Final genre research

I have decided to produce my Final Task as a Thriller film. This is due to the fact I enjoy, almost every aspect of the thriller film and my ideas on my sequence match up with a thriller perfectly. When referring to the genre of horror, my group and I started to create better and more creative ideas. In result of this, the genre that I decided  to choose was thriller as I believe my product will be more creative

Horror Fiction Genre Research

The Horror fiction genre is a genre very similar to the horror genre but more aspects to it. Horror fiction is "a genre of literature, film, and television whose primary feature is that it induces strong feelings of excitement, anxiety, tension, suspense, fear, and other similar emotions in its readers or viewers—in other words, media that thrills the audience," Horror fictions have a set of rules  that producers can either choose to follow or not.  Fiction that follow the codes usually use camera angles/movements such as birds eye views, high angles, close ups, tracking shots, tilts, and low angles. For example, high angles and birds eye view shots are used in thriller films to establish the effect that whatever is being looked down on appears to be intimidated and powerless. On the contrary, low angles are often used in fiction to emphasize the dominance and superiority an antagonist has. Another key element of  horror fiction is the mis-en-scene. The costumes, lighting, actors, makeup, props, and settings all contribute to establishing the plot and keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. Costumes in horror are often very dull in color and concealing in order to build up the suspense and the mystery. Conventionally, the use of low key lighting to produce dark shadows on screen is popular in order create an ominous tone. Actors are not as important, but the makeup used typically consists of a dark color palate and may include blood or gore. Finally, props typically consist of weapons such as guns and knifes and settings are usually isolated, for example out in the wilderness or a haunted house. Furthermore, another key element of the Horror fiction genre is the editing techniques. Common techniques used include flashbacks, shot-reverse-shots, jump cuts, parallel editing, and action matches. These techniques all help to create a sinister tone in the film.

EPIC

Common camera angles are high angles, birds eye view, and hip level angles. These help show what is going on in the epic and develop the story line

Common Camera movements used in an epic film include Tracking shots, tilts, crane shot, and flash pan. These help the viewer see all the fast action of the epic

Common camera shots used in an epic film include wide shot, aerial shots, establishing shots, over the shoulder shots, and close ups. These help show all the action involved in an epic as well as the characters. Costumes in an Epic can range from avatar creatures with blue feathers to warrior costumes on a strange island. Epics typically have an "out-there" plot and setting so it could have very strange costumes. Next, the lighting in an epic is normally very bright and colorful like it is outdoors. Then, the acting in an epic is normally very serious and there is not too much casual conversation, typically, the characters should act very heroic. Additionally, the makeup in an epic is used when trying to create a creature like the blue in avatar, or sometimes in a violent scene but epics don't tend to get gory. Common props in an epic are guns, spears, and swords. Lastly, common settings in an Epic are outdoor locations, and areas with very specific natural terrains.  Epics typically focus on a heroic character. There is also normally a historical or mythical event that takes place. Additionally, there should be lavish setting and costumes, and elevated writing style. The story normally takes place during a societal crisis or time of war/conflict.

Horror Genre Research

In this assignment we were supposed to describe the norms about our genre and the things we like. In order to get credit we had to talk common cams in the genre, the common mis en scene in the genre, common lighting. We had to search for common editing in the genre, and the different elements among my genre. I had to distinguish between plays and movies when researching the genre. For example when I researched common lighting of the genre most of the sources I found talked about the stage lightning of a play. Also, when I researched the elements of the genre it directed me towards Aristotle and his elements of genre. I thought the elements were actually quite fitting for film drama too so I used it. Most of the information was based off of what I already knew of the genre.

Robbery vs Horror pitches

The two pitches I narrowed down to were my first and second pitches. I had to get rid of the third pitch because I couldn't create a story off it, I thought very hard how to make a full film out of a adventure scene but I couldn't so I stuck with a Bank Heist Scene or a Mission scene to start off the movie, I chose those two because I can very much make a full story line of those pitch ideas, I think those pitches will be a good idea because they will be easier to film and are not that popular movie ideas.
My  second pitch was a horror movie. For the horror movie, we decided we could do a kidnapping film. A kidnapping film could be entertaining to watch, as well as for us to film and edit. We wanted to do a topic that we would really enjoy making since this is our last project. Although we do not know about how kidnapping works, of course, we could do research. We would do the research by watching other films that have a kidnapping storyline.

When deciding on the first we taught it would be a good idea to do a robbery scenes based on a show like money heist, we could do a lot of that scenes we can have a scene where all the characters of the robbery are being described as different code names and we heat their role in the heist, this we be easy to research robbing roles , and easy to act out. With my experience of robbery and heist movies this should be a fun and interesting pitch.

