The First Draft!

For the past week or so, I have been researching other people's work. I have researched everything about the psychological thriller genre, the work that has been created within the genre, the things that are basically required in a film within the genre, etc. And after all of that research, I can happily say that it is now the time to work on my own creation. Now that I have all of my research complete, I can start planning my plot, characters, scenes, start my schedule, etc. Since I can finally start working on my film opening, I made a schedule to follow.

Schedule:

1. Create a storyboard, make the plot outline, the shot list, etc. (This week)

2. Start my production and complete the whole filming. (The next two weeks; 2/27-3/12)

3. Edit, show people, and revise the film opening. (The week of 3/13- 3/19)

4. Create my Creative Critical Reflection and add finishing touches to the overall project. (The weeks of 3/20-4/3)

This is the schedule that I will be following for the rest of the weeks I have to create this film opening and complete the overall project. I have decided to give myself a whole week (this week) to plan everything that I will be doing for this project: the scenes, the editing techniques, the shots, etc. I wanted to dedicate the next two weeks so that I have enough time to make sure that each scene is the right length to reach the amount of 2 minutes, and not surpass it; also to film the official scenes perfectly. Then I will take one week to edit since the editing should be easy, but it might take a while to edit the whole thing. And lastly, I will give myself the rest of the weeks to add the finishing touches to everything, wrap everything up, and complete my CCR.

Storyboard's First Draft!

Since this week will be dedicated to planning, I have completed the first draft of my storyboard for my film opening! I have decided to name the film Obsession since it will be about a man who is a perfectionist and wants everything to go how he wants it to go. I attached an image down below.

This is only the first draft of the film opening. I will be adding more scenes and taking scenes away. Be sure to keep an eye out for more posts to see the next draft or official storyboard and future plans!

5 Elements of Film

After doing some more research about films in the psychological thriller genre and about films in general, I came across an essay that explained the 5 elements of a film. The essay also gave an analysis of these five elements in a film as well. The five elements that this essay states were: narrative, cinematography, sound, mise-en-scene, and editing. As I read through the essay, I was thinking about how I would incorporate these elements into the scenes for my film. I am still not completely sure about what every scene will be, but I will make my storyboard very soon. For now, I planned on how these 5 elements will be used in my film opening.

Narrative

A narrative in a film would be a spoken account of the story. An example of a psychological film/ tv show with a narrative would be the tv show You. For my film opening, I don't think that I will have a narrative. Since I will be doing the film opening only, I would like to have music instead of a narrative. The film could later on have a narrative, but not the film's opening. I also believe that not having a narrative will be better because I want the things happening in the opening to be unclear but easy to tell that it is irregular. Having the narrative means that the actions would be explained and will take away the thriller for the opening.

Cinematography

The cinematography in a film would be the way that the film was shot, the camera angles, the lighting, the tone, colors, etc. One major thing that I want in my opening is the use of the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is the composition guidelines grid with 3 vertical lines and 3 horizontal lines. I want everything to be shot in a way that seems balanced and perfect to give a sense of perfection when it comes to the character. I also want the lighting, tone, and color to be dark. I want the lighting to be very dark to make things seem uneasy, gloomy, and timid. I also want the colors to be neutral colors. The only exception is red which will be used to show power (the drink I mentioned in my last post). I also would like for all of the shots to be very tight and close up. This will add more tension and suspense to the scenes.

Sound

The sound element is an important part of the film's opening. For the sound, I would like to find a very suspenseful and creepy song that will go along with my scenes. I have two ideas for the music. I will either make the music non-diegetic, or the last scene of the opening will be the protagonist turning off a record player that is supposedly playing the music. I will decide that soon when I make my storyboard. I also want to add diegetic sounds like the drips from the bottle to the cup, something being cut open, etc. I feel like this will add suspense and an uneasy feeling to my opening.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene will be the easiest element to incorporate into my film opening. Since the whole opening will be dark, it will not be necessary to have an exterior very decorated. As long as the places where we film has neutral colors, it will be perfectly fine to film with. The only major details that the mise-en-scene will have are neutral colors and it will be very plain. The rest will be the props that are yet to be determined on what they will be.

