Decisions, decisions...

    It is getting close to that eventful time of picking a genre, but before that we must embark in an extremely important process: RESEARCH. 

    Now, as soon as the project was introduced, I had two genres in my head: thriller and drama. A combination of the two would be an ideal choice for me, but first I must look at them both separately and with that research I can find the best way to combine them.

Thriller

    Thriller is a genre that has a plot completely driven by anxiety and suspense that often includes some kind of plot twist and/or a heavy plot. The entire point of watching a thriller movie is feel on the edge of your seat the entire time, just aching to find out what happens next. 

    One extremely important aspect of making a good thriller is having great music and sound effects. Music is one of the best ways to build tension, even if nothing inherently bad is happening. The music acts as a signal to the audience that something big is happening. 

    An example of good us of music is The River Wild (1994).

I have a personal vendetta against this movie because I swear it gave me a heart attack with just how insane I was going. 

This film follows a family going down a river rapid for a family vacation. But, as they do down the river, they come across two men who seem to be completely helpless, but it turns out they are much more sinister than what meets the eye. 

The scene embedded below is one of my favorite examples of using both music and silence to create tension. 

    This scene is particular has a great balance of sweeping, thrilling music but also an eerie silence to go along with it. With the tense music as the family is trying to escape, there is that loud sense of urgency and fear, and the music immerses the audience in that fear. This loud music then works to juxtapose the silence of when the family gets caught by their captors. When Kevin Bacon comes on that screen with no music in the background, just some slight diegetic nature sounds, the audience knows something is going to go down. The silence creates suspense in a whole new way, which makes the scene feel overall more dynamic.

    I would like to incorporate this technique into my film opening as it would be an excellent way to establish the tone of the piece. I'm not sure exactly what context this could be used in, but I think it would be interesting to have a part of the opening when the music is really loud and intense, and the suddenly it goes silent. 

    Another aspect of thriller that I would like to incorporate in my film opening is a sense of building oddness. What I mean by that is when something starts out "normal" and then builds up to something that leaves the audience feeling like something is just no quite right. This is typically done through the mise-en-scene or camera techniques that leave the audience feeling uneasy. 

    

    An example of this is in the opening scene of American Psycho (2000).

    This film takes place in 1980s New York and follows a businessman who by night becomes a psychotic serial killer. Obviously, it's a fun watch. 

    What I find so compelling about the opening scene of this film is how it escalates so quickly from a very metrosexual man doing a skincare routine to a cold, robotic shell. 

Let's take a look. 

    What stands out to me most in this scene is how the voice over and the music in the background deeply juxtaposes what he is saying. He sounds professional and somewhat cordial as he discusses how he fully lacks feeling and a soul. This paired with her the scene starts out with him listing all the products he uses on his face (which is already a little odd), but then he goes on this rant about he is an illusion. 

    What I am taking away from this clip is the ability to create a sense of unease and building confusion/tension by using juxtaposing elements. For my purposes, having the characters and their actions juxtapose the setting they are in could create an interesting dynamic that works to build that mystery and unsettling tone. 

Drama

    Drama is often thought as a sort of all encompassing genre that is typically tied to another one, whether that be romance, comedy, horror or what have you. But some conventions that span all of the combinations are characters having a deep inner conflict and the plot often revolves around a more realistic topic. 

    One characteristic of drama film that I would like to incorporate into my film is their distinct color palette. Yes, this does depend on what kind of drama film it is, but most of them have a distinct color vibe to them. 

    An example of a color palette that I would like to reflect is that of Prisoners (2013).

This movie... When I tell you this movie absolutely destroyed me, I mean it. 

This film follows a father who is trying to find his daughter who got kidnapped in broad daylight and a detective who ends up uncovering a much bigger mystery. 

The clip below has a great representation of the color pallete that I would like to reflect within my film opening. 

    The muted, greyed out colors of the scene are completely reflective of the darker tone of the scene and of the film in its entirety. By using this color palette, it establishes the tone and keeps it going throughtout the film as the whole thing is pretty much tragedy after the next. 

    In my film opening, I definitely want to establish a distinctive color palette for the film. When compiled with the other components already discussed, this would work splendidly to create the proper tone for the entire opening. 

