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Final Film critical reflection-Melodic Maniac

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Final Film critical reflection-Melodic Maniac

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In the editing process, I realized that even for the low light scenes, you still need a low source of light. For the last few scenes, it was supposed to be very dim light, so we filmed in an area with no light. When we got to the editing process, we realized we needed to refilm because nothing in the scene was visible, and you couldn't make out what was going on. The feedback we got on our film was generally good, except for the last few scenes that were too dark.

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1. If I were to distribute my film "Melodic Maniac" independently, I would get a theatrical distribution, and a film distributer. I would use paramount pictures as a film distributer, because they already have connections to the theaters. I think since it is a horror movie, it would be better to be released in a theater first so the audience can get the low lights, and loud sound for full affect. The movie is also very playable, with the title catching the attention of the audience. I would go to local film festivals mostly in the state, because the film wouldn't be big enough to go to anything big like Sundance.
2. The title for our film is Melodic Maniac. I think the title works for our film because it is playable, catchy, and its a perfect description of the movie. I dont think our title could be improved, I think this is the best fit.
3. A tag line I think would be good is, "when you hear the music, run."
4. I think the age would be from 15-25, male, fairly average income with a range of education levels. Hobbies like working out, cars, listening to music, and going out with friends. They mostly care about themselves and family, and enjoy a good scare. Could be part of the movie club at their school. Online mostly hanging out on snapchat, Instagram, and twitter. In real life they could hangout anywhere, lots of diverse hobbies. Mostly reading other horror stories, wearing black, grey, and white clothing. Watching on TV. For entertainment, watching movies or playing videos games. Buying/renting other horror movies, shopping in the mall, and eating at inexpensive places.
5. I would put the nonvirtual ads in Zumiez, McDonalds, Chick-Fli-A, Movie theaters. Virtual would be Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube ads, Twitter, TikTok, and Twitch.
6. I would engage the target audience by repeating the tag line "when you hear the music, run" in big text all over, so that they start wondering what that means. This will then get the to click on the ad, leading to the trailer. In the trailer, I would play a signature eerie music throughout, with lowkey lights and the scenes before the killings happen, leaving the audience at a cliff hanger.
7. I would steal one of the creative partners, such as Phoenix, or The Refinery. None of this will allow people to deduce anything from the storyline. The horror genre will mostly be reinforced by the dark colors, low light, and eerie music. In other films they have repeating elements of dark scenes, lots of black/grey filters, and also back lighting.

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For this film opening, I want to make the lighting as lowkey as possible, obscuring the antagonist out of view from the audience until the end. For the shot of the camera pulling back, there's going to be rack focus to switch the focus to the newly introduced villain, while also making sure that the lighting is dark enough to keep him mysterious.

Establishing shots will be used to show off the eeriness of a neighborhood at night, and I will work closely with the cast and crew to make sure that the scares are effective and that the acting is serviceable for the rough cut.

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First two minutes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre

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First two minutes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre

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1. The first two minutes explains the backstory of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 50 years ago. The two main character girls go into a gas station that has tourist attractions based on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
2. The genre is horror and the target audience is 18-40 years old and mostly males.
3. I dont see any title scenes or credits in either or the clips that I watched.
4. The first few shots are establishing shots showing the scenery around the gas station. There's a montage of evidence from the first texas chainsaw massacre, as long as flashbacks showing the original characters from the first movie. Then there is also dialogue between the 2 main characters and the gas station worker about what happened in the first texas chainsaw massacre.
5. The first 1 minute 10 seconds start with a deep voiced narrator and scary music describing the events of the first movie. The rest of the 50 seconds is old country music on the radio followed by dialogue between the young girl and the gas station worker.
6. At the end of the first two minutes I wanted to see how the chainsaw massacre would play out again. I wanted to know more. It introduced the idea of the massacre but left hanging how the two girls were going to be a part of it this time.
7. The first part that includes the montage had different color filters on it, also with very many subliminal cuts. There is then a cut from the montage to it appearing on the gas station tv. There's also a few close ups and over the shoulder shots.
8. The first two minutes established where they are, what happened in the first movie leading to the viewer to foreshadow it will happen again, and also establishing the two main characters.
9. From what I can tell the opening scene did not break any movie conventions in the first two minutes.
10. The first two minutes represented the preppy girl that was curious and eager, and the 🤬 gas station worker.
11. I think the film was distributed in theaters first because it is a typically horror movie that needed to be watched in a dark room. I also think the theaters would attract some older people who watched the first movie when it came out.

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From November to December of 2022, I learned about editing, sound, and screenwriting format. We learned all types of editing techniques, all the different cuts and studied examples. We also created documents with over 20 different kinds of editing techniques. We watched a editing film called "The Cutting Edge" which is a documentary all about editing.  We studied sound basics and watched a documentary on cinema sound. We also read the screenplay for the Incredibles as a class and all got our own parts, we learned how to format a screenplay, and wrote a horror film opening about a nightmare as my midterm project.

