AYOOO CALENDAR

Hi again people that like my point of view! I just got out of work and went ahead to finish my weekly set of posts… well I got sushi first, but that’s not the point. Today I will be kind of showing you what dates I have planned for my shootings for the portfolio as well as with the locations that I’m planning on using.

First of all, I am planning to do the firsts shots on this Tuesday in my room around five-ish in the afternoon since it is the moment of the day that is more alike to the early morning. That same day, I will be filming at the gym to catch that sporty aspect of the character’s life. On Thursday, around 3pm, I will do the car shots outside my house and around my neighborhood. On Friday, if I don’t work, I will film with my friends when we gather together to show the friends aspect of Nacho’s life. On Saturday, I will go to where I work, even if I don’t work that day, to film my shots that I need there. On Sunday, I will probably be shooting in my aunt’s house since my grandparents are there and that would make it seem as a more familiar way. Around next Monday, I will be recording my most difficult shots, the super speed ones in the streets. And last but not least, I wanted to put this scene at last since the date can really vary and it is the scene that will demonstrate the good grades shot that will be at school. I don’t really have a date for this one since the times I go to school can really vary throughout the week.

PS: Tomorrow I’m sending the email to see who I have to contact in order to use a Kanye’s song, I’ll keep you guys updated.

AYOOO VISUAL HELP

 Hi people that like my point of view! Today is going to be a day not that much of speaking but watching and interpreting. You know, as Andrew Stanton said (I think), you have to show, not to tell. I am going to be showing you guys the mood board for my boy Nacho. It is pretty simple and I’d say very self explanatory; but for Ms. Stoklosa and Cambridge’s matters, I’ll explain it.

I will be analyzing the mood board starting from the top. So the first thing we see on it is the character’s name, Ignacio “Nacho” Behard, who is a high school student. I took this name from what used to be my favorite podcast, Escuela de Nada. Nacho is one of the members of the podcast. On the mood board, we can appreciate a half Venezuela half US flag, as well as the name of his hometown, Savannah, Georgia. This has since turned out that Nacho is born from a Venezuelan dad and an American mom. Throughout the mood board, we can see some key things about Nacho’s life. One of them being the Flash symbol, this is to show, as I have previously said in other posts, that he has super speed. The other aspects listed on the mood board, like the money and the burger is to demonstrate the job he has to the audience. In addition, I added some figures of friends and a family just to portray that his life is very good in that aspect, as well as the good grades with the picture of the A+ exam. In addition, I added pictures of Kid Cudi, Kanye West, the artwork of Flashing Lights and a picture from the Wolf of Wall Street. This in order to show what some of the character’s like regarding music and movies. Last and most important, the whole in the middle of the mood board. This was made to represent that one thing that Nacho feels that is left, which he thinks will bring him what fulfills him in life.

PS: This next week I will try to get contact with who I need to contact in order to use Kanye’s song Runaway for my portfolio.

AYOOO PEER REVIEW

Hi again people that like my point of view. Today in class, we were put in breakout rooms to talk about our projects and bounce ideas from each other. I talked about what I have thought about my project. To be honest, it actually helped me a lot. Having people’s point of view was actually very useful since I’m doing the whole portfolio alone. The people who were in my break out room suggested I do a voice over since it is pretty common for my genre, coming-of-age. I was very skeptical about it because just before class I saw an example that happened to have a voice over that was absolutely terrible. I remember it was Isabella to told me that if I happened to do it, I had to have a really strong writing for it to not be stupid. In addition, When I gave the idea for the film opening out, Maya told me to check out an anime called Saiki K. She told me it will be good for the development of my character since the premise of it has some similarities with it.

Also, after the group meeting that we had, I started to look for some film openings that were kind of related to my genre. The first I saw was the one from Chronicle, which happened to be awful. For a moment I thought of making my opening with a 1st person POV shot as if the character was blogging or something… until I saw this. It was trash and took all my desire for doing a 1st person POV shot. After that one I saw Love Simon’s film opening. This one had a voice over with it, it was also terrible. This dragged me down again from doing a voice over. At last, I watched Moonlight’s film opening, which I did not really understand how it set the tone for the plot. Because of this, I just kept watching the film, which I think was impressive, just as Ms. Stoklosa said; however, I still did not understand why she called it a piece of art… until I watched a video essay about it. I understood it after that. Because of that video, I totally understood the opening and how it described Juan as a character.