    Another technique commonly used in drama films is continuous closeups. This technique when used in a specific manner can create some serious tension and unease, which can be used in conjunction with a variety of content types and genres. 

    An example of using consecutive closeups to create tension is in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

In this film, a rookie detective for the FBI is assigned a case to find a serial killer, but the only way to find him is to get help from the notorious cannibal, Hannibal Lecter. 

From the clip below, I found the use of closeups profound and creating a great amount of tension between Clarice and Hannibal Lecter. 

    In this clip, Lecter is getting into Clarice's head. Sure, this is represented through his words and facial expressions, but it furthered by how the camera composition is. Throughout the clip, we get closeup of both characters, but each character gives off a different energy. The closeups of Clarice portray her fear and concern about the evaluations that Lecter has made about her. But the closeups of Hannibal Lecter show his assurance in himself and make him look even more insane than what he already is. Furthermore, it almost pains the two characters in a similar light, almost like they are two sides of the same coin, even though that is unexpected by the audience. 

    In my own project, I could use closeups in this manner to convey different emotions for different characters with similar looking shots and composition. This could create in interesting dynamic within my film opening that is more nuanced than giving the audience outright answers. 

    With all this research in mind, I will try to create a combination of these two genres using the techniques I have discussed. If I combine these in all the right ways, I think I could make something that is truly reflective of both genres and some of my favorite films of each. 

And now for the movie quote of the day... (except it's from a TV show)

"The work is mysterious and important." - Mark S., Severance (2022)

On to the next!

 As we move into the second semester,  we have our biggest and most important task thrust upon us. The project this entire course has been culminating in. The big kahuna.

THE PORTFOLIO PROJECT

This is where I will get to show off all of my sweet, sweet skills that I obtained in this class. For this project, we are tasked with creating a two-minute film opening while documenting our entire production process, plus creative a follow up creative reflection. 

I am very excited for this project because this is my chance to just fully exercise all of my creative liberties and create something that I am truly proud to call my own work (not that I haven't done that already). 

My approach heading into this project is to make sure that before any serious action taken, that there is a solid idea behind my film opening. Without a concrete, strong idea, the whole project is a risk of falling flat and not being the greatness that I want it to be. 

With that being said, the way to make sure that my idea has a good potential for an intriguing film opening, I will be diligently
keeping the concepts that we learned about when making a film opening. here are some of the notes that were covered in class when the project was introduced: 

With these tactics in mind, I want to focus on the creating mystery and establishing tone. Right now, I am not exactly sure what form or genre this will take, but it is a good baseline to know what I want to focus on for the future. 

And now a special movie quote of the week (maybe I'll switch it to day)...

"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." - John Keating, Dead Poets Society (1989)

Music Video BTS

Behind the scenes of our epic music video and music marketing project...

And now for this week's movie quote of the week...

"Merry Christmas ya filthy animal. And a happy new year." - Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

 

Music Marketing (Research and Planning)

    As we head into midterms, we have been assigned a Music Marketing Project to count for half of our grade. 

    To start off the project, we chose a group and were assigned a genre. Our genre, much to our chagrin at the time, is bluegrass. At the start of the project, I knew little to nothing about bluegrass, only that is was sort of like country but a little spicier. 

    The first order of business was research. Each person in my group researched a different bluegrass artist and got well verse in their brand and their marketing strategies. The group I researched was this band called The Punch Brothers. As I researched this band, I learned a lot about bluegrass as a genre and how it shifted from something of the past to a new, more modern sound that is more reflective of the desires of contemporary audiences. 

Here is the research I did for The Punch Brothers

With all the research in mind, we moved on to the planning portion of the assignment. For this project, we had to essentially invent a new artists and send them out into the world with a new single and make them superstars. There are two major facets of this assignment: making a marketing presentation and making a music video. To plan everything out, we made a schedule: 

With our schedule we planned out enough time to do some pre-production on the music video - such as choosing what kind of video we want (vibes), making a storyboard, choosing a location, and ironing out all the logistics - and how we divide up working on all the marketing elements. 

