Setbacks

     Hi blog! Soooo... my group and I reached a problem, and its a major one. So as I have mentioned, my group is insanely talented when it comes to editing and producing films in general, from their experience in our school's film club CBTV. But something that comes with the territory of having such talented and busy people in group is them having to share their time with other activities. Two of my group members, Sofia and Madison were selected to go compete in Tampa for STN (student television network), which is a national competition for young filmmakers, and is a huge accomplishment for them. 

    The problem with this is that going to this competition means that our scheduled filming week overlaps with the week that they have to leave. Lee and I planned to work on the project just the two of us while they were gone, but since STN is such a big event, we were unable to check out the professional equipment that we planned on using. Instead, we spent the beginning of the week filming some inserts of the mustang, since it was a quite easy task, as well as we spent this week planning immensely, as the better plan you have going into something, the better it will turn out.

    Despite these problems setting back our plans, Lee and I also began planning for our Creative Critical Reflection (CCR) and we are quite excited to really start working on it upon Madison and Sofia's return. Until next time!

Casting

     Hi blog! For the casting of our film opening, we opted mainly for people who we knew really well because it was a more reliable option than for example asking the drama club at our school. We made this choice, and ended up having 2/3 of our characters be people in our group. Those characters being Lee and Madison, playing Aurora and Kai. We asked a friend to play Sam, who we got the name of from the actual person we asked, since we felt like their name Sam fit the character really well in and of itself, however in the comic, Sam goes by the name "Atticus", since we wanted a more mythical sounding name for the fantasy world that Sam is so obsessed with.

    Sam: We went with this person for our character since he has very surface level "nerd" features such as the dark hair, that can still be stylized to be a more objectively attractive look at the end of the film. Sam also genuinely enjoys acting in people's pieces, since he is in CBTV (Cypress Bay Television), and is good at it as well!

Aurora-Lee: We chose Lee to play the character of Aurora because she has a naturally fun and different look, especially with her hair being dyed, as it can be either grungy or quirky, which are the two sides of Aurora's character. Lee also has a very unique style that we thought would work very well with Aurora as a whole.

Kai-Madison: Finally, we selected Madison to portray Kai because of their hairstyle and overall look that could easily fit the "bad boy" aesthetic. Madison is a very sweet person, despite Kai's character, but they enjoy the acting part of production, and they definitely will be able to present Kai's character in their own unique way, aince they have such a genuine enjoyment for acting in different roles.

Comic

     Hi blog! As you know, our film includes a character who is talented in drawing, Sam. To express this, we are having him be drawing a comic based on his obsession with Aurora. This was a very tall task, since we planned on doing some really cool shots with it. In order to do so, we needed to create the comic prop in the first place. Lucky for us, one of our group members names Lee is extremely talented when it comes to drawing, which I learned from my one word film project that I collaborated with Lee on. She began outlining the comic, and filmed a time lapse of her doing so! I created the paper book, and then gave it to Lee to draw and create the final product!

    Here is a sneak peak on the original comic book cover and the first page, which is the majority of what we will and up doing, because there is no need to create the whole book when it won't be shown on camera.

Script/Title!

    Hi blog! Since last week we created our storyboard, we continued the production process by creating our script for our film opening.

    Speaking of, we also officially decided on a name for the film! When conducting research, we found that many coming of age films have extra long names that are kind of wordy, such as "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", "10 Things I Hate About You", or "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret". All of these films have titles so long, that fandoms often shorten them to abbreviations or acronyms. Our title will be "The Official Guide To Saving A Princess", or 'TOGTSAP". We really like the idea we came up with, especially since it fits in with the plot we have created. Anyways, here is the script for the first 2 minutes of TOGTSAP.

Costuming

  Hi Blog! This week my group and I discussed more of the specifics in our story, including the mise en scene element of costuming!

 Costuming

   For costuming, we wanted to utilize a technique we notices in La La Land, which was used by the character Mia. In the beginning of the film, she wears bright colors, specifically blue. Throughout the film, she wears a more muted shade of blue to represent her relationship with Sebastian is fading. At the very end of the movie, where she is now famous and in a relationship with another man, her costuming is completely black. Once reunited with Sebastian, the lighting works in convergence with the dark costuming as it is the bright blue shaded lighting that was so prominent in the beginning of the film.