AYO SOME "OUTLINE"

Hi people that like my point of view. Today, after having a really hard time trying to make up my mind in order to make my ideas flow and them to have sense, I decided that my film opening will be heavily influenced by BoJack Horseman’s intro. I think this will 100% kind of show what I want to transmit to the audience. This film opening will be really (but like really really) focused on character description as I kind of want to “represent” me. I think this will help me to have more control over the character and put him more personal aspects into it that will make him a more deep character. My only concern about what I have planned is that I don’t know if I can extend it for 2 minutes without having it being repetitive.

For now, what I am thinking the storyline of the film opening will be like this: the character gets a phone call that wakes him up in the morning, it was his best friend telling him that he is on his way to pick him up. Then, he goes to do his morning routine. He uses his superspeed for you know, be quicker and in time. Then as he finishes, he goes to his friend’s car, then background changes, yet his facial expression does not. The background will change to many situations that are going to show that he kind of has a “perfect” life since he pretty much has the aspects of a healthy stable life. The expression and the change of background will portray that as the character has the aspects of a good life, there is something left, something that really fulfills him and brings him joy.

PS: Idrk if I had said my plot of the film before but it’s basically a guy who pretty much has all of the aspects of his life “perfect”. Meaning by this that he has a good stable group of friends, he has a good relationship with his parents, they trust him and are not strict at all, he has a job that he likes, he has good grades, his parents are economically good, he goes to the gym, he does soccer, and he even has super speed. The thing with him is that he does not find something that really fulfills him and brings him joy. So throughout the film, he will try to find that something he thinks he needs while facing more problems about growing up.

 

Some planning I guess

 As the days go through, my plans start to develop, the thing is that I do not have that much planned yet. For this week, I want to start to have a visual idea for what I am going to do on my Cambridge portfolio. Therefore, I’m going to start making my storyboard for it. This is something that I think will really help me to organize the ideas that I have for the project. In addition, I will start to look for shooting locations and think how am I going to use them for my portfolio. To close up, this week I am going to do an in depth research on how I am going to make the edition for the effect I want to have in my video. I want the super speed effect to be as much as realistic as I can. I know this was not a really long post; however, this will change for future posts since I will be having more things to talk about as I progress on my project.

Some elements of the genre

Hello again people who like for some reason my point of view! In today’s post I will be talking about the technical elements that the coming of age genre comes with. I hope you enjoy it and hopefully you learn something.

To start off, let’s talk about the types of shots that are mainly used for the genre. In coming of age films, the most common shots that are used are medium shots and two shots. This is due to the fact that these types of shots are used in order to show the emotion of the characters and/or to establish the relationship that the characters might have. In addition, there is a decent quantity of close up shots used throughout the coming of age films. These are used in order to help the development of the characters by showing the emotion of them, which establishes the themes and motifs as well.

Another element that influences the genre it’s its mise-en-scene. For most coming of age films, the costumes are not a very specific thing. They are usually common clothes that are trending at the time the film is set in. This is due to the film showing what I’d call the daily basic clothes for teens. Regarding the setting of the situations throughout the film, these would be schools, lakes, parties, beaches, and sometimes cars. This being as those locations are very frequented places for teens to be. Concerning the lighting, the light that is used for the genre is most of the time a very bright high key lighting in order to have little to no contrast within the shot. To close up, the sound and music within the coming of age genre. In the coming of age genre, the music is used to portray emotion, tone and theme. Most of the time the music of a piece goes along with what is happening at the moment on the film and/or the feelings that the characters are going though at the moment.

PS: I’m still thinking about a title for the film, but it will be having it very soon.

Plot aspects of a coming of age

Nearly no matter what, coming of age films are about the progress from childhood to adulthood. Toward the start of the story, childhood has just been given up, and the main character has presumed that the world is definitely not a protected or joyful place. An occasion that happened before the start of the story, or the main character's circumstance, has caused the protagonist to feel lost or stuck in a world over which she has almost no control. After the protagonist's presentation in the arrangement of the story, he is given a change that will either make his life awful, or or on the other hand will hold the guarantee it to be the best. Consequently, these main characters' inspirations are pronounced, and their journey for those objectives starts.

Likewise with any character bend, it is in this journey that their change happens. However, in coming of age stories, the contentions the characters face drive them to understand that they are presently all alone, that parents, society, and friends won't save them, and they should depend on themselves. What's more, with this excruciating acknowledgment comes every saint's individuation. He presently characterizes himself and defends what his identity is. So toward the finish of the journey, in coming of age films, the world has not changed. It's as agonizing and ungracious as anyone might think possible. Be that as it may, the protagonist is currently outfitted with the strength and and freedom to deal with the world directly, and to move into adulthood.