As of right now, we are doing very well with our schedule and are even a bit ahead of schedule. We have come up with a complete background for the band and its members, created the first draft of a logo, created a plan for the main marketing strategies we are using and even already filmed the music video. 

This week, we will be focused on editing the music video (which I feel is the most daunting task) and creating all of the marketing elements - the website, instagram, merchandise, and miscellaneous posters and advertising. 

As a little sneak peak, here is one of the promotional pictures we will be using in our marketing: 

And now here's the Movie Quote of the Week...

"I can walk through the forests of the trees of knowledge and listen to the lesson of the leaves..." 

- Yentl (1983)

Is Every Religious Horror Movie the Same?

    I would consider myself to be somewhat of a religious horror fanatic, especially around the time of Halloween.

    Religious horror is a subgenre of the overarching horror genre. The way that religious horror deviates from other horror films is that it typically revolves around a religious origin. This subgenre typically targets audiences who are interested in learning more of religious lore (even if most of the time it is not true). Latinos are a typical audience for religious horror films, as Latinos are typically a member of the Catholic faith, which is a common religion for these types of horror films to revolve around.  

Genre Conventions - Content

    Every religious horror movie comes up with it's own "rules" for the universe, but typical genre conventions of religious horror are the use of religious iconography suchs a crucifixes, rosaries, and holy water. Also, there is always one man, typically a priest, who reads words very aggressively from the Bible in attempt to vanquish a demon who had possessed one of the protagonists. 

    One of the most popular (arguably the most popular) religious horror movie is The Exorcist (1979), utilized a variety of these genre conventions. The famous scene from that movie specifically includes a priest who is yelling words of Christ at the possessed girl whilst sprinkling holy water on her and floating. The religious horror trifecta. 

The Exorcist (1979)

    Something that I can count on when I sit down to watch any religious horror movie is that there will be some kind of elaborate, sometimes over explained, backstory. This could be done for many reasons, but the main one is probably to attempt to cover up any plot holes all in one  five minute info-dump about why everything in the film is happening. 

    One of the most outrageous instances of over-explaining in a religious horror film has got to be in The Curse of La Llorona (2019). After the main villain, La Llorona, has done a sufficient amount of antagonizing, there is quite literally a five minute info-dumping break where the conversation feels overwhelmingly redundant and unnecessary. Unfortunately, this film is not the only one that has fallen victim to the over-explaining curse, but it is simply a consequence that comes with the job.  

Genre Conventions - Production Techniques

    Typically, in the religious horror subgenre, there are very, dull desaturated colors, which is sort of opposite of what religion is portrayed like in real life. Common colors are dull cool colors, mostly blue or cool shades of gray. This allows other colors, such as red (AKA danger colors), to stick out more, allowing the audience to focus on it. 

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

    For instance, this scene from The Conjuring 2 features a very dull looking room with those blues and grays, but the girl is wearing red pajamas, making her the focal point of the scene and the object of the terror surrounding her. 

    Another common production technique for religious horror would be costuming, specifically for religious horror movies that take place in common religious sites such convents. Many religious horror films take on the depiction of nuns, especially in modern times as horror films have branded them as being slightly creepy. Nevertheless, it is a common practice in these films to dress these women up in copy and paste clothing and allow the protagonist to stick out. This works in two facets: one, to create an us vs. them vibe between the nuns and the protagonist and two, to provide an eerie representation of uniformity among those groups of women.

The First Omen (2024)

    An example of this would be in the film The First Omen. As can be seen in the still, the protagonist (in the black scarf) is distinct from the rest of the nuns in the convent, who are all dressed as the one behind her. In the context of this film, it foreshadows the reveal (SPOILERS) that the higher up nuns know something that the protagonist does not. 

    

Institutional Conventions  

    When marketing religious horror films, production studios really take advantage of some of the mysterious associated religion, specifically those who do not know much about religion. For instance, earlier this year, to market the film The First Omen (2024), there was a confessional booth experience where people would go inside of a confessional booth and supernatural things would start happening. This tactic is feeding off of the people who are mystified by aspects of religion and want to experience it in a sensationalized manner. 