    When were are deciding the costuming for the film, we based it off of the character's personality that we outlined in the recent posts, included in the mood board. However, we are going to do the opposite of La La Land, and have Aurora start out in muted, sad colors, and eventually become her true unfiltered self once she is with Sam instead of Kai. Sam and Kai have very opposite aesthetics, so that is why we are planning on depicting that with the transition of Aurora's costuming as her character develops. Since we are only showing the film opening, Aurora will be wearing darker clothing with possible pops of color, since she still is herself. will upload photos of the actual costume once we have decided, but for now, we are thinking possibly black ripped jeans with a colored top and a leather jacket. Of course, more casual than the photo since she is in high school, and we want the costume to be realistic.

    For our other two characters, we don't have as big of a change since they are more set in their ways.

Especially Kai, as he will be wearing dark colors throughout the film, along with the tattoo arm sleeve and dark combat boots. Kai's character is a stereotypical bad boy, which anyone who has attended a public High School knows what kids I am talking about. His costuming in the opening will continue to be similar throughout the film, since he especially will not develop in a positive way. How a character dresses is a lens into where the character is mentally, and Kai has a very dark, emotional mind, which will be expressed in the costuming.

Finally, for Sam, we will be dressing him in very whimsical clothing that also look nerdy, because we cannot have him look stereotypically attractive, as his role as the "nerd" needs to be evident in the 2 minutes that we have. We plan on utilizing the cloak that I had discussed in a previous post, however eventually later in the film when Sam stops wearing it in recognition that he doesn't have to hide who he is, Aurora (who is very stylish) will help Sam with his aesthetic and vibe in clothing, which could be a fun scene to include of the two of them shopping. Sam will wear a lot of t-shirts in the beginning along with the converse and of course, the cloak.

Deciding our Music

    Hi blog! For music in our opening, we wanted to pick a kind of grungy yet upbeat song that fits both Sam and Kai's vibe since the scene happens with the music being diegetic, as Kai is listening to the song on the radio in his car, and Sam is listening to it on his wired headphones in his small iPod. It also needed to be a non-popular song, specifically by a small artist, since we did not want to go through a long process of getting the rights to using the music through a label. We visited a website called bulletproofbear.com, which is a place to go to access custom music for films, marketing, and other media-related projects.

    The music that we found was called "Another Naive Generation" by Stephen Graziano, which fits in with the aesthetic of a classic dated coming of age film. One problem we may face is that the song is only 1:15, which means we are going to have to find a way to work around playing music for a decent portion of the film opening. The genre is rock and blues, which perfectly encompasses the two characters that are going to play the same song in the opening.

    It was a tough task to find a song for the two of them, because we had spent so much time trying to differentiate the two characters, from costume, to lighting, to aesthetic, etc. However, I was really happy with the song we decided on. It sounds very stereotypical coming of age, as it has the classic high school heavy drum feeling that our film will not be an exception of in the genre we are portraying. Another good thing about it is that it has no words, meaning we won't have trouble trying to balance the timing of certain lyrics, volume of the words, etc. 

    Here is a link to the song! media opening song - Google Drive

The Rooms

 Hi blog! For our film opening, we are having 3 major sets, including Sam's room, Aurora's room, and Kai's car, to immediately establish the three different characters, and the three different points of view.

    The one that will take the most detail is Sam's, since we will be shooting inside the room a lot, and it will take up a decent amount of the 2 minutes. Aurora's room will be shown from outside her window, however, we still want to work on making sure the angle which we can see her room from looks in character for her, making it an important set, since it's the first thing the audience will see regarding her character. And Kai's car is mostly done being staged, as it is a basic car and the Mustang that we have access to already had minimal accessories inside and outside. 

    We began filming the scenes of the car, since two of our team members, Sofia and Madison are leaving for a CBTV (Cypress Bay Television) competition (STN) on Thursday of next week, meaning our original planned week to film may not work, since they will be gone for about a week. That just means that Lee and I will have to work extra hard while they are off competing, but I believe that we will work fine!

