf family members or close friends, so this may pose as a struggle to me on the surface. However, one of the main reasons I decided on a deaf main character is because I am currently learning ASL. The past three years I have been taking American Sign Language, which not only includes learning sign itself, but also about Deaf culture and traditions. Throughout more research of my film I plan on contacting my sign language teacher, Kimberly Russo, as well as a few Deaf acquaintances I met while at some Deaf events. With some of their guidance, and my previous knowledge from the class I may be able to have a very accurate and positive representation of my main character. There are also a few examples of movies/television shows I will use for reference.

Switched at Birth (2011)

Sweet Nothing In My Ear (2008)

For the other parts of my character I want to represent, I will continue to do more research to avoid harmful stereotypes, along with going with my own knowledge of that group. For example, I am already very aware about many of the issues faced within the LGBTQ+ community, from articles I’ve read, information from peers, and my own self discovery, but I will continue to watch examples of good representation of Queer/Gay individuals in films.

Character Representation

Hey! Coming on here again while the story in my mind keeps progressing. Today I am really excited to talk about something I find very important in film, character representation. In the past I wrote a bit about positive and negative representation of groups in a few different commercials, but now I want to relate it to my film opening. Since the film is ideally going to follow the coming-of-age and romance genres, my plan is to create a main character that is going to appeal to many of the people in this age group, which of course is teenagers. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I would like to incorporate some themes from Japanese anime, and now this will come to play in developing part of my story and my main character. The main inspiration for my film opening is the movie “A Silent Voice”.

This movie is a Romance/Drama that follows the main character (Shoya Ishida) and his struggle to make amends with a Deaf girl (Shouko Nishimiya) after bullying her in elementary school. 

During the story, many imporatnt topics are discussed including bullying and suicide.

I really enjoyed this movie and I think it did a great job in telling a heartfelt story without negative representation of the Deaf community. Although my idea is kind of different, I still want to include some aspects from this movie, such as the experiences of being mainstreamed as a Deaf student and not being accepted by many ignorant people. I also enjoy the growth of the characters throughout this film, which may be hard to mirror in my own piece, since it is only an opening, however, the implication of growth will be there. 

I have definitely rambled on and on about this for way too long and of course I still have not revealed my plan for my story. I don’t want to say too much about my plans because they are still subject to change, but in simple terms, I have decided to make my movie about a gay deaf girl. Considering positive representation of characters that you usually don’t see in films could create a more positive outlook towards groups that are different than yourself. At first glance, it may feel like I am just throwing out random minority groups and wrapping them up into a character, but I feel like I am avoiding doing that by straying away from negative or cliche stereotypes of these groups. I plan to discuss more plans for my character in later posts.

I still don't understand genre, but I think I'm getting there

Wow, It has definitely been a bit since my last posting on here… but I’m back and I won’t lie, I am still attempting to collect all of my thoughts here. That was a much needed mind break from the amount of uncertainty I had roaming around in this big head of mine. I think it was nice to take this time and slowly ease into the process of creating my film opening. One of the first few things that needs to be discussed is genre. I have already decided to stray from the last few projects and assignments which have mostly been in the “Dark Comedy” or “Horror” realm and perhaps do something more light-hearted. My one main decision was to come up with something that I would enjoy, but of course I would like to see some range in my own art. I am still attempting to narrow down some of my ideas, but so far I have been considering coming of age, romance, or sentimental. I believe as my ideas are coming along it seems like I am going to combine all three, but of course I would like to discover more of each topic. This change of pace will need me to take some more time to research each of these genres and watch some examples of what I might want to have in my film.

How Am I Going to Start

 Finally, I have reached the point that I have been dreading since I heard about this project, “How am I going to approach this?” After moving on from the past projects, I need to find a way to think about what I am going to do for this one that shows growth. Of course, while all of these thoughts are on my mind, my creative thinking juices feel a bit empty. I have thought about the different possibilities of what I could include in a two minute video, and I want to be able to create a film opening that I would enjoy. I think it is important to like what you are working on and it just makes you much more likely to give it your all, and that is exactly what I am going to do. I am planning on beginning my research soon, but again comes the question, “What am I going to research if I don’t know where to start?” I have taken a few days to put a bit of thought about what I want to see in my film opening and I plan on showing positive representation of people that we don’t normally see in films. I also want to consider some themes within anime and manga, which have been very popular recently and hold a special place in my heart. I plan on spending a couple days to watch a few movies and shows to get more ideas. In relation to this, I have been thinking of genres that may allow me to reach this goal, but will still be possible while we are trying to be COVID safe. I don’t want to reveal exactly what I have in mind yet, mostly because I am still trying to find my way in a sea of random thoughts, but I am going to give myself more time to think about what project I’d like to devote myself to.