    Another classic marketing techniques for marketing a religious horror movie is saying that the film is based on a true story. When those words "based on a true story" flash on the screen during a horror movie trailer, audiences are instantly running to the theater. A good example of this is and of the Conjuring films. At the beginning of all of those movies, they give a little blurb describing the case and that at the end it reads, "Based on a true story". 

The Conjuring (2013)

    As seen in this trailer for The Conjuring, one of the main focal points of the trailer is the aspect of it being based on the true story of actual paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren who are notorious for sparking several franchises such as The Conjuring, but also The Amityville Horror series'.

Samples:

 

    The Nun (2018) is a very popular, contemporary religious horror films that really skyrocketed the religious horror subgenre into the stratosphere. The plot of this movie follows a postulate and an ex-priest to a very old convent in Romania to investigate the suicide of one of the nuns there. Of course it all goes awry when the protagonists find out there is a demon living in the convent, disguising itself as a nun in order to obtain more power through the fear and life force of the other nuns in that abbey. 

    This film follows several of the genre conventions of religious horror when it comes to plot. This includes a priest reading a lot of prayers from the Bible, trying to push the demon away (it doesn't work). Along with that, there are many religious items in this film, the obvious ones like crucifixes and holy water. But, this movie does have a sort of unconventional religious object for a religious horror film, that being the blood of Christ, which I think is a very fun addition. Also, this movie does fall victim to the over-explaining curse as they attempt to make the plot and ending make any sense. 

    With the production conventions, this movie did have great marketing, especially from the trailers. This film's marketing was really based on the frightening aspect of the concept of demonic nuns (what a fun oxymoron). The trailers for these movies really fed off of the jumpscares, wanting the viewers to jump out of their seats. For instance, here is a YouTube ad for the movie. This kind of creative marketing is what religious horror movies use to suck in the viewers. 

    I know I said some not great things about this movie, but disclaimer, I do like it. 

    The Last Exorcism (2010) is a found footage film within the religious horror genre that follows a fraud-priest who wants to show a film crew how he fakes exorcisms by taking them to a troubled family's home in the back country to "exorcise" a girl who claims to be possessed. But, in a turn of events, this girl is not faking being possessed and is actually pregnant with a demon child (those were spoilers by the way). 

    This movie depicts one of the most classic forms of exorcism. A girl in a bed shaking and convulsing while a priest is shouting latin at her, which makes sense with the plot as the film is all about exorcism. A good this about this movie is that it does not really fall victim to over-explanation. But, it is a good example of repurposing classic religious horror tropes in different ways, such as with the found footage element. 

    The marking for this movie actually had an insane prank that was done on people in live chat rooms. This video is directly from the youtube account for this film, and is sort of a lesson to creeps out on the internet by jumpscaring them and then promoting the film. This definitely applies to the creative and out of the box marketing ideas that are typical of religious horror movies that allow the audience to be immersed in the world of the film.

More Religious Horror Films: 

Carrie (1976)

The Possession (2012)

The Witch (2015)

Devil (2010)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

And now for this weeks movie quote of the week... (straight from another religious horror film)

"The court accepts the existence of God every time a witness swears to tell the truth. I think it's about time they accept the existence of the Devil." Ed Warren, The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It 

Representation in the Media

 Hello all and welcome back to my blog!

    Today we will be discussing representation within the media we consume and how the creators of this media chose to represent people of different genders, races, sexualities and much more. 

    To talk about these ideas, I will be using my favorite movie of all time, The Sound of Music, to perpetuate discussion.

    If we move through the film chronologically, towards the very beginning there is a pretty instantaneous  representation of Catholicism, more specifically that of nuns. Let's take the Reverend Mother for example.  Her image is a very classic image of a virtuous, older nun. In her composition, she wears a very traditional habit and wears and ornate cross around her neck. She says classic lines of a nun like "it is the will of God" or "God will show you the way". Even her song, Climb Every Mountain, perpetuates all of her holiness and belief in a better future through god. Just listen to this part of the song: 

    The context for this song is that our protagonist, Maria, has just given up on being the nanny of seven children because she has been developing romantic feeling for their father as a postulant. Here, the Reverend Mother is tying to encourage Maria to face her challenges and trust that she will be able to get over them. But, wait... Why would the Reverend Mother encourage Maria to face her challenges and go to be with the children's father, Captain Von Trapp? Well, this is where the Reverend Mother sort of deviates from her stereotype. Rather than encouraging or making Maria keep her loyalties to God as a nun, she steps out of her role as the Reverend Mother and simply speaks to Maria as a person rather than a postulant.  