    For each room, we want to establish each character's lighting, which will be a direct metaphor for the character's relationship with the real world. For example, Sam's lighting in the scenes we are actually including in the opening will have kind of whimsical and perfect lighting, as he is in his dream fantasy world. Whereas Kai and Aurora's lighting will be very natural, and not overedited, since having raw and authentic clips is another major feature of coming of age. Since the main goal of this genre is to make people feel seen and relate to the audience, we want to emphasize the normal lighting, and only make it "polished" when the techniques make sense.

    The rooms will be reflections of who the characters are, as it is the "window to the mind". That being said, Sam's room will have many nerd trinkets such as Harry Potter or Dungeons and Dragons (DND), which is a major interest that we are giving Sam. His room will also have a lot of posters and abstract art, since he makes comics to feed his delusions, and he enjoys art. His room will overall be very artsy and nerdy to say the least. It will also be quite messy and lived-in to look natural, as we imagined his character as a little untidy.

    For Aurora, although the only main thing that will be shown is her closet, with a shot of her getting ready in the morning from outside, we imagined her room as very clean and organized, but still fun and colorful. This will allow the audience to question why she dresses so dark and dull, when her bedroom is very bright and the opposite of her appearance. When we see the shot that includes her closet, we would like to display a lot of colorful clothing color coordinated, to show her true colors are very bright and vibrant, but she feels forced to not show that true color of her soul, by wearing none of the colored clothing.

Character Development

    Hi Blog! For our character development, we have specific plans for each character, as a coming of age film focuses heavily on the development and maturity of the characters. When we planned out our entire film, we also decided on the path that we wanted every character to take, and how they would progress throughout the film to depict certain themes. The changes in each character will follow the plot diagram below, specifically during the rising action, which is the bulk of the story.

    For Sam, we are going to establish in the beginning that he is clearly not confident, or very happy with his life in the real world, so he uses the fantasy world as an escape from reality. The symbolism for this feeling is Sam's wizard cape. He only wears it when he is inside his room/house, as we will show in our film opening. Once he pretty much only leaves his house for school, because he does not have very many friends, but once he is inside where he is the most comfortable, and authentically himself, he puts on the cloak. Throughout the film, when Aurora gets closer with Sam, and he realizes that the real world isn't so bad when you actually have people to experience it with, he stops wearing the cloak, as he no longer feels like he needs to hide from the real world. That is the major character development that will happen, because Sam is the main character.

    Aurora's character development was especially fun to create, because her character is so layered. In the beginning, we know that she is dating the "dirtbag" Kai, and although his aggressive behavior does not rub off on her, she definitely feels restrained in how she can act, since Kai has such a strong reputation that she feels obligated to support. As his girlfriend, she dresses in darker clothing (which I will get into in my next blog post), follows Kai everywhere, and never argues with him, despite knowing how cruel he can be. Over the course of the film, Aurora will become more independent from Kai, before she breaks up with him after finding out about him inevitably cheating on her. She will also become more herself, as Sam shows her that she doesn't have to hide herself to fit in with her boyfriend's friend group.

    Lastly, we have Kai. Since he is the main antagonist of the film, he will not develop much, in term of maturity, however he will develop to be more hostile towards Sam. Although it is not a positive development, it is a development none-the-less. In the beginning of our film, Kai just sees Sam as a loser, and is not concerned about him whatsoever, but as Kai's girlfriend hangs out more with Sam than him, he cares more and more about Sam. This is because throughout the film, Kai's main theme is the need to fit in and protect your reputation, which he feels is being threatened by Aurora being around someone of lower "social status" than them.

Character Theory

   Hi blog! So, create a deeper understanding of the my group and I were considering what media theory to include in our opening, and we decided on character theory!

    In summary, character theory is the idea that characters can be classifies in one of seven specific roles: Hero, Villain, Dispatcher, Helper, Donor, Princess, False Hero. The theory by Vladimir Propp claims that any character created fits under one of those categories, with their definition that comes along with it. Click here to see a full explanation on what each category means in relation to the Harry Potter franchise. This connects to our story because as I previously mentioned in a past post, Sam creates comics, in which he depicts him and other characters in typical fantasy roles including some of the ones from character theory. Specifically, these are who each character is committed to in Sam's comics. 