 

A little bit of background

 The coming-of-age genre highlights the main characters confronting the main significant conflict, individual choice in their lives, or going to a significant acknowledgment about their future lives. These may incorporate movies depicting first loves, moving on high school, religious development, winding up in jail, and other critical occasions in a youngster's life.

The qualities related with Coming-of-Age motion pictures may incorporate some feeling of good duty that accompanies building up an attention to sentimental emotions. Many films help these qualities through supposed ordinary strides of adulthood. Humor is regularly used to manage the feeling of having more opportunity to settle on choices that accompany coming to adulthood, regardless of whether it's choices that turn out not to be all that thoroughly examined. Life lessons throughout experiences will in general be another sign of Coming-of-Age films, with a more youthful individual commonly taking in a significant lesson from a parent or other important older figure. At times, significant acknowledgement about existence comes from self-reflection that is simulated by committing errors and gaining from them or just captivating in a conversation that incorporates some kind of mindfulness.

In coming-of-age films, producers tend to circumstances and occasions that bear upon the youngster's introduction into new spaces of psychosocial experience. Producers try to display the adolescent's and post-adolescent adult experiences with the delights and risks of current life. Coming of age films usually have many voice overs of the protagonist of the film. This is mainly used in order to have a deeper understanding of the character’s feelings and thoughts in a deeper way. To close up, throughout these films, producers focus on the character creating his own identity as he is growing up and show his change throughout the film.

The coming of age films are most of the times marketed by making a great emphasis on the protagonist and his/her friends. This is demonstrated in films such as: The Breakfast Club, American Graffiti, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and many more. This genre, 99% of the time, has their main characters as teenagers. This, obviously, in order to make the characters relatable to the target audience, which is 12 to 20 years old, as the main purpose of the movie is to show the transition from childhood to adulthood. In addition, one of the messages that coming of age films try to convey throughout its marketing campaign is about embracing yourself. To close up, this genre also embraces to stay “loyal” to yourself, but at the same time grow as a person.

A great example of a coming of age film is Lady Bird. Lady Bird tells us the story of a teenager as strange as she can be at those ages, but with an extra touch of dreamy. His mind is a long way from home, with his sights set on the East Coast and college days. Answering and somewhat grumpy, she confronts the world around her with small acts of rebellion, such as adopting her own name, Lady Bird. The relationship with family and friends, of course, also has its traits of sympathetic madness. In particular, the train crash against his mother, a woman with arms to take, is a constant source of conflict. Friends, studies, encounters and misunderstandings with reality, make up the path of Lady Bird in her last months in high school, about to make the leap to the university stage. Lady Bird embraces the coming of age genre as it portrays some of the genre main conventions. Lady Bird shows the conventions such as moving on from high school, get a sweetheart, get another beau, contend with parents, apply to universities, make fake friends, lose friendships, revive those friendships, and many more. Lady Bird is all around planned yet ambiguously the organized content digs into growing up.

Another great example of a coming of age film is Big Time Adolescence. Big Time Adolescence is the story about Mo, a 16 year old kid living in suburbia whose closest companion turns out to be the charming 23 year old Zeke. Zeke used to be a boyfriend of his sister, Kate, when they were both in high school, and in spite of the fact that she left him since she understood that he didn't seek to a decent future, Mo admired constantly him, for him he is his more an older brother figure who consistently needed and in principle, thinks of him as his best friend. Nonetheless, this isn't disliked by Mo's parents, particularly his dad, as they see Zeke, who has dropped out of school, gotten back to live with his parents and scarcely found a new line of work at the nearby electronic store, as a terrible impact. Clearly Zeke is overall quite engaged when you converse with him and he generally discusses large plans, yet behind all that, in actuality the young fellow will just utilize Mo for his arrangements and will get him in serious problems. Big Time Adolescence embraces the coming of age genre as it is about a junior in high school trying to go through romance, parties, and his identity as a person. In addition, throughout the movie, how the character of the 16 year old, Mo, develops, he becomes more and more relatable for teenagers.

Another great examples of great coming of age films are: American Graffiti, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Eight Grade, and The Breakfast Club.

    

 

Quick change

Hello people that somehow like my point of view. This is a quick post just to tell you guys that I’m changing my idea a little bit. Instead of doing a coming of age opening, I’m going to make a coming of age opening of about the two friends that I previously mentioned with super powers, everything else would stay the same. I am still thinking about what powers I will choose for my two characters in the opening. For now my criteria in order to choose the powers is the utility of them for the daily basis of a teenager. To close up, in order to get an idea for what power I’m going to choose, I’m asking my friends and teachers what they think it would have been a useful power to have while in high school. So far I have time stop, teleportation, and super speed.

