It's all starting to come together...

Opening Sequence

Tap. tap. tap. She quickly types away, takes a deep breath, and hits enter. "UGHHH!" She lets out a frustrated cry as the same error message pops up on her screen. The camera cuts to shots of her desk. Her creative chaos has created a tornado, throwing all her possessions around amidst books with doodles, writing, and agendas with plans. On her wall, there is a mood board of sorts filled with sticky notes detailing dates of events and deadlines. She begins to type again, this time more furiously. Her phone begins to ring and the caller ID shows some sort of care center, but she ignores it. In the background, you see pictures of her with an older woman, presumably her mother. Notably, there is no man in the picture. She continues to type while hunched on her pink gaming chair, warm in her huge grey hoodie and messy bun. She adjusts her glasses with one hand and continues typing with the other hand. The lines of code grow noticeably longer on her screen and she grows noticeably more furious. Suddenly the typing stops. She takes a deep breath and reaches for the enter key. Her phone begins to ring again and this time it catches her attention. She stares and the music cuts out as she stares at her phone. She presses decline. She turns back to her computer and presses the enter key again. This time, it loads up and the screen lights up into a TITLE CARD!

After the title card and intro music it cuts back to the girl in her chair as she turns around in it to get up in a mid shot that also shows the messy desk and wall in its entirety.

Analysis

So this opening sequence is meant to illustrate the main character, her profession, family dynamics, possible plot points and problems, and an overall struggle that she encounters throughout her life. The trial and error of the code is obviously very frustrating to her, meaning she has probably had this issue before. She is shown to even neglect important calls from care centers or medical centers, possibly pertaining to the woman in the pictures she has, just to solve this issue in her code. The mood board insinuates some sort of artistic project that when related to the code shows that a game is being made. Furthermore, the mess on her desk and atmosphere, in general, throws the audience into a position where it feels very in the middle of the story. You have not seen what led up to the mess and frustration portrayed in the opening and will not see how it resolves in it either, setting up an opportunity for development throughout the rest of the film. I also want to try and add very video game-like music and visual effects to really strengthen the fact that the main character is creating a video game. 

This is what I have come up with so far! I'm glad that it's finally starting to come together into a cohesive vision in order for me to start on the storyboard!

"You once were a ve-gone, but now you will be gone." - Scott Pilgrim

Very quickly I would like to just look back and make a post on one of my biggest inspirations for this project: Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)

This movie has been my favorite movie for years now. Not only does it star some actors that I absolutely love (Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, etc) but also it is based on a super cool comic series of the same name. However, none of these things compare to the true reason for my love of this game. This game inspires me so much and brings me so much joy because it is truly designed to feel like a video game. Its pace changes at the drop of a hat, and there is a very clever use of retro game sounds for different events occurring such as whenever Scott is in a battle or when he finds something. The visual editing is also incredible and very reminiscent of retro games such as Pac-Man or The Legend of Zelda. These vibes are exactly what I want for my film opening since mine is based on a solo indie game developer, I think the video game aesthetic would look really cool to kind of immerse the viewer in that video game world and mindset.

Now I'm not saying I want to go full Ready Player One (2018), but I think some video game sound effects and maybe a pixel font for the opening credits could really sell the whole video game creator idea and give the kind of aesthetic I am hoping to create with this film opening.

No thoughts. Head empty.

Alright…

I’ve hit a wall.

Inspiration has to run out at some point right?

I’ve been really trying to think of ideas, especially for a more detailed storyline for the overall film in order for me to truly conceptualize the introduction sequence. However, my brain has ran out of thoughts. Therefore I think the best thing that I can do right now is take a break from actual planning and mapping out what I plan to do and just get back to researching. Now the question is what do I research? 

Well I think some good topics I can research are some movies that I enjoy that would help with gathering the whole aesthetic of the film. While I will do this and share the process eventually, I think there is actually a much better way to try and figure aesthetics… what if I just find what video games fit the aesthetic I want my game to have? YES! THATS IT! I need to find games that fit the vibes, colors, and more that I want in my film. Maybe I can even get nice ideas for some fonts or graphics that will show up in the opening credits. Here are some that I was looking at:

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

I wanted to start off with the original Legend of Zelda game which is the inspiration for some many solo indie game developers. The retro aesthetics and music are a great example of the vibe I want for this film. I LOVE 8-bit style games and music and it would also benefit me to go this route because lots of the 8-bit music out there is royalty or copyright free, making it available for me to use in my project.

Q*bert (1982)

Q*bert is admittedly a strange addition to my research but it’s very much a design centered research session. The neon colors and simplicity of the game are also aspects of what I’m looking for in my film. I might also see the copyright specifications for using known characters in my game.

I’d like to look into more games for their design and music and I’ll share my findings later on!

Why does everyone love video games?

 So one of my biggest issues right now seems like such a dumb issue to be having for this film opening but I have found myself in a position where what I believed would be the easiest part of my film to figure out is proving to be quite difficult...

Who or what is my target audience?