Editing

Editing is one of my favorite parts of doing a film opening. I love to edit with adobe premiere. In my previous post, I mentioned a few techniques that I will be doing in my opening. I will be using a glitch effect in my opening to make it seem irregular. I will also make the clips play inside of the text which will be the names of the director, major actors, producer, etc. I will be putting one name after every major clip; every clip that plays inside of the text will be the protagonist placing stuff down in a perfectionist manner.

Now that I have finished researching the genre and what lies in it, I will be creating my storyboard next and start planning/ getting ready to start my production. The next thing I will do is my storyboard, so stick around for the next post!

Sources:

https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/five-key-elements-that-contribute-to-the-film-structure-and-narration/#:~:text=There%20are%20five%20elements%20of,way%20to%20judge%20a%20film.

The Ideas Start Forming

Plot Idea

The story/ plot is the most important part of the opening. As you've probably seen in my previous posts, psychological thrillers are very dark and uneasy. They don't need to have jump scares or scary-looking monsters. All the plot needs is a creepy feel and for irregular things to happen to mess with the audience's minds.

My main inspiration is the movie Se7en, which I explained more about in the last post. I am not 100% sure what I exactly want my plot to be, but I have a general idea. I want to start the scene with a clear glass with red liquid in it (I'm not exactly sure what the liquid will be yet); with a bottle dripping the last few drops in the cup. Then I want to make the video glitch into a clip of someone drinking the liquid. But I only want the mouth and lower to be visible, to add that unreliable feel to the scene. The next thing I want to do is show the person putting the glass down in a certain way to show that the character is a perfectionist. (By the way, all of the scenes will transition with a glitch effect.) This is what the beginning of the opening would look like. I do not know yet what the rest of the opening will have, but this is my idea for the beginning which will help me know where to take the rest of the plot.

Editing Ideas

As I think of ideas for my plot, I also start asking questions about how I will edit my opening. As I mentioned before, I would like to transition some of the scenes, or just simply add to the scenes a glitch. The software I will be using to edit my opening will be Adobe Premiere Pro. I found a video on YouTube that gives me an idea of how to create the glitch on Adobe.

After this video, I also wondered how I would show the major names of the director, producer, major actors, etc. I do not want to just attach the names on the corner of the video since I feel that it does not fit the genre very well. After some thinking, I decided that I would want to put the names in a big text on the screen, with the creepy video continuing inside the text. I felt that this would be cool and simple, while still keeping the psychological thriller feel. I also decided to search for a video on how to do this which I attached below.

These are all the ideas that I have come up with for my opening scene. Soon I will develop more, research more, and create a storyboard; stay tuned!

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MYBC4Yy7kk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Glr2P0JX_s

Its all about your character!

The research from the last post kept me thinking... unreliable narrator. Unreliable narrator, unreliable narrator, unreliable narrator. Those words kept me thinking about who my character is going to be and what she/he is going to do. One thing I know for sure is that my character in the opening scene will be the unreliable narrator.

If I haven't made myself clear, I want my protagonist to be unreliable. I want the narrator/ main character to give an untrustworthy feel to the scene. The things that this character will do are irregular. I don't want the scene to be very clear. The scene will be very dark and timid. I want the opening to give the audience an uneasy feeling even though it is not very clear what is going on. The only thing that will be clear is that the character is twisted. I'm not 100% sure yet what I would like the plot to be, however, I would like to do something similar to the film Se7en.

Se7en

Se7en (Seven) is a psychological thriller film starring Brad Pitt (David Mills). The film was made in 1995 and was directed by David Fincher. On Wikipedia, it says that David Fincher is known mainly for his psychological thriller films. The film Seven is about two detectives that are trying to find a serial killer committing crimes on the "seven deadly sins". The opening of this film is very shadowy in a way; has very dim lighting and is very dark. It has very creepy music and scratching/ screeching sounds. Although the shots aren't very clear, they still give the uneasy and irregular feeling that I aspire to do in my opening film as well. The dim lighting and weird implementation that the character is doing help tie together the psychological thriller genre right away. Down below I attached the opening title sequence of the film.