Some decisions have been made...

 Hi again readers of my point of view! Today I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I had finally made up my mind about some things about my project. The bad news is that I haven’t made up all my mind… But let's go with what I have decided already. So the movie is going to be about two best friends who literally have nothing in common, yet somehow they are best friends, facing many of the problems that young men have to face while growing up. I also have the genre decided already, a coming of age movie. In addition, I plan the film to illustrate two completely different points of view of how growing up is for both of the guys. I want to show their perspectives towards life itself, I want to drag them to their most humane point and give them a reality check that makes them realize life is not how they think it is or it will be.

Now let’s go to the bad news. I still do not have a single clue about if I’m going to do this alone or in a group. My main thing resounding on my head about this is if the people I’m thinking about making the project with are going to be interested in my idea. That is my biggest concern. However, I’m still thinking about some other factors in order to make this decision. One of them being that I really want this project to be an actual challenge for me and I want it to test me in every aspect for me to see if I can actually apply what I learned over the course. To be honest, as I wrote this paragraph I decided that I want to do it alone. It will not be easy, but no one said it was going to be.

To close up, I’m going to kind of type the idea that I have in my mind for the film opening. For now, the scene basically starts with one of the guys, in a school morning, calling the other guy to tell him to wake up because he is already going out to pick him up. In that call, there it would be a little more conversation that would kind of illustrate the type of relationship they have. After that, the call would be hanged up and we would see how the guy that is getting picked up acts alone. This series of shots would show kind of the lifestyle of him. On the other hand, the other series of shots would illustrate the guy in the car and kind of show what type of person he is by how he has his car and some interactions with himself and other people in the car. To conclude the scene, there would be a splitted screen of both guys talking on the phone, which later on would turn into one since they get in the car together. 

Well, this is what I have so far on my mind, it might change, it might not. Time will decide. That’s all for today, have a good night blog, 

A new project, a new beginning

Hello people! Once again, Gerardo here, bringing my point of view to the table. Basically, this week, Ms. Stoklosa introduced us to our portfolio project in class, and to be honest, I’m genuinely scared… Well, not really, but I’m a bit worried about what I am going to make for this project. Since the project was announced, the only thought that has been in my head has been “what genre am I going to do?”. The genres that I am thinking about doing are drama, and a combination coming of age and comedy. This has me very concerned since I know I need to start planning as soon as possible.

For the coming of age I’m thinking about making the story about two friends who literally have nothing in common in their senior year trying to get by their last year in highschool. While everything in their senior year is happening, they encounter many problems that young men can face in life. This movie will take inspirations from films like Big Time Adolescence, Perks of Being a Wallflower, King of Staten Island, and American Graffiti. This is probably the genre that I will be making for my Cambridge Portfolio since due to the fact that it is the genre which I enjoy the most and I’d say understand the most since I’m at the “coming of age” age.

In addition, for this project I am still thinking about if I should do it alone or in a group. A thought that is resounding on my head due to the pros and cons of each. If I do it alone, of course, it would be a lot more work, yet, I would not have to depend on anyone else in order to keep up progressing. Also, if I do it by myself, I might be able to finish the project even before the due date; however, if I do it alone, I will not have the criticism and point of view of my group partner, which might make me change my perspective for important things out of my final product. Anyways, this is something that I really have to think through by this Tuesday since it is the day we are deciding if we are doing the project alone or in a group.

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

 Our process started by looking at the song choices that were given to us. At first we directly chose We Are Young and we kind of started to plan what we were going to do for the video; however, we thought about it again and we began to review each of the songs given to us. After that, we concluded that Royals was our way to go. This decision was made due to the fact that we realized that it would be easier to convey the message of the Royals song in a music video since the song’s topic is something kind of more “tangible” and easier to show in a music video. After we made the decision, we started to brainstorm about what we were going to do for the video. Decided that the video would have many relationships with crossing doors and material things. 

