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I have learned many things from creating my own film during the production process. It is essential for all crew members to pitch in do their job in order for the process to go smoothly. Another important factor I learned from this process is it is okay to state your opinion and bounce off of other's ideas to hopefully get the best result; that is what my group did the best on, communication. When we first learned the concepts it was very easy to grasp, but when you truly put it together, it is harder than it may seem. We did have to refilm a few scenes because of the angles or because of the sound quality. On our first rough cut, we threw cuts together and it wasn't the most ideal piece, but by our second cut, our editor edited the cuts and put the whole piece together with the new changes.

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Independent Distribution and Marketing Plan- The Truth

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Independent Distribution and Marketing Plan- The Truth

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1. If you were to distribute your film independently, how would you do it?

For instance, if you think your film could/should get theatrical distribution, would you try to get a film distributor (or sales agent if the distributor required one)? If so, who and why? How are they a good fit for your film? And what film festivals or film markets would you go to try to get a distributor or studio interested in your film and why?

We would think that one of the big streaming services would be Disney. Disney already has
movies like ours in genres, such as Parent Trap, etc. Along with they are mostly known for
comedy and drama movies made for kids/young adults, which is perfect for our movie. We would want our movie to be streamed on Film Hub. Film hub includes younger generations
that subscribe to their services such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Film hubs have no original charge, they charge by how popular the film is. The producer earns 80% of the earnings and Film hub earns 20%. Even though Film hub is not the fastest to show the film right away, it only takes 6-12 weeks (about 3 months) for it to be released.

2. What is the title of your film? Do you think your title works? Why or why not (short and sweet, pithy, reflective of genre, aimed at target audience, etc.)? How could it be improved and why? Do you have a new title now?

Our movie title for our film is called “The Truth.” This title works because it represents our plot of a child finding the truth about her family.

3. Create a tag line for your poster. Aim for familiar but fresh. Remember your genre, and your target audience.

“The Truth” - Believe and you will achieve
4. Create a paragraph sketch of your target audience member. Think about who would be interested in your film and why?

Our target audience for our film is females and families from the ages 18-35. Their educational level is college, graduate school, and families who are beginning to start families themselves. Their likes are giving or receiving advice to help themselves or peers and problem solving. Their dislikes are not letting things go without an answer and people who lie. These people care about the environment around them and dedicate time to making the world a better place. Things like school, personal time, and hanging out with friends are important to them. They are part of an environmental club and do activities. They keep up with social media platforms and what the latest trends are. They hang out in popular places or even at each other’s house. These people are your ordinary people, basic.

5. Using your notes from number four above, think about how you could reach that target audience if you were self-distributing your film on YouTube or Vimeo or a similar platform. How can you use that information to REACH them? Where will you advertise? INDICATE, FOR EACH GROUP, TEN PLACES WHERE YOU WOULD PLACE ADS TARGET ADS/TEASERS/TRAILERS (six virtual, four nonvirtual), and WHY, and mention that you would do this if you had to SELF DISTRIBUTE.

Our movie could be a non-fiction story told by an author who has been in a situation like our movie plot has and that can be sold at bookstores or a grocery store. Also, outside of stores or inside malls, posters and ads can be spotted. Places such as Walmart, Target, any local movie theaters, ads on social media or apps, merchandise sold at stores, and during other movies. I would distribute my film in these area's because these are places where people go on a day to day basis.
6. How would you ENGAGE your target audience online? How will you turn passive audience members into ACTIVE, ENGAGED audience members? This refers to pull marketing (or interactive marketing). How will you get them to click on your ads? What would you offer them in the form of promotions? How would you incentivize them to repost/retweet/share/forward your ad? Please INCLUDE SOME OUT OF THE BOX THINKING! Audience engagement must be addressed in your critical reflections.

I would have the ads shown more than one time if possible or as much as it can so eventually the user would read what I am promoting. Once they see that something is being promoted everywhere, they might do more research or dive into to see what is coming, in this case it would be my movie. The more the merrier and knowing teens they always have something to talk about especially something they see online; therefore, they can retweet it to their friends when they are interested in viewing it.
7.  Do a Google search for the CLIO Key art awards online. Think about what you could use/steal from selections there for your film's key artwork. Also, look at Colourlovers.com. Links to an external site. Ask yourself: Can people deduce the storyline from art? What is reinforcing the genre, and how is it different? Will it attract my target audience? What are the repeating elements you notice in films in your same genre, especially use of color?