How Will I Transition

  I’m not very sure how to start this off other than by saying I am already stressed. It has been a long, fun, and anxiety filled year so far working on each of the previous projects given. I can see the progress and end result of my work improving, and I want to keep going up from there. Each project has presented me with some challenges, but none that I could not overcome with the help of my teammates and peers. However, now I must consider one of the biggest challenges of all: How am I going to do this alone? With no one but myself and the little bit of help from my teacher and friends, I have to now get into the mindset that I cannot be reliant on others to build off ideas and thoughts. Even though there are perks to working alone, like being in control of everything that happens, I am going to have to ease my way into this project by setting some time aside to really focus my thoughts and think about how I am gonna tackle this whole thing.

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

When first receiving this Music Marketing Project, my partners and I had been presented with the Alternative genre folder; being big fans of this style of music brought out a sense of excitement and creativity that helped guide us into thinking about each given song option and what may yield the greatest visual result. We all favored the same song, “Night Running” by Cage The Elephant, as we felt this song would be the best representation of the genre's aesthetic and would allow us to be creative with different techniques. During the research portion of this project, we decided on the two companies SubPop and Warner Records and each of us separately and as a whole picked a band to find information on. The four case studies we decided on were Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, The Shins, and Modest Mouse. We split up the information so we each did an equal amount of research, while also helping each other to learn about all the band’s methods. During our research we discussed what attributes of each of these bands we would want to include for our band, and which we did not. We really liked the idea of a more down-to-Earth band that interacted with their fans, like The Shins, but we also liked the quirky and unique feel of Modest Mouse and Gorillaz, and of course the chill rock aesthetic of Arctic Monkeys. We kept this in mind before starting the brainstorming of our video.

When we began to think of ideas for our music video we tried to verbally communicate what could look visually appealing as well as have a good story that fits under this genre. It took us a few times of just listening to the song, thinking, and writing down our random ideas to figure out our final plan for the video. We discussed filming at night and having someone be chased, but that was just reflective of the title, so we printed out the lyrics and thought about how we could delve deeper into the song and its meaning. We felt that it was best to show someone running or hiding from bad ideas, thoughts, or a person that represents something evil. Eventually we built up from this thought also considering location and decided on a creepy concept with distortion and various use of color. We thought it would be best to talk about our ideas in person, which would also give us the freedom to draw out our scenes and plan out the order; so, we planned to meet safely for a few hours and figure out how we were going to tackle this.

    After a few days we spent planning our video, we called up a friend and asked for her to be one of our actors. We communicated where to go and when and we all met up to finally record the video. With all the ideas from brainstorming and a prewritten shot list with timing corresponding to the songs we were able to shoot mostly according to plan. One issue we faced was filming in the dark and the need to have well lighted shots. We had thought of this issue beforehand and addressed it with Mrs. Stoklosa, who allowed us to use a light kit from school. Together we were able to use phone lighting, bright flashlights, and the light kit in order to light our shots. We also paired this with colored binder dividers which worked very well in trying to get the color effect we wanted. Each group member had an important role in the making of this video: Shannon was the videographer, while I was the lighting director, and Sophia was one of our actors. We did not fully stick to our plan and during the process of filming we changed or omitted some shots to get a better flow during the story. We met up twice to film and share our ideas until we felt like we had told the whole story and got great clips to use.

    After we were done recording, we spent the rest of the time working together to create our marketing presentation and including what we thought would best represent our band. While I created the social media presence, Shannon built our website, and Sophia worked on putting our video together to our liking. Overall, we each built up our marketing presentation with ideas from the other bands, using techniques like guerilla marketing, and finding unique ways to label ourselves that would fit our brand; this included each of our songs coming together to complete a puzzle or a bigger story. When presenting to the class, we thought about not overdoing the information on each slide, and instead made each slide short and simple with a simple or funny title. This way we were able to catch people’s attention and elaborate more on our plans for marketing. We put on a positive and light-hearted attitude while presenting to keep our listeners intrigued in our presentation up to the video portion that wasn’t till the end. 

    I believe that our project came out great and this is a result of our hard work and thought put into our brand and aesthetic. This project helped me learn about all of the situations people need to consider when filming and creating a music video including, time, location, lighting, sound, etc. I also learned about the importance of a group effort and working well with others, because it takes a village to make a band. I believe this will benefit me when working on later projects including evaluating how the target audience will have an affect on what media someone releases and the content of that form of media. I feel that I also have a better understanding on the way shots may go together when telling a story and how to use creative techniques in order to create a great final product.