I would like my character and opening to give the same feel as this one does. After watching this opening, I also decided that it is most probable that I will not be showing my character's face in the opening. I will also keep most of my shots tight to give them more tension. This film is the biggest inspiration for my film opening.

Sources:

https://letterboxd.com/film/se7en/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BJkDyCdw0c&t=46s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fincher#:~:text=David%20Andrew%20Leo%20Fincher%20(born,for%20him%20as%20Best%20Director.

Oh the thriller!

 Psychological thriller...! That is the genre I decided to choose for my opening scene. I did some research on the genre to find out more about its components, and examples of good movies/ shows within it. So, what even is a psychological thriller? Before I continue, I'd like to mention that psychological thriller is a subgenre of the genre thriller. During my research, I found a masterclass article that stated that psychological thrillers usually contain a mysterious plot that can incorporate the concept of mental illness, crime, morality, unreliable narrators, etc. The article also stated that this subgenre has 3 elements to make it good: Familiar elements, an unreliable narrator, and major plot twists. Now that I had better knowledge of the genre, I decided to furthermore research a show and movie within this genre.

You

You is a psychological thriller, starring Penn Badgley, which is about a man that does whatever it takes to get with the person he desires. The show was made in 2018 and currently has 3 seasons. The show You meets the 3 elements stated by masterclass required to make a good psychological thriller. This show has an unreliable narrator (Joe Goldberg), familiar elements (taking place in everyday locations like a house or library), and major plot twists (his lover also being a murderer). This show would be a good choice for inspiration for my film opening.

Don't Worry Darling

Don't Worry Darling is a psychological thriller, starring Harry Styles and Florence Pugh, which is about a wife living the perfect life finding out the disturbing secrets that her husband has been hiding. This movie was made in 2022. The movie Don't Worry Darling also meets the 3 elements stated by masterclass required to make a good psychological thriller. The movie has an unreliable narrator (the head of the "project"), familiar elements (a house and perfect life), and major plot twists (everything being virtual/fake). This show would also be a good choice for inspiration for my film opening.

These two pieces are only a small part of the amazing shows and movies within the genre of psychological thriller. After this research, I am sure I want to pick this genre for my film opening.

Sources - 
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-psychological-thriller

Image 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_%28season_3%29

Image 2 - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10731256/

Where to begin...?

 I just want to start off by saying I love films. Movies, films, shows, etc, will always hold a spot in my heart. The thought of having to create an opening scene for a film from scratch overwhelms me. There are so many things that I need to think about like what genre I want to do, what target audience I will choose, what I want the story to be, if the story is too basic, if the story is well defined in just 2 minutes, etc. In comparison to many other great films, it would be hard to come up with a good film opening.

 So, the first thing that I decided to do was to watch a bunch of film openings. A lot of them looked the same. Some of them looked doable like the opening for The Silence of the Lambs which had a bunch of shots of a woman running in the woods, but others would be too hard to do like the opening for Forrest Gump which follows a feather that perfectly lands on a man's foot. I want to create something that relies more on the shots and lighting than the editing. Although I have a lot of experience with editing, I want to make something seem as realistic as possible, and I may not be able to do that with just editing.

Some of the openings that stuck out to me were from Se7en, Smile, and The Invisible Man. They all gave me a sense of clarity about what the movie would be like. And there is one important thing that these movies have in common... their genre! These 3 movies that stuck out to me are all psychological thrillers. 

This coincidence left me no choice but to choose the genre of psychological thriller for my film opening. I also admire the genre because of the number of great movies it holds. Without even realizing it, most of the movies and shows that I watch in my free time are psychological thrillers. This also helps me since it is the genre I am most knowledgeable in. Even though I am familiar with the genre, I need to research everything that I need to know about psychological thrillers to be completely sure about the genre I am choosing.