Depending on the color usage, the audience can get a feel of what is happening in the story as well as what they should feel. Specific color usage can draw the audience to react just how they should. It is different for every film. In a horror movies darker colors would be used the most and in comedy movies, lighter colors would be used. Some repeating elements would be body language between the actors and the usage of bright colors.

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The overall look of our film is to represent the average day of a teenager. The overall sound is going to be upbeat and is going to make the audience feel joy. Some movie inspirations I will be using are the films that we used on our presentation, Annie, and The Parent Trap. I will be examining Annie because of the actors. The actors in Annie have the same aspect of having famous parents and the daughter being adopted so I want to analyze her actions and her face expressions. In the movie the Parent Trap, I want to analyze the lighting and sound that they use so that can be incorporated. For the main actor, I want him/her to dress as an average teenager and natural makeup if needed. There are some important moments in our film and we will use fast transitions to show the scene being chaotic. Also, we could use close ups and over the shoulder shots. There are some basic scenes and for those I would like to use medium shots or wide shots to give more information.
Many of the films we looked at had many jump cuts and multi-takes so I think it would be a good idea to add those in. Also, when the main actor figures out that she is adopted, we could add in pictures to create a flashback scenario. Our movie will convey struggles that teens or families go through and how they cope. Our group will use comedy as frequent as possible to show the comedy aspects. I want to use examples or create a picture to help the actors and crew comprehend what I am picturing.

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1. A one or two sentence description of the first two minutes. What happens?
For my movie I picked Freaky Friday, 2003 film. In the first couple of minutes of the film, the Disney logo is shown and moves along to the movie's introduction. Old photos are shown of older families from centuries of only two to three people. After the photos are shown, the title of Freaky Friday appears. The title begins to fade into where the beginning takes place, the family's house. Next, the film shows a mother with two kids doing their morning routine. Lastly, that scene fades into the mother driving and dropping off the kids at school.
2. What is the genre and who is the target audience for this film?
The genre of this film is Family and Comedy. This film was targeted towards the ages of twelve and sixteen.
3. Describe the opening credits and title sequences, including any company logos or idents. When do they appear? What color/font are they using? How does it "align" with the opening of the film? Anything else you notice?
From the back screen that started off the film, the first logo that shows up is the blue castle of Disney. The Walt Disney Pictures logo had white lettering and faded into a white faded screen with red lettering saying Walt Disney Pictures presents. Lastly, to officially start the film, there were pictures of families from different years and between each picture there is a distinct color outlining it to prevent confusion.
4. Describe it visually -- a shot by shot breakdown that includes type of shot/movement, if any.
In the intro there were many fades into scenes and going back and forth between pictures. In the first scene the camera zooms into a small amount of the clock to show the time and blurs out the daughter sleeping in the background. The daughter quickly shuts off the alarm on her clock and at the same time the camera zooms out in a fast motion. When the characters are having conversations the angles of the camera have a tendency to be a medium shot or a wide shot. When using transitions  my film mainly used jump cuts or straight cuts. To end the first two minutes, the first scene fades into the next scene where the actors are in the car driving to school.
5. Describe the sound -- a "sound by sound" analysis of the entire first two minutes.
In the first two minutes of Freaky Friday, as soon as the Disney logo disappeared, music immediately started to play. When music is being played, the lyrics most of the time tie into what some of the plot is about.
6. Describe how you felt at the end of the two minutes. Did you want to know more? What was left hanging if anything? What questions do you still have?
At the end of the two minutes, it felt like an average day in a human's life but chaotic because of the camera movements. I did not leave any questions action wise but for the mom, she just got engaged and her daughter is her maid of honor, so we are left with little information. I asked myself, who is the fiancé? What does he look like? What is he like? How long till the wedding? Why do the daughter and the brother fight all the time? Where is their dad?
7. How would you describe the editing style in this clip? Any editing techniques you noticed, or length of shots?
In this clip there were many pans and fades. The most frequent shots were medium shots or long shots because it is a comedy, so there will be lots of interactions and dialogue within the film.
8. How did these first two minutes adhere to conventions? How did these first two minutes break with convention?
In the first two minutes the first scene was a dramatic scene of a teens morning routine. As the scene moves along, the younger brother gets brought in to annoy the sister to bring some laughter and enjoyment. During the happy moments the scenes were bright and lively, and during the more solemn scenes the lighting was low key and harsh. My movie didn't break any conventions in the first two minutes because there wasn't much content.
9. How did these first two minutes represent social groups, people, or issues?
In the first two minutes of Freaky Friday, the film shows pictures of only mothers and her kids of all ages. This means that this movie will include a single parent with kids and some struggles or their lifestyle along the way.
10. Why do you think this film was originally distributed in the way that it was?
To show that not everyone comes from the same background, and everyone has their own struggles. The photos in the beginning show that even in past generations there have been single mothers who have made great successes, people in our generation have the stereotype of the "perfect family life" when really that does not exist because no one is perfect.

