Genre Research Blog Activity

As someone who has watched all 12 seasons of Big Bang with my family, I'm surprised it never got old to me. The Simson's has been going on since 1987, I'm sure there's some one out there who is still watching that show. The entertaining quality of comedy films has made them my favorite genre by far.

A genre is basically something that makes movies easier to market. They set the expectation for a movie before it is watched by the viewer, with conventions being things that make up the genre. Romantic comedies, for example, tend to have two characters that can’t stand each other be forced into close proximity. In the comedy genre as a whole, however, there are many conventions. Things are shot in the same place, like the bar from How I Met Your Mother or the study room in Community. Characters are placed into intentionally uncomfortable situations for laughs and there is always conflict driving the plot forward.

Inside the incredible world of comedies, it’s easy to find sitcoms and romantic comedies and think that they are all the same. Sure, the jokes are unique to the storyline and characters but the camera framing isn’t. Stagnate shots, little to no use of cinematography, comedies don’t tend to expand on their appearance like other genres. Rarely are there gems that use all sorts of camera work for comedy. For example, the link below leads you to a compilation of films made by the director Mel Brooks, where she uses push ins as comedy. I find her creativity extremely admirable. 

 

https://vimeo.com/230990210 

 

Most comedies use the standard way of promoting films. Social media advertisements, celebrity collaboration, and trailers are all ways that companies promote their films. And comedy's are no expectation. However, comedies have been known to include their funniest bits in the advertisements and their trailers. Not to mention, some actors on the productions have begun posting content on social media, including jokes, dances, and vlogs on set. 

Sound Project

 Yay! New project, and this one was actually really fun :)

All we had to do this project is develop an original story and express it only using sound within 1-2 minutes. At least 4 sounds had to be foley and we could only use 7 words. Throughout this project I learned how useful perfect vegetables and raw food is foley. I was scouring my kitchen like a hungry racoon. Also, I learnt how to use Premiere Pro's sound equalizer which proved to be really useful throughout the project. Sadly, the brainstorm session we had before the project was dry. It was the end of the day and my creative juices where all gone. Luckily my partner came up with the great idea of a zombie apocalypse. We had to make an outline of our project, which I used as a checklist while editing. It was really helpful. I also got most of my sounds from Pixabay and Bulletproof Bear, the rest are foley. 

Once I finished the project and sat with the results, I realized that the story might not be understandable. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself but after I've listened to the story so many times I just have no idea if it's good or not. A lot pf time was spent on the sound scape, so I hope my video sounds good. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJKtzPaR7BMVY2RFaeohTkAREDWgrqF1/view?usp=sharing

One Word Film

For this project, we were assigned one word. We then had to create, film, and edit a 1-minute story based on that word. My partner and I got the word "concerned." I won't lie, it was pretty difficult considering that we couldn't use any words or sounds in our video. We had several ideas while brainstorming but ultimately decided on a simple narrative; the brainstorming my teacher assigned us really helped us with that. My partner is great at drawing, and she was overly excited to do the storyboard. I helped guide her through the shots I thought would look cool, and she drew them down. To edit, we both used Premiere Pro. I'm way more familiar with the program than my partner, so I helped her the best I could. However, while editing, I realized I have a tendency to cut clips really short. The first line edit was about 30 seconds long, and I had to extend it as best I could. Looking back, I wish I'd recorded more. Not to mention, we were rushed for time while filming. So, I couldn't reshoot to get the perfect short. However, all in all, I think we did pretty well. Below is a link to our project. 

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wtPr3DEAdzAkwj6Jfz44Y489lSLWmNJT/view?usp=sharing

15 Shots Quiz

   The time was 11:58 pm. I had spent all day driving or reading my books in a crammed car full of suit cases, I was exhausted. Luck for me, I had finished all my school assignments but one. One project I finished but had no time to submit, since we left the house in a rush. As soon as we where at our AirBnB, I ran for the WIFI and summited the project right before the due date. The moment felt straight out of a James Bond movie. 

   The project is to tell a story with 15 camera shots (photos), and my partner and I chose a very... interesting story. This friend brings out a very silly side of me and our product ended up reflecting that. There are a few things I wish I had done better. For example, I forget that stories get to be as simple or as complicated as the creator wants, and for the sake of this project, a less complex story whould have been key. The other projects I've seen make sense because the story is easy to tell with such limited ways of communicating information, mine isn't. The car ride wasn't the first time I was stressing over the project. We had 20 minutes to take the shots for our project after my teacher finished her lesson. While we had the entire thing storyboarded, we still failed to get the shots done in a reasonable amount of time. That being said, you can witness the tragic story of Gilbert in the photos below

Hope you enjoyed it (and understood it, the text is very small.) Have a great rest of your day :)

The Introduction I Guess

Hello! I'm Renn. This is my first blog post (ever), mostly due to the fact that I'm part of generation Z and no one I know has a blog. I've heard of them though; I think MySpace had something similar. I'm creating this blog because it's a school assignment. If I weren't a slave to the public school system, believe me, I would have never done this. Please don't take offense to that Ms. Stoklosa, you are one of the good ones. Anyways, I hope who ever comes across this blog appreciates my school work, which is now available to the public.