Stay tuned to see if a psychological thriller opening will be the one for me...!

Music Marketing Project

 How did we start the project?

Our music marketing project took a while to complete. There were many things we had to do to make sure that we had a good project. There were also multiple steps to the project. The first thing we had to do was research. Then we had to brainstorm/plan what we were going to do. Then we had to actually film or produce the actual music video. After that, we edited the final video. And lastly, we made a presentation about it.

Research

For the project, we received a folder with 4 different songs. We ended up choosing "Coming Home" by Leon Bridges. The first thing we had to do was research the song, artist, marketing brand, genre itself, and many other things. The research would help us later when we had to make our own brand and had to make our own artist. We also learned everything we needed to know about the song's genre, which is soul, since it is the most important piece of information we need, and it is also what the whole project revolved around.

Brainstorming/ Planning

Now that we did the research, brainstorming or planning was a lot easier and went a lot smoother. Since we did not know anything about the genre "soul", we now had a general idea of what our brand should have revolved around. The first thing we needed to do was think of the brand's name. Since our genre was soul, and our brand was going to revolve around that, we decided to name the brand a synonym of the word soul. We ended up choosing the word passion. We also thought that the word passion itself was too bland, so we added the word network to give it a more formal brand name. The final brand name was Passion Network. Then we chose the target audience which was young adults to millennials (around ages 23-45). We then had to brainstorm ideas for ways to distribute and market our music video. After coming up with the whole plan for the brand and artist, we had to make a story. The story was that a woman is sad because she doesn't know what life has to offer, and then she gets letters, gets happy, one day the letter says "I'm coming home", and then the man comes home. After we created the story, we had to make the storyboard. Now that we did all of the research and brainstorming, it was time to plan when we were going to the production. We then decided on two days when we were going to film and two days when we were going to edit.

Film and Production of the Music Video

The film and production of the music video were nice and easy. We chose the two days to film and we filmed exactly what our storyboard said. We did make the mistake at the start where we accidentally filmed in portrait mode and not landscape, but in the end, we re-filmed it. All of the shots went smoothly. We even decided to do some things on set to make the production look smoother and to add symbolism. For example, we made the clips at the start longer to make the never-ending boringness feel present to the viewers.  After, we started picking up the pace when we saw the woman receiving more letters. These were examples of things we decided to do on the spot. 

Editing

The editing process was good. We decided to just put all of the clips together in the order that we made it in the storyboard. As well as adding some little effects to make the music video really come together. For example, in the end, we made sure that the shot of the letter was on the ground saying "Baby, I'm coming home. -Will" matched up with the lyric of the song in the music video where Leon Bridges sang "Baby, I'm coming home".  Another thing we also did was keep that last shot faded with the sky so that you could see both, to show that the video was ending, but also to connect back to the beginning of the story when it panned across the sky. The rest of the clips were fine, we just made them jump cut together since we made sure they flowed when we filmed them. We then finished editing the music video and showed a couple of people to see what we could revise. After getting their feedback, we revised the music video and started the presentation since we had everything necessary for it.

Presentation

The last part of the project was the presentation. For the presentation, we had to sum up all of the research, planning/brainstorming, our production, and our final video all into the PowerPoint. The most important things that we had to make sure were clear on the PowerPoint were the target audience and the marketing and distribution trends that we were gonna use. Then we just had to add the extra information that could be important to the understanding of our brand, artist, and music video.

Overview

The whole project overall was really fun to make but did require a good amount of hard work and dedication. With the research, brainstorming/ planning, filming/production, editing, and final presentation, I definitely learned a lot about time management, brands, artists, marketing and distribution, etc. This will most definitely help me for the next project (the portfolio project) because it taught me how to plan out and manage my time. It also showed me how much time is important to spend in the planning process. This project also helped me learn how to develop my ideas, and how to know when an idea was doable or not. The project was overall good and taught me a lot that I can use in the future with my future projects.