The Hero

The hero is of course depicted in the comics by Sam, since he truly believes that he is the best option  for Aurora. He believes that he can "save her" from the poor treatment she receives in her current relationship with Kai. He also is introverted, so by making himself the hero, it could be Sam's way of hiding their insecurity when it comes to their reserved personality. The definition of "the hero" in the theory states that it is the protagonist, which makes sense for Sam, since he made himself the main character of his own fantasy comic, as he only knows his own point of view, making it easy to only acknowledge his perspective as "good".

The Princess

  The princess would be... you guessed it... Aurora. The "reward" or "motivation" for the protagonist. In most stories, it is the love interest, and that would match up with Sam's comic, since he is so deeply infatuated with Aurora. Despite her outgoing personality as a character, it shows how little Sam truly knows about her, because he sees her as this perfect being, who is a reward for his own efforts as the hero, although it sounds selfish, it just shows that once Sam becomes closer with Aurora, he will see her more as a person, and less as a shiny thing on a pedestal. We also chose to name the female love interest Aurora to go with the theory, as a major fairytale princess is named Aurora. 

The Villain

   Last but certainly not least, we have Kai as the villain. Although the main character of the story is Sam, it will also decently touch on Kai's point of view because very rarely in coming of age films is there a "bad guy", it often is just the main character against the world or growing up. We want to make the audience feel connected to Kai the same way they feel attached to the other two main protagonists. That being said, Sam does not have any remorse for how Kai feels about him trying to steal their girlfriend, and Kai is relentless in return. The two are enemies in Sam's eyes, and that is the definition of the villain, the antagonist who is against the hero. Since the comic is told from Sam's perspective, we understand why the two are so strongly against each other, as Sam sees Kai as a direct threat to their potential happiness with Aurora. 

I hope you got a better understanding of the characters based on this, and I'll talk to you more next week!

Storyboard Complete

 

Hi blog! So my team and I officially finished drawing up our storyboard for the opening! As you saw in my last post, we had decided on the best place to stop the story, which would be once Aurora gets in the car and drives off with Kai. Our group member Lee is super talented at drawing, so we had her draw up most of the pictures while the rest of us walked through what each shot should be. We used a lot of close ups and medium sides, since a major part of coming of age films was the details in the intros that would later be connected in the film.

There is the pictures of the entire thing! One of the aspects of the story that we are diving deeply into is the character depth, which is why we decided we wanted to include the character media theory in our project. I will get more into that in my next post! Anyways, happy Valentines Day!❤️

Plot Developed!

     Hi blog! So, my group and I took today's class to finalize the first draft of the plotline for the entire movie. We know where we are going to cut it off, but here is the summary!

    The movie starts with introducing the three main characters, Aurora, Kai, and Sam. Kai drives a white mustang and makes that very clear by the way they show it off, and Kai is a "nerd" for things such as DND and other fantasy stuff. Sam has a huge crush on Aurora, however she is in a relationship with Kai, the "bad boy". Aurora and Sam are neighbors, and the opening scene that we are creating will take place outside of their houses to establish that. Kai clearly does not like Sam, and vice versa. We decided to have Sam be the main character, although the main focus for the intro will be establishing the opposing view points of Kai and Sam. 

    The part of the film we will not be creating, but we vaguely planned out was that Sam and Aurora would become good friends throughout the film and eventually Aurora will realize that Sam is a much better person than Kai is, and they have much better chemistry. Sam 's character will also change to be more focused on being social than being a loner because he finds that its the only way that he can be with her. 

    The film will have subtle LGBTQ representation, because it is something every person in my group resonate with personally, so we would like to include that. We are going to have Kai be dressed masculine despite the actor being a girl, and possibly use they/them pronouns for Kai. Aurora will also have a character design that is queer coded, such as dyed hair, many accessories, etc. Sam will also have many typically queer interests such as indie bands, DND, comics, etc. The film opening will include crosscuts between Kai's car and Sam's bedroom, to show the two character's different aesthetics and interests. 