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In the months November and December we learned about editing, sound, and screenwriting/screenplay format. We studied film editing concepts and created documents featuring 20 plus kinds of editing techniques. We watched two documentary, one on film editing ("The Cutting Edge") and a video on use of color. We also sound basics and watched a documentary on cinema sound ("Making Waves"). In addition we read the screenplay for "The Incredibles," and learned how to format screenplays using special software. As an assignment we practiced our own screenplay and it was our rough draft for our midterm assessment.

For our midterm, the basic elements that we needed to include were a series of angles, camera movement, minimal dialogue, minimum of three crosscuts between actor and nightmare, and at least two minutes. Some other elements we could add is visual complexity in setting choice (color, texture, depth, lines, shapes, etc.), sound effects, or music. We were given the opportunity for extra credit and some choices were different types of shots, more camera movement, and effects. Every student was given the task to shoot, edit, and upload for our midterm.

In every horror movie there is always build up suspense and I tried to incorporate that convention as much as I could without the use of weapons or violence. As the audience glimpse at my actor getting the job and standing up for herself, they believe that nothing bad will occur; little do they know she ends up being murdered. This trailer shows a young adult getting the job of her dreams but the antagonist goes against her. The main message that I wanted to get across was to fight for your dreams and for nothing to stop you. Using a young teenager would help kids in high school and even college reach for what makes them happy and for them to live their life.

There were many sections that I succeeded on and there were some portions that I could have worked on. Some parts that worked well was in the editing segment; most of the jump cuts were close to being perfect while some I needed to add a transition to express the point I needed to audience to see. Another part that went well was showing the different moments where should be light to show happiness or satisfaction and where parts should show darkness to convey dull moments. The sections that I struggled on was the actually filming portion. I wanted the audience to perceive that my actor was given the job in a different setting in the nightmare to show how lengthy the dream was, but only pointing out the main points. Also, another thing I could have achieved better on was getting more footage than the bare minimum; I could have shot a take more than, so I could have more to work with. For my script I used the icon Arc Studio, for my editing I used the app CapCut, and while I was able to use that app to pick out music/sound effects, and add in more depth. I learned that adding in effects and the final product makes the whole project. At first I didn't have a clue what I wanted the outcome to look like, but as I went on with the project, ideas would pop up in my head and would turn out great in the end.

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In class we elaborated on 20 types of genres and a few B movies such as action, animation, biographies, comedies, crime, dramas, family, fantasy, historical, horror, musical, mystery, romance, science fiction, superhero, sports, thriller, war, western, indies, melodramas, film noir, documentaries, Shakespeare, YA, and religious. For this assignment, we were given two genres. We had to incorporate conventions, codes, audience expectations, and three movies clips from different time periods. We also talked about hybrid films. Hybrid films are movies that obtain two or more genres.

In our first film the genre we came up with is crime and mystery. We thought these two genre enhanced "The Cheernapper" because there is a murder mystery. For our second short film, we discussed the genres to be YA and drama. In "The Cheernapper," we used variations of movement such as tracking shots and point of view shots. We used these to express suspense as well as making the climax more of reality. In "The Loser, we wanted to focus on different lighting and angles to help the audience understand how the person being bullied feels and how that effects someone's friendship. The audience expects connects the dots or infers who was the victim and the killer. In the second film it follows the same line that teenagers deal with everyday.

