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The first two minutes of Damien Chazelle's "Whiplash" focus on Andrew Neiman's ability to play the drums. The first 40 seconds are an entirely black screen, which briefly shows the title. The camera slowly zooms in on Andrew playing the drums in an empty room. Suddenly, a character walks in. Andrew stops playing the drums. The character asks Andrew his name, if he knows who he is, and then asks why he stopped playing if he knew. The 2 minutes end there.

The genre of this film is a blend between Drama and Music. The target audience is most likely males from 16-25, and also musicians. The film is rated R for intense language throughout.

There are no credits besides the title of the film during the first 2 minutes. The title is presented in a "proper" style font, like one you may see on a business card. It is colored white on a black screen. Throughout the first 40 seconds, there is a rising drumbeat, gaining speed with each hit until it can't get any faster.

The opening shot is in the back of a hallway. The lighting is primarily an olive-green tone. The camera slowly moves through the hallway as it finally passes through the door and focuses on Andrew. The carpet in the room he's playing in is blue, and takes up the lower portion of the screen. It cuts back and forth between Andrew and Terence Fletcher as they conversate. The lighting is different behind Fletcher, as he is in front of the hallway seen in the opening.

There is no score present in the opening 2 minutes. All of the sound comes from Andrew's drum kit - including the first 40 seconds.

The clip ends on Andrew picking up his sticks again to showcase his drumming ability for Fletcher. He has a sort of commanding and intimidating presence, and I would definitely want to continue watching the film to see how Andrew plays and what Fletcher has to say about his ability.

The editing style is relatively generic for movies. The camera cuts between both characters each time they speak during their conversation.

The film adheres to conventions of the Drama/Music genres by showcasing a drummer and using the music he is playing as the opening score. The characters also interact in a serious way, not in a comedic tone. The film doesn't necessarily break away from any conventions of it's genres in the opening scene.

The opening showcases a first year college student, who is a drummer. The other character who appears is a music instructor, who is portrayed as intimidating and inquisitive.

The film was originally distributed by Blumhose Productions, Bold Films, and Right of Way Films. Sony Pictures Entertainment gained distribution rights as well. It was distributed among theaters worldwide.

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"La La Land" - Directed by Damien Chazelle, Cinematography by Linus Sandgren

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Our movie will be shooting on the Beach this weekend. Due to this, I have decided to rely on natural lighting. Depending on the type of camera I have access to, I may use add a filter later in production to increase certain aspects of the film I may find lacking.

As cinematographer, it is also my duty to work on sound design. We have access to a microphone, which will be very useful in reducing outside noise, considering that we are filming on a beach that often adds windy noises that block out dialogue. At the same time, I would like to include background noises, such as the sound of the waves, and maybe distant chatter from people on the beach, because it adds a certain atmosphere to the film.

Most of the film will take place on a bench near the boardwalk of our beach. But the intro, which will showcase the titles and credits, will be a long take of the "Homeless Man", Sal, walking along the beach. The credits will be transparent and overlay the shot. After this, there will be multiple over-the-shoulder shots back and forth between the two actors, a handful of two-shots, and some extreme close-ups and zoom-outs, to reference shots used in certain comedy films.

Since our primary filming location is the beach, I'm probably unable to achieve exactly what my vision is. I love Wes Anderson films (Grand Budapest Hotel; The Royal Tenenbaums; The Life Aquatic) primarily because of the way they are shot. The usage of symmetry and color in "The Grand Budapest Hotel" are so visually astounding. While I would love to create something similar, it will be difficult due to our lack of certain equipment and the fact that we are using a natural setting and unable to create our own set for the film. I do believe I'm getting quite ahead of myself here, but a man can dream.

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For the past month, my AICE Media Studies class has been studying editing, sound design, and filming techniques. We watched multiple videos, namely "The Cutting Edge", a documentary about editing and the many talented people who work on films, and other videos relating to usage of color. Another documentary that we watched, "Making Waves", focused on sound in film. Our teacher taught us how to us a professional scriptwriting software, and we all wrote horror short-films about nightmares; which I have posted above. Afterwards, we read the screenplay for Brad Bird's "The Incredibles" as a class, which was an enjoyable experience.