    The character of Sam is going to be a talented artist, and they express their crush on Aurora through creating a comic, where they are the knight in shining armor, she is the princess, and Kai is the villain, who rides on an evil dragon, to further play into their fantasy obsession. I am really excited to expand more on their characters, because it is genuinely really fun to come up with their personalities and wardrobes.

Here's a character mood board for the three of them:

Sam-

Kai:

Aurora:

Getting Outside Ideas

    Hi blog! Today in class, we split into small groups to discuss our plan for the project. Essentially, we got a chance to ask for advice, help fill in plot gaps, expand on individual ideas, etc. My group meeting consisted of Camila, Max, Natalia, Michael, and me. I got some ideas from the other people, as well as some suggestions for how to further tell the story. Although I haven't created an entire plot yet, they helped me imagine the wardrobe of the characters. They also gave me song suggestions to include that would be easy to get permission to use.

    To be specific, I have 3 potential characters that I want to include, one "bad boy", one teenage girl, and one "nerd". I don't want to make the nerd dress stereotypically with suspenders, glasses, and a button up, because that would make the opening too cheesy, and although coming of age as a genre is already a little cheesy, I would like to keep the opening as uncringy as possible. My group gave me the idea of dressing him in black, to contrast the bad boy, who is dressed in white. I want to dress the nerd in sweat pants and a hoodie, with the bad boy dressed in a tight-fitting white tank top to show the difference between the two, and highlight that in their clothes. I will dive more into their wardrobe in a later post once I have developed their characters more, but I got a clearer vision of how I want them to be dressed from this meeting. 

    I was also asking for advice on how to display the start of a love triangle in a mere 2 minutes, and Camila gave me a great idea to do a close up of the girl's eyes between the two, to show how the two guys make her feel different emotions, despite the context of her dating one of them. I also got the idea to have it be based on driving to school instead of just driving somewhere random, to further compare the two guys, the nerd should be riding a bike, while the bad boy is driving the white mustang that I mentioned last post. I sure hope this makes sense, considering you haven't gotten the full plot story yet, but it might make more sense after the rest of this week's post, because as you can see in the schedule, this week is dedicated to developing a storyline. 

    As for the other members of the group, I found that doing a horror genre was the most common one, although Michael is doing one similar to Fast and the Furious movies, which I thought was really unique from any other people. Hearing the other people's ideas made me realize that I really have to develop my story more to make more than just the opening, because it is much easier to develop the opening once I have a full understanding of the entire plot.

    It was really nice to see other people's ideas, because the more minds working together, the more advanced the product will be. Until next time!

Throwing Around Ideas

    Hi blog! It's officially the last day of week #2 and here are some ideas that my team and I have had to give you a small taste of our plot plan. So, we want to use what we learned in the Music Marketing project, and associate characters with colors. Of course, we wont have very long to establish this since we will only have 2 minutes, but we want to imply that more of that development will occur later on in the film. For example, we want a certain character to drive a white mustang, which we are lucky enough to potentially have access to for filming, so having the color white be associated with the character would be pretty easy.

    We don't want to include too many characters, since we will have limited time, but we do think that we want a couple main characters instead of just one, since our potential storyline would work best that way. So, yeah! that's one undeveloped idea that we are throwing around, and I will keep you updated on if that happens. Oh! and more on the mustang thing, we have an idea similar to the movie "Cars" with the "Speed, I am speed" iconic line with a black screen. We want the first thing in the film opening to be a black screen with the mustang revving followed by the music we choose and a bunch of shots similar to the Moxie

intro I researched in a past post. of gradually showing more of the character.

    Similar to the cars intro, we want an upbeat song that creates the tone of driving with the windows down, and the wind blowing in your hair, to make the character come off as that classic, cool, High School kid with a license aesthetic haha. Although we might scrap the idea, that is the direction we are heading in, so I really like the concept we have, and I can't wait to see how it could look on-screen!🚗

My timeline!