My personal favorite genre is a hybrid, thriller, YA, and drama. My synopsis would be based off of a teen girl who lost both of her parents due to a tragic accident. She is a shy, smart character. She would show the audience what it's like being a girl in today's society, how her home life is like, her personal goals in like, and how she pushes through her day to day life. She wouldn't have many friends but plans on going to a D1 school because of her grades. Finally, as she grows older and is in college, she wants to dig more into her past and what happened to her parents. She finds out the truth and is determined to find the solution. In the scenes where she is being pushed around and treated like an object, I would use dark lights and dark colors to help create an image. When she is with her friends and having fun, I would enhance brighter colors but not so vibrant to show that she has other things on her mind that keeps her from being 100 percent herself. Lastly, I would want the audience to feel how she feels, loneliness, abandoned, unimportant. This is because if the audience sees how woman and people with harsh backgrounds are treated first hand, in real life, they will do something about it to prevent any human from feeling not loved.

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Our assignment was to remake and improve another groups film and take what we learned in class and provide 10 different kinds of shots or movement to the new film, we chose to remake the film "The Loser." We wanted to improve on showing more of the actors while we were shooting as well as focusing more on elements such as lighting, depth, and location. Our group asked ourselves, "how do we want to improve our film from the previous film." Our main goal was to grasp each movement and how it pertained to the film, we wanted to make sure that everything we were filming was for a reason and not just because our teacher told us to. In a few of our scenes we do a pan, especially in the beginning. The first shot showed a pan of the school to show where the film's setting was. Also, we did a pan and a tilt when the bullies friend(Harper) and the person getting bullied(Abby) were having a conversation. We did this to show both views of the actors feelings. Since Abby was sitting on the floor, close to the garbage, that shows that she's unhappy and lonely, since Harper was standing up, she'd be closer to the sky which shows happiness, and sorrowful towards Abby. In the scene when the bully(me) and the best friend(Harper) were talking about what I did to Abby, we did a voice over, a blur, and zoomed in on Harper. We wanted to do this to represent that that scene was dedicated to Harper and showing her thought process as I explained how I was feeling. Adding the blur effect and showing Harper's actions while she's thinking in her head, manifest the human eye to focus on Harper and why she feels the way she feels. Whenever we were walking we did a long shot and tried to get as many clips from different angles as much as possible. The hardest part was trying to figure out the lighting. We wanted to add dark lighting during the darkest times in the film, when someone was feeling anguished. As I stated before, I was the bully in this film, Harper was the editor and best friend, and Abby was the person being bullied. Since there was only three of us, we took all of our ideas and put them together to make the final piece. In the last film, Abby was the main focus. In this film, we wanted someone else to be the main character, that was me. I don't have a preference on who I play because we all have something to bring to the table.

The few things that our group succeed on was our spin-around at the end of the video when the friends reconvened with each other and how we developed our angles or combined two elements for one shot. From our first video and the groups video that we remade, we improved on making sure we weren't covering our mouths so our voices will project and how our bodies are stationed compared to the camera. Our group could work on transitions and think how our setting can pertain to lighting, if it's a dark or depressing scene then change the lighting or if it's a exciting scene, try something to make it more noticeable. One of the scenes that worked well was when Harper was apologizing to Abby about the way she acted and how she regrets it. This went well because of the different comments we combined together. As they were talking, I shot it from a low angle and tried to tilt it up to show that this was a learning lesson for both actors, and then take a shot of Abby talking then panning up to Harper, then panning down to Abby.  A scene that I think worked well was the scene right before the best friends met up for lunch. We tried to attempt to make this scene as realistic as possible so we had Abby track the camera while I was on the phone with Harper. The scene where I didn't think we succeeded well on was towards the end when Abby and Harper were talking and I walked by trying to ignore them. I think we could have had something more there to express how I was feeling because they were now best friends or something to convey how my actions were facetious.

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For our first media project, we created a film about a cheer team, who had a stalker, that wanted to kill one of the cheerleaders. Harper was the film maker and editor, Abby was the victim/coach, and I was the stalker.
The things we could change about our short film is spreading out the location. We could have filmed by the gym to show more background information for the audience to understand the plot. Another thing we could have improved on is showing more of the actors and content instead of showing the environment. The class liked how we edited our film. In other words, the angles and how our scene placement really represented the whole take away from our film especially since we didn't have expensive equipment.