The requirements for the short-film were simple: It had to be one to two minutes long, feel like an opening to a feature-length film rather than a short, have minimal dialogue, and to start in black and showcase the title, like most films do. There were other requirements as well- some of which I was not able to follow as closely as others. One that stands out in particular is that we were not supposed to include long-shots, which my film is comprised of. I wish that I had followed the requirements more than I did, but at the time of filming I was away from home and didn't think to check the requirement list and jump the gun on filming. In hindsight, it was irresponsible of me and I wish I could go back and fix it. I had a friend record an original score for the film on his guitar, which we collaborated on over a facetime call. I sent him a silent cut of the film, and we worked on how we wanted it to sound. The final result was nearly exactly how I had envisioned it. I shot the entire film on my iPhone, and overlayed a black & white filter over the whole movie, to add to the atmosphere and make it feel like an older horror film you might see, similar to Universal's old monster movies. I also overlayed a film-grain effect to make it appear older.

I adhered to certain horror conventions, as I previously stated, such as making it black & white. I included "monsters" in the main character's dream, represented by two figures clad in white sheets - hence the title, "The Blankets". I also rapidly sped up and slowed down the scene where the main character is tackled, to make it seem more scary, while also including flashing lights as he awoke from the dream. Upon waking from the dream, our main character gets out of bed and walks to the closet, preparing to get ready for the day, and is pulled into said closet by the same Blankets from the dream, adding a twist to the film, commonly seen in horror movies.

I broke certain horror conventions by not including sound effects during many scenes that otherwise would have had sound effects such as screaming or loud noises to simulate jumpscares. The whole film is also silent, and horror films usually have some dialogue to accompany the opening.

I didn't include very much representation in the film, besides your average middle-school age kid, having a nightmare about being attacked by ghost-like creatures. This may indicate that he has a fear of ghosts, which could be expanded upon in a feature-length version of the film.

In my film, I was successful in making it feel older, I believe. The added effects and color filters add to that feeling. I was also successfully able to make it seem like the main character was waking up from his dream in a panic, with usage of flashing lights. However, I was less successful in making it feel more like a real film, due to only using long-takes. Ideally, I would have followed the original shot list composed by my teacher, but I neglected it during filming.

I used the script-writing software Arc Studio to create the script for my film, however I ended up scrapping the original script in favor of "winging it" and making up the story as I went along. I shot the entire film on my iPhone and used the app Capcut to edit it, rather than Adobe Premiere Pro. I learned a lot about filmmaking over months leading up to filming, and during filming. This class has been immensely helpful in creating my love of film, and has expanded my knowledge of the film industry far more than I ever thought. Making films in this class, however unprofessional they were, has been incredibly educational and a great experience.

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Better Call Saul - Created by Vince Gilligan

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Over the past couple of weeks in AICE Media Studies, we've been covering nearly every genre in film, ranging from Horror to Family Films and Musicals to Superhero films. Each group showed presentations showcasing two genres and showed clips from three films from each genre spanning across the past 8 decades. Watching the clips from the 1940's through the 1970's was a treat, as I haven't watched many films from that time period. Learning about early cinema is quite enjoyable and it provides a unique perspective on how cinema has changed over the course of the past couple of decades.

My group covered Biopics and Sports films. For Biopics, we chose Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and The Babe Ruth Story (1948). For Sports, we chose Grand Prix (1966), Remember the Titans (2000), and Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021). We found that biopics commonly use shots that primarily focus on the subject of the film, and tracking shots that follow the characters in scenes throughout the film. Sports films use crowd shots quite often to show crowds at sports games or the team that is playing. They also frequently make use of "insane" camera shots using drones and other cool camera techniques.

My personal favorite genre of film is Drama. I find that many of my favorite films (i.e. La La Land, Whiplash, Uncut Gems) fall under the Drama category. If I were to write a script for a drama film, ideally it would be set in New York the 1950s-1970s, and dealing with the mob or something related to it. I love a good Noir film. Maybe some sort of Romeo and Juliet-esque story tied between two rival mafias.

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Early two weeks ago we were directed to go to the courtyard and film a movie, with the purpose of comparison to our final project in our AICE Media Studies Class. My group started off on the wrong foot. We began with Sean, Wade, Matthew, Hudson, and myself. The first day was messy, difficult, and tiresome. We spent the majority of our time trying to come up with a plan and the final few minutes filming. Only Wade was really interested in filming, the other two members sat waiting. Then we ran out of time.

I had a plan for day 2. I wrote a basic outline for a script in the periods beforehand, to better help certain members of the group, because they made it clear they thought I had no idea what I was doing. As we made our way to the library to begin filming, Matthew, Sean, and Wade decided to part ways with our group in favor of joining another. Me and Hudson were left alone to make a movie with just ourselves. We had already wasted 15 minutes of class time and barely had time to come up with something else. We recorded a handful of footage with no real goal in mind and ended up scrapping most of it. I attempted to make plans to meet over the weekend to film at least something, but neither of us were available. This is something I truly wish we had completed, and I am dissapointed we had to scrap the whole project and take the 0.