 Hi blog! We planned our schedule for the project by weeks, as we have about 8 weeks to completely finish the entire thing. The schedule should match up with my blog posts, as I am aiming to upload several times a week to stay on top of what work we have completed.🎉

Week 1: 1/29/25- 2/1/25

• Decide group

• Discuss possible Genres

Week 2: 2/2/25- 2/8/25

• Decide on singular genre for film opening

• Research opening scenes in genre

• Research opening credits in genre

• Begin planning plot and target audience

Week 3: 2/9/25- 2/15/25

• Meet with Ms. Stoklosa to discuss potential plot idea

• Research media theories to include

• Finalize plot

• Create storyboard and script

Week 4: 2/16/25- 2/22/25

• Expand on characters depth

• Plan props

• Plan costume

• Plan set

• Begin deciding on potential song choices

Week 5: 2/23/25- 3/1/25

• Filming week

• Apply all previous research

Week 6: 3/2/25- 3/8/25

• Editing/ reshoot week

• Make any final details and put in audio and clips

• Begin CCR research

Week 7: 3/9/25- 3/15/25

• Finished with film opening

• Research for CCR

• Begin production of CCR

Week 8: 3/16/25- 3/22/25

• Finalize CCR

• Final reflections

• DONE!!!✨

  
  
  

Credit Sequences Research

   Hi blog! It's now time to think about what I am going to do for the credit sequence! Since the whole project is only 2 minutes, this aspect will take up a big chunk of time, although I am pretty sure that I want the credits to appear over a background video, so that I can get the story stared without wasting any of the two minutes, as I will need as much time to develop the start of a plot as possible with the plot-heavy genre I am doing.

    As I discussed in a recent post, "Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012) is the definition of a coming of age film, which is why I decided to use that one for research. One of the first things I noticed was that the credits were in the same font as the title on all the posters an advertisements, which is a typewriter font. The very beginning of the credits before showing the title was simply a black background with the white letters, which emphasizes the names on screen. Upbeat music begins playing while the background video enters a context of driving under a bridge, which is where a major scene in the film takes place. What I learned from this opening was that the focus was mainly on the words, while still subtly foreshadowing a future scene. 

    The next one I chose to watch was a classic, "The Breakfast Club" (1985). This opening scene starts with another upbeat song, in this case, one that is quite drum heavy. Similar to Perks of Being a Wallflower, it displayed the logo early on, and was simply the classic yellow colored font with a black screen. However, unlike the previous researched film, the background stays black while the credits in the same font are shown, and it

continues that way until it uniquely shows a quote by David Bowie that captures the essence of the film. The transition from the credit sequence into the film was a shattered screen into an establishing shot of a school. This film gave me an idea of what to do in the case that we decide to do a credit sequence. 

The final credit sequence that I analyzed was "The Outsiders", and I did so keeping in mind that it was created over 40 years ago, in 1983. However, I still appreciated the unique style of the credits, as it runs similar to the end credits, as it is a constantly scrolling display of names. It may be a result of the limited technology, but I really liked how the text font was the same as the iconic bright yellow title logo. The font was also the same, and I found that every film I studied

included that detail of the logo and credit names in the same font. I will definitely be including that aspect into my own project. This film also relies heavily on the characters, so before the credits or the title appear, the first thing shown is Ponyboy looking off into space, and although it was made so long ago, it has our same target audience of teenagers. 


    This information has made me consider what I want to do with both the credits as well as the logo, however through doing the research, I am leaning towards doing the same font for both. I will keep you updated with the process, but I'll see ya next time!💕
 

Opening scenes

 

    Hi blog! So, it's officially week #2 and my team and I have continued brainstorming for the project! You may be thinking, "Kenna, you never told us your genre". Well, my group and I have officially decided on one genre to focus on is.....drumroll please.....Coming of Age! So to gain some inspiration for the film opening in this genre, I decided to watch 3 different openings from other coming of age films.

