Group Meeting #1

Yesterday my class had our first group meeting (check out the picture on the left)! We met up with people from other groups to give and recieve advice for our blogs and portfolio projects.

Talking about our Blogs

What I found on some of my classmates' blogs was they researched target audience for their chosen genre. I find this a very useful research topic, especially at this stage of the portfolio project when we are deciding on what our film openings should be about, because it helps narrow down what to focus the film is on. For example, thrillers have so many subgenres that attract different demographics. Knowing you want to target women ages 18-25, for instance, will narrow down the ideas to romance thrillers. Some people also mentioned researching different subgenres and tropes to see what specific one they are drawn to. Just like with the target audiences, this can help narrow down an idea for the film opening really effectively.

I suggested to one of my classmates that they should aim for more thorough research and incorporate multimedia into thier blogposts because it would really elevate their blog. 

Talking about our Film Openings

Fiona is also doing a drama. It's going to be about a teenage girl trying to act grown up and partying/smoking underage and how unecessary that is. This concept reminded my of Trainspotting, a drama I researched the film opening for in a recent post, so I suggested it to her to check out to get inspiration from it.

Emily was talking about how in her film opening her and her partner want to add mistery by not showing the character's face and she wanted to incoportate many shots and angles to make that happen. I suggested she can incorporate an over-the-head shot to introduce some variety and show all of the materials her character is working with. 

Some other people in my group planned on doing a house raid with criminals who are comedically bad at their job and are clearly ineffective at working together in a team. We recommended to them to use 21 Jump Street as inspiration for their characters because they are similar to their approach.

I asked my group how they plan on incorporating their opening credits. Because I feel like leaving them to be displayed on parts of the screen is boring. I told them about how I want to incorporate them into the set and props. They thought it is a cool idea, but we all agreed that it might be a distraction from what is actually happening in the film opening. Fiona mentioned having her credits in the middle of the screen, but we suggested she does not do that because it would cover her protagonist's costuming which is a major element of mise-en-scene needed for her film opening needed to carry out its purpose.

I told my group about the slightly Squid Game-inspired idea my partner and I had to show a person getting anonymously invited to play in a game show and they all really liked it and built off of my ideas. For example, I was talking about how the character can be living a depressed life and at the beginning of the film opening sees an ad which they passively ignore and they suggested making the ad seem uncanny. I was talking about how the character is in a rough stage of life and does not make much money, so they suggested the character can recieve a very fancy letter in the mail that can be juxtaposed with the character's cheap costuming to highlight how big this opportunity may look to the character. To make it even more mysterious, there can be an anonymous phone call asking for the protagonist's answer to the invite right after checking the mailbox.

Reflecting

This group meeting was very helpful in bringing confidence to my portfolio project. Getting multiple opinions before my partner and I plan our film opening helped me get a clearer direction on how to approach our portfolio. I also really enjoyed being able to use what I learned from my research with others to help them with their project.

Viewing each other's blogs was also interesting. It was fun to see the approach people take to document their portfolio projects. Seeing what they write their research about, especially for the people also doing a drama, is very interesting. It was shocking to see we researched different film openings because, for example, Trainspotting has such a popular film opening that it is crazy to see it not reach their drama film opening research. Also, warnings, like looking for music ahead of time because finding non-elevator sounding copyright free music is very difficult, is very helpful to know!

Sources:

- Corliss, R. (2012, March 15). *21 Jump Street: Rude fun at Fantasy High*. TIME. https://entertainment.time.com/2012/03/15/21-jump-street-channing-tatum-jonah-hill/

- Knudsen, A. (2018). *Trainspotting – Choose Life – Opening scene* [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaP7qmsQbSI

- Posterazzi. (n.d.). *Trainspotting movie poster print (11 x 17) – Item # MOVCF1519*. https://www.posterazzi.com/trainspotting-movie-poster-print-11-x-17-item-movcf1519/

- CINEMAFLIX. (2021). *Squid Game poster – TV series (24 × 36 inches)*. Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Squid-Game-Poster-Measures-Standard/dp/B09JDGY5B3

Sources:

https://www.posterazzi.com/trainspotting-movie-poster-print-11-x-17-item-movcf1519/?srsltid=AfmBOoodQTQBcUNxRJBzLKAutcXgW5IvTzYyyFaR7o6kEINjsN2H1toK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaP7qmsQbSI

https://www.amazon.com/Squid-Game-Poster-Measures-Standard/dp/B09JDGY5B3

https://entertainment.time.com/2012/03/15/21-jump-street-channing-tatum-jonah-hill/