Our midterm film was 1-2 minutes, horror or a horror hybrid, supposed to be an opening not a full movie, minimal dialogue, no wall-to-wall music, no long takes, start with a black title screen, three cross cuts, between actor and nightmare, everything done by you, and a blog post. The film must include one close up, one dutch angle, one high or low angle, one lowkey light set up or one silhouette cut or multitake or smash cut, one match cut, one J or L cut, one use of slow motion, one intentional use of color for story, one instance of intentional use of texture, depth, lines, one intentional use of color, three sound effects, one piece incidental music or sound motif repeated three times. Extra credit to include: quick cuts; montage; wide establishing shot; split screen; POV shot; reflection shot; intentional break of the fourth wall; intentional break of the rule of thirds; rack focus or pull focus shot; intentional use of handheld camera work; use of color filters to create a dream like quality; fisheye lens or fisheye effect; company logo with high quality graphic.

3a. I adhered to the horror because my movie has clips of my actor being nervous and then cross cutting back to his nightmare. The audience sees both scenes in the crosscut, they expect something bad to happen, and it engages them by building up suspense.
3b. I broke the horror conventions because I didn't use any scary music to build expectation, I didn't give the audience an establishing shot or many low light scenes, and I didn't engage the audience with any jumpscares.
3c. I addressed people who have a fear of going to the airport and getting on the wrong plane and the people who have a fear of forgetting their suitcases in the airport. My movie showed that most of it is overthinking.
4a. I was successful with remembering to get my clips on the plane. I was also successful with doing three cross cuts. A key moment was filming all my cross cut clips at the same time so they were all the same.
4b. I was less successful with the acting in my piece. Unfortunately my actor was terrible. A key moment was getting him to be serious when filming.
4c I used IMovie for sound effects and graphics, and the camera on my phone for shooting, and sound. I used Arc Studio for the script. I learned how to edit all my clips together and how to add sound effects.

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All the genres we covered were:
Romance
Horror
Drama
Biopics
Thrillers
Bmovies
Animation
Musicals
Indies
Superheroes
Comedies
Sports
Family Film
Film Noir
Mystery
History
Western
War Adventure
Sci-Fi
Young Adult
Crime
Fantasy
Documentaries
Shakesphere

We studied the conventions of all the genres we talked about. We studied the story/plot, the main characters and what they represent, each genres setting and where it was filmed, the main shots used in them, and the values of the genres. We also went over the codes, and audience expectations like what they will feel when they watch a film. For each genre we watched 3 films, although some films were hybrids so they came up twice. A hybrid is when the film fits into multiple genres and is only one movie.

For both of the films that my group made, I would say that both of them are Young Adult films. The first film is mainly about bullying in a school setting, and the second film is a student dealing with depression, and other students helping him. For the first film, we didn't really do any conventions or codes or audience expectations since it was our first film before any of our lessons on this. With the second film, we tried to incorporate lots of different shots; such as close up, over the shoulder, high shot and a two man. We also tried to have the main character (me) display sadness so that the audience would feel sympathetic. We broke codes in the first film by not using any specific camera shots, and not having the actors feel any emotions.

Honestly my personal favorite was the genre I did, War. My idea for the first 2 minutes is to do a shootout scene with 3-4 actors. I would use low-key lighting, low angle shots, and put some sort of slow eerie soundtrack over it to give the audience the expectation of anticipation before the shootout scene.

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For this assignment, we were assigned with the task of remaking another group's movie with the goal of improving on it by adding new shots that we learned over the course of a week. The original plot of the film was that a girl was depressed over her parents fighting with each other, and her later seeing a therapist and feeling better about herself. For our remake, we chose to keep what the main character was upset about ambiguous, but many of the plot points remained unchanged. The 10 shots that we used for our film was a long-take, low-angle shot, high-angle shot, manipulation of color, track-in, track left, track right, track-out, zoom-out, and a close-up shot. My role in the film was playing the depressed girl. My acting was alright, because its not one of my strong skills. I think I did do a decent job on displaying the character as being sad, and also talking to the therapist.

Criticism that we received on our remake is that the editing needed more work. During one of the last scenes of the film, you can hear the director of the scene saying "action" before the take started. Another scene that could've used more work is the final scene that involved a majority of the actors present skipping happily. During it, another person who wasn't involved in the movie could be seen just to the left of the screen. As the actor, I couldve said something about this, but this is mainly the directors fault. The acting with both me and Shaiden couldve used some improvement as it was both of our first times.

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This is my first movie for my aice media studies class. The movie is about a bully taking a students lunch money, and then another student standing up for him. Even though the other student who stands up for him gets beat up, it gives the victim enough courage to stand up for himself. My group members were Shaiden, Juan C, Juan F, Thomas and me. I was the cameraman and director.

Our movie obviously wasn't perfect. The shot in front of the shark the sound was very poor quality and hard to hear. In the first scene in front of the vending machine, we should've made a smoother transition when Shaiden was walking out from behind the pole. Our editor Thomas did a really good job putting music over the bully walking over, and he also used good sound effects with our fake punches. We also had good acting with the bully's part.