 

The first film opening I decided to analyze was "Moxie" (Paper Kite Studios) it's an empowering coming of age film, and the target audience is teenagers, specifically females or LGBTQ+ individuals. It instantly begins with foley sounds of someone running through a forest, followed by the matching clip to go with the sound, which grabs the audience's attention with the mysterious lighting. It flashes in between that clip and a black screen with the credits, which is a suspenseful way to display credits

that I enjoyed. The character development of this genre is the main focus, so we gradually start seeing more of the girl's features, such as her hair, face, outfit, etc. The creepy sounds continue as the girl screams inaudibly, and eventually we hear a jingle sound that could be a phone alarm, followed by the dream ending, and the girl sits up in her own bed, partnered with the movie logo. The girl then starts looking at a college essay question, which introduces what the plot will be about. I loved this excerpt, and I liked the style of gradually revealing more about the character, as it fits the genre very well, and I will try to utilize that for my own film opening.

The next film I decided to research was "13 going on 30", which I mentioned in a recent post. It begins with a blue screen and some upbeat 80s music. The screen became glittery as the credits roll, which is certainly foreshadowing to the movie, the blue background fades into the clouds of the classic school yearbook picture backdrop. This establishes the setting of middle school, and the main character is displayed sitting down in the chair. The picture is  taken, and ends up very

poorly, which is a classic way to represent a "messy" character who is in school. The logo is then shown with the same sparkly background as before. Although this is not the most interesting intro in terms of production, it was a nice way to establish character and tone with the consistent upbeat music that will play throughout the entire film. Same as before, the character development is the most important thing for coming of age films, so I will certainly be using a similar technique of developing character.

    Finally, I researching the film "Thirteen" (Searchlight Pictures) (2003), which is a coming of age film that is very similar to the target audience of our project, as we would like to aim it to teenagers. The intro began with another black screen with white typewriter font in the corners featuring the studios and companies that created the film. However, unique to the last two, it instantly introduces the main character by showing a shot of her face with heavy metal rock in the background, since the aesthetic

and character building are the most important aspects of the film.an entire scene occurs between the two characters, followed by another black screen with the logo of the same font as the opening credits. This movie is so reliant on how the characters interact with each other throughout the film, so including the characters in the opening scene is extremely important.

Through doing this research, I learned several things that I will and will not be including in my personal project when it comes to opening scenes. Until next time!❤️

Film Opening Genre Possibilities

    Hi blog! Choosing the genre and plot of our film opening is extremely important, as it can make or break a project. For this posting, I am going to discuss two possible genres that my team and I have been considering, which are coming of age and horror.

Coming of Age

    These films are defined as pictures that have plots based on the transition and complications of growing up psychologically as well as physically and morally. The target audience of coming of age films are typically teenagers, as most of the films highlight that time period specifically. Although it is a somewhat broad genre, it is a very popular one. The coming of age films often are paired with another subgenre such as romance, comedy, or musical.

    Perks of Being a Wallflower is a film that dives into the trauma as well as the drama of being a teenager, and the storytelling in this film was so well done, and truly is an inspiration for a potential project in the coming of age drama.

    Mama Mia follows the story of a mother and a daughter through the storytelling in the musical/comedy subgenre of coming of age. It is a very popular film, and a huge hit especially among teen girls for the iconic representation throughout.

    Finally, 13 Going on 30 describes the psychological aspect of growing from a preteen into an adult through comedy as well as romance, as it is one of the most well-known films in the coming of age genre. It is a beloved movie for it's perspective on maturing, and the techniques utilized throughout are certainly inspirational for a project in this genre.

Horror

    This genre is classified as a production that leaves the audience feel disturbed, scared, or shocked through specific techniques such as suspense. The target audience is typically teenagers and older, as they are not especially certified for children. Many horror films are based on the supernatural, while others may be psychological thrillers that are more based on the mental horror than physical.

    One example of a supernatural horror film would be Tarot, which is based on the tarot cards that are often associated with witchcraft. It has a frightening story, and has a target audience of teenagers, as implied by the cast being young.

 

    A Quiet Place is an example of a psychological thriller, as it is based on a family, including several children, to further portray the emotional horror. As the name describes, it is a nearly silent film, so it creates an intense and suspenseful tone that is an inspiration in the storytelling perspective of the horror sphere.

Both of these genres would be extremely rewarding to work on, so I will update once again once my team and I decide which one we will be studying for the next few months!