Starting the final task!

My name is David and I have been enrolled in AICE Media Studies for half a year I have learned tons with my past projects, media studies has taught me a lot about filming and has made the process a lot easier. I want to see how far I have come from when I first started filming to now. I have learned many filming techniques . I have become familiar with many editing shortcuts. I now plan to use them to make a 10/10 product. I have been thinking with this project and a lot of amazing ideas have came into my head, and i am starting the narrow down options. For this project I am working by myself, i thought this would be more productive and easier for me.

But since this class I have gained more knowledge on cameras. For example I now know how to use a camera to do professional shots and movements. I have also learned a lot more about editing. I used to be able to do the basics of editing like trimming the clips or putting them in order. Now I know how to do many different things in the software. This includes adding transitions, adding sounds and videos from online. I am mostly excited to use my camera skills in this final project because I feel that they would be most useful. I would be able to use my skills to film better shots and make the movie look better.
A pitch idea presentation of an idea for a film or TV series generally made by a screenwriter or film director to a film producer or studio executive in the hope of attracting development finance to pay for the writing of a screenplay, 3 pitch ideas I have for this movie intro are for example, a bank robbery planning for the big heist, I also thought that i could do maybe do a scene where im on a spy or secret agent mission and something goes wrong this movie would called Misson Unthinkable, and lastly I thought of an adventure scene where i or another character is travelling through A forest or some mysterious place when something happens to them out of nowhere. I also thought of a horror movie scene. Where’s a problem takes place
Hers my brainstorming:

Editing blog

I began editing my music video. First thing was open up my computer but it had to restart. I had to wait about five minutes until it was working normally again. I took out SD card from my camera and inserted it into my computer. I dumped everything onto the desktop and launched iMovie. I had to go through all the raw videos to place them in the order of the song being played. I was afraid I would’ve had to reshoot a scene. It was sort of cut off but I was able to fix it. Luckily, there weren’t many complications at first. It got harder as I kept looking and rearranging videos.
I had all my videos in order and then I began cropping. In some videos, I recorded a few seconds before the actual part for that scene. I did this for safety reasons. It would be better to have more footage and crop it out instead of not having enough and the whole music video being out of place. It took me a bit to figure out how to crop a video. However, after looking it up on the internet, I was able to crop all the videos I wanted. I think iMovie was much easier to use than Pinnacle Studios. iMovie was just very straightforward. Pinnacle Studios had too many buttons on the screen that didn’t quite make sense. By the time I clicked it to see what it did, it would do the thing I didn’t want it to do in the first place.
Overall, the editing process was quite simple. I’ve had some experience when it comes to softwares on my iMac. This has allowed me to find everything very easy. I finished editing everything. The music video ran smoothly for the most part. I spent a few hours working on it. After putting the videos in place, I added the music. I had to download the song from the internet. I then opened up a folder in my computer to move the song to my project. I trimmed the song so that it would play from the beginning of my part. The entire music video was about 1 minute.

Filming blog The Experience

Filming was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, I had to film on my own. My friend was busy over thanksgiving break so I had to do it alone. I chose to film it at my house. It was hard because my camera couldn’t focus when I did long shots. It would’ve helped to have a second person behind the camera, focusing when needed. I tried my best to get it done. Shooting the close ups, medium shots, & medium close ups were the easiest to film. It was close enough so I could see whether it was on focus or not. I flipped the viewfinder to face me so I could see what I was shooting. The viewfinder helped many times while filming because I could tell whether I was in the frame or not. 
Filming was a nice experience. Although there were things I’d do differently next time. I would film with someone. It’s good to put two minds to work together. I also would like to try the cameras the school supplies. I really like mine but the school cameras are much smaller so it could be easier to transport. I also would like to invest in better lighting. I felt like there wasn’t enough lighting for most of the scenes. The spotlight scenes definitely did not come out as I planned. It was very obvious a phone flashlight was used for the scenes. However, I am very excited to see how the transitions between the spotlight scenes and regular scenes will be.
Some good things did come out of this music video. It was fun to dress up like people did in the old days I’m glad I chose a song from a time difference . It allowed me to explore outside of what we see in our regular days. I had trouble at the beginning, but I soon learned fast and was able to finish filming in no time. I accidentally deleted one scene while filming and I began to panic. I had to calm down and see if there was a way to retrieve a deleted file. After looking through every setting for about 5 minutes, I was able to find the deleted video. I was very relieved to see that the video was still there. Now I know, not to delete anything until everything is transferred safely to a computer. I learned a lot from this project and the filming was a great learning experience.