After we decided that, we started working on the marketing research for the companies and case studies. Before even beginning to choose what companies we were going to choose, we splitted up what each of us was going to do. My part was the history of the first company and one of the case studies for the first company. The companies that we chose were Universal Music Production and Columbia Records. The process of choosing these record labels was pretty simple, we chose UMP because it was mentioned during class; however, Columbia was different. We looked up various record labels over the internet and decided that Columbia was the right choice based on its popularity and artist that they represent. Following this, we start making the research for each of our parts. For the history of UMP, which I was in charge of, I started by looking up “Universal Music Production history”. I digged through the Wikipedia page, some timelines and other articles, just picking up what I thought was relevant for the research. On the other hand, for the case study, at first I looked up people who UPM represents. By doing this, I found Adele. I started to do the research on her; however, after some time without finding anything relevant about her marketing strategies, I decided to change the case study to Justin Bieber, who I previously saw when I found Adele. For the Justin Bieber case study was so much easier to find the information that I needed. I started by looking up what his last album was, then I started to look for the marketing strategies that it had. I came up to various websites which had information about all he did to promote the album; the one that stood up for me being his YouTube documentary about the journey of the album.

On January 22nd, we started to think about what we were going to do for our video. We started by brainstorming about the choices we could make for the video. At first we thought about doing the video with many symbolisms and a lot of shots. However, Ms. Stoklosa told us there would be way too many elements for one and a half minutes and that it would not be effective. She told us that it would be better for us to make it more simple. After that, we started to simplify the idea that we had in order to make it with way less elements. We decided that the main things of our piece would be the color coding and the parallelism between two realities. After that was decided, we started to think about the storyboard. Even though we did not actually start it, we did the outline of it in order to see what we were going to do for our video. After this, we did the storyboard. We assigned each member of the group 5 shots to draw in order to be more efficient and not be unfair.

After having everything setted up, we met up on a Saturday in order to shoot the video. Before shooting, we went into Walgreens in order to get some stuff that we needed for the mise-en-scene of our piece. We started shooting on our first location, Walgreens’ parking lot. We started by finding the right angle for the shots we needed in the location. We had around 5 shots in Walgreens. Those shots were mainly to set up the tone and the context for the story of our music video. After taking all the shots we needed in Walgreens, we went to my house. In my house, we recorded the shots that were left with the trashy outfit. After we finished with the shots with the trashy outfit, Ana changed her clothes in order to start filming the shots we needed with the “royals” outfit, which was meant to show the change of lifestyle that the character had. Following that, we shot at my house to show the shots we needed in order to show “other side of the coin”. To close up, it should be added that the shots we recorded were interspersed. This due to the fact that it would be easier for Ana to do all the shots with one outfit at once rather than changing clothes back to back for each shot we had to do.

Afterwards, my group and I decided how we were going to divide the work for the slides and the edition. I chose to do the edition of the video and the video explanation slide due to the fact that I was what I’d call the director, but at same time no because we all directed it in a way. At the time I was editing, I chose to focus the most on the coloring and the cutbacks of the editing. For the cutbacks, I tried my hardest to make them seem as if the shots were the same just with a different outfit, which I think is something I achieved for the shots in the bathroom. Regarding the color coding, for the shots that were meant to show the characters reality I chose a brownish yellow color and for the shots that were meant to show the “royals” life I chose a purplish color. This for the simple fact that I knew that the purple symbolizes eccentrism, while for the brownish yellow, even though the yellow symbolizes happiness, that tone I related it with disgrace. Concerning my slide in the presentation, the video explanation, I focused on how the video would develop the brand of JAGD as a whole. I went in depth about how the band would focus on their branding towards the colors as the main aspect in order to show the style of it.

To close up, towards the creation of this project and the viewing of the other presentations, I came to the realization that there are many things that I am not yet at my hundred percent understanding of the media world. This came to me while me and my group were creating our piece. At the time of the creation process of the presentation when we were thinking strategies for the marketing, I found it very difficult to come up with an idea for it, even though we had the case studies as reference. However, from this project, something positive I learned was that any single thing can work as a marketing element, from a single color, to even a spoon. Regarding how this project could benefit me for when I make my Cambridge portfolio, it could help me in many ways. One of them is teaching me many dos and don'ts about how to create good marketing and developing a brand based on a character/artist. This would help a lot at the time of the creation of my Cambridge portfolio due to the fact that I would be more experienced for when I create it in terms of marketing and how to distribute my content. In addition, the viewing of other people’s projects helped me in the way that they made me think from another perspective. When I watched many of the presentations, the thought that came to my head was “oh my god, I could have done this way” or “how did they come up with that?”. The viewings really opened my mind and gave me different perspectives about the decisions I could have done, which in my opinion is very valuable for my future creations for the Cambridge portfolio. To close up, as I previously said, the most helpful thing for the developing of my portfolio in the future is the experience this project gave me.