So of course when many people think of video games, they think of teenagers or young adults. This makes sense when looking at the demographics of popular video games such as the Call of Duty series and even games marketed towards slightly younger audiences such as the Legend of Zelda series. However, games are also popular with older audiences. A lot of people don't realize it but there are huge audiences for video games where most of the people are over 30 or even the other way around where there are many video games where the target audiences are under 16. I think if I were to have to choose, however, the target audience would be older gen Z, so around the ages of 16-25. This is because of the nature of the movie, being one of someone trying to navigate a new career path and being faced with the struggles that come with this career choice. Very The Devil Wears Prada (2006) where a young woman starts a new career in the fashion publication industry where she learns how to fight her way to the top and play the game to boost her career. I believe the target audience I’ve chosen makes a lot of sense since the audience will be old enough to understand the problems that the characters face while being young enough for the movie to feel inspirational and motivate them to continue or start their own careers. I am so excited to share with you other aspects of my project but in order for me to continue I knew I needed to start thinking of the bigger picture and I think this was a great start!

So… colorful

 I’ve been thinking of what colors would match the aesthetic of my film in order for me to use them for its opening sequence. I’ve come up with a few pallets I’d like to show off:

Here is a nice green to pink color palette that I think will work very well if I go for a retro kingdom style theme. This is very reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda franchise and other pixel kingdom games.

This color palette is more reminiscent of newer, neon games such as Hotline Miami (2012). This is not exactly the vibe I was hoping to give off at first but after further consideration I think it would actually fit very well with the theme of the film and its overall story.

This last palette could make for some very interesting stylistic choices that would make for a cooler tone throughout the film but I doubt I’ll actually use it.

Music Marketing Process pt.2

     Continuing what we talked about in my last post, the music marketing process continues! Now that it's over I would like to explain what else we did in the process of this project.

    As mentioned in my last post, lots of brainstorming and research went into this project. Punk is not a very present genre (or at least not as much as it used to be) so it was difficult finding great current examples we could use for reference or for the research chart. The brainstorming process went smoothly and was lots of fun, though. Bailey came up with the name "nerve" and Mia thought of the idea to shorten it to "NRV" to give it a punk twist. I was put in charge of planning for the music video and we separated other tasks depending on what we are good at. We decided on the colors (black and purple) and from there built the design and brand into what it is now.

    The music video is done! It follows the storyline attached to part one of this blog post and also follows the storyboard I created for the group. The editing was great and really encapsulated what we were trying to represent with our brand and song. The story follows me as I learn to let loose and become who I want to be with Mia's help. There are many flashbacks and flash-forwards that add context to how unhappy my character is in her own life and how desperately she wants to change. We did have some issues with our video such as an exporting mishap which caused some discoloration in some of the scenes, giving a bright orange tint. Other than that, however, the video process went smoothly, even though some group members disagreed on creative choices. The video did not take up the whole song time but the message still came across very well. 

    The presentation was also finished and it looked amazing! It covers all the topics we needed to cover such as an analysis of the genre (punk), our marketing strategies, the music video, a description of the brand, and more. We split of slides evenly for the presentation and the information was great. I handled the target market, distribution, and music video analysis. The distribution part was very easy as many of the brands distributed their music similarly (digital distribution on streaming platforms) with some brands also adding physical distribution with vinyl and CDs. The design of the presentation really showed off the brand colors and vibe and the posts we mocked up for the Instagram and Twitter also matched very well (and were pretty funny too). Furthermore, we were able to show off some merch and the website we were working on for the brand which turned out great! The presentation as a whole made sense and I think we did very well.

    This project as a whole not only taught me many aspects of the music marketing process, such as target market, branding, merchandise, distribution, and much more, but it also taught me how to work with people with different strengths and weaknesses and use them in order to get work done more efficiently. This project will help me so much with my Cambridge portfolio project as I did all the planning for the video and since the portfolio project is a film opening, I now have stronger skills in planning and executing a filming project. I am very excited for what's next in my media studies journey!

    

I Have to Make a Film Intro?

So I had heard about this portfolio project for a while... Since the first day actually. I had yet to get much information on what exactly I was going to do for my portfolio project. When I discovered that I had to make a film opening, only one thing came to mind.

What in the world am I going to do?

I could of course search the internet for inspiration and ideas or maybe even seek inspiration from the opening shown in class. However, I wanted something based on what I love specifically. My biggest passion and what I have loved creating for as long as I can remember: GAME DESIGN! I need to make a film opening relating to game design! Now my question is: How am I going to accomplish this?

One very important part of this process that I knew I would have to figure out in order to successfully make a great film opening is to understand what the story of my supposed film is. How am I supposed to start off a story I don't even know? So that is what I begin today. The process of the story that I will be opening up in my film opening. As I think about this, a few ideas come to mind. I could create a story about a video game designer trying to make their dream game. This is a situation I could actually relate to as I understand the stress and work that goes into trying to produce a project you care about alone. I could also go a completely different route and maybe even make a film opening for a game I am actually working on. This would also be drawing from my own experience because I created the stories within my games and understand how they begin. After further consideration (and inspirations which I will discuss in later blog posts), however, I have decided that my film would be based around a solo indie game developer who is trying to make it big in the game design world. I believe I can make this really great considering I know a lot about the indie game community and the process of creating games.

Now in terms of the actual preparation and production of my film opening, here are a few things that come to mind. First I wanna be 100% set on what genre I want to make this opening. I'm thinking of an action/comedy but I think I will need to do more research before I make my decision. Some more topics I need to research and make decisions on before I start recording are the storyline, target audience, title and title design, aesthetic, color scheme, set, costumes, characters, and so much more. I'll most likely create some mood boards and playlists to get the feel of the opening and film as a whole. I'm really excited to get started and share my developments!