    If we look at how the abbey or simply the nuns as a religious group are represented, they are excoticised.  There is a rather long sequence at the beginning of the films where there are many shots just going through the abbey, showing the nuns singing in chapel and praying (I really tried to find a clip but I couldn't so you're just going to have to trust me). True, this may be a representation of what does go on in an abbey, but the purpose of it within the film is to show the regimented lifestyle of living in an abbey to contrast how Maria lives. This contrasting element does sensationalize the lives of nuns, making it apear vastly different than that of other people.

    Later on in the film, there is the introduction of the Nazi's into the plot (which a lot of people don't about and it makes me sad). The Nazi's are represented in their typical fashion, but I would like to delve into the specific character of Rolfe. 

    When we are introduced to Rolfe, he seems like a kind boy who is the classic boy in love with a girl who he shouldn't be. He even gets a really sweet song with Liesel, Sixteen Going on Seventeen.

    Okay, maybe the song isn't that sweet, but the point gets across. Even in this song, there is sort of his devious nature coming out saying how he will need to guide Leisel because she is so much more naïve and young than he. 

    As the film progresses, we see more and more of Rolfe's true loyalties, that being to the Nazi party. The way he is represented through his construction, he is seen wearing more Nazi iconography, such a the swastika. His switch up, though not completely unexpected, was sort of out of left field to Leisel. Take a look at this scene: 

This depicts the Nazi group in a more historical manner. The role of the Nazi's in this movie is not really to make a statement about any of the other characters, but to rather provide an accurate representation of how they were impacting their neighboring countries, like Austria at the start of WWII. 

     

    As is generally know, the Nazi's are one of, if not the most, notorious group of fascists out there, and are a pretty clear cut instance of othering. They are fundamentally the antagonists in this film. At every turn they are working against the Von Trapp family, portraying them (accurately) as the complete opposite of the normal agenda. 

    I must say, The Sound of Music is my favorite movie of all time. Yes, I know it is extremely long, but I would watch any length of movie for Julie Andrews. 

And now for the movie quote of the week...

"Do you think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he has created?" - Dr. Romero, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams

Sound Project

 Our next project was the Sound Project. For this project, groups of two were tasking with telling a simple story only using sound. 

Prior to beginning the project, we learned many different types of sound and how it can be used to further the story. Sound is an essential part to any form of media production. Sound is what deepens emotions while also making the setting more realistic. To create sounds for different settings, foley artists create environmental sounds or even ones that characters are making. This includes footsteps, rustling of clothes, breathing and a whole bunch of other things. 

With all of this in mind, we set of to create our sound project. The first order of business was deciding on a simple task/story to tell using only sound. My partner and I decided on making the sounds of checking into a hotel. 

When brainstorming ideas for what sounds one would hear when checking into a hotel, we wanted to make sure we got the obvious sounds, but also those in the background that add to the ambiance. Things like footsteps and suitcase rolling, but also the chatter sounds of a hotel lobby or an AC rumbling in a hallway.

Our planning sheet was our savior. It was the perfect guide to be able to create a cohesive soundscape. What we did was find the sounds we wanted to use online, and link it to the part it matched up to in our outline. With that, it was a very organized compilation of all the sounds. 

To edit the project, we used premiere pro, which I found very accommodating. In the program I could pitch sounds up and down or simply slow them down to create the sounds I needed. 

The sound project came out rather well. The story was conveyed clearly while still having all those background elements that made it more realistic. I do think that some of our homemade sounds had some background noise in them that impacted the overall experience, but it was not to such a terrible degree that it took one out of the scene. 

Here is the link for the project: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dypVuMmxKaTvfYqSbZs4h9EGsWdJOpZ4/view?usp=sharing

And now for the movie quote of the week...

"The world changes, we do not, there lies the irony that finally kills us." - Armand, Interview with the Vampire