Target audience

 Now let’s talk target audiences! This is one of the most essential points that needs to be addressed when creating a film opening. I need to make sure that my film opening is designed to engage and target the certain type of people I am trying to reach with my film. 

Since I am doing a mystery film opening, I need to first see what would be my best audience to target. I have to think about who do mystery films usually target? From my previous research, I have learned that mystery films usually have a large target audience of males and females ranging from 15-40 years. For my own personal film, I think I would mostly focus on reaching both females and males ranging from 15-25, which would be teenagers and young adults.

Now that I have set my target audience, I have to now think of ways to reaching it. What are some ways to target this audience? One of the first things I think of is representation. Nowadays there are many films that try to reach younger audiences trying to connect with them. Using things such as slangs and trending topics is one way to do this. This helps audiences see themselves in films and feel represented by them. This can allow for a large majority of audiences feeling seen and heard through hard topics as well, talking about things such as mental health and identity issues can help connect with audiences as these are topics that are not talked about often. 

Another way is through the characters. Creating relatable and lovable characters is another way of targeting certain audiences. It is important to create memorable characters that audiences will be able to connect with. This allows for films to receive more attention and love only through the way characters interact and act.

These are all things I need to take into consideration when developing my characters as well as my plot of my film. I need to focus on connecting with my audience and developing a film opening that will catch their eye.

More research

 After analyzing mystery film openings, I now feel that I need to learn more about what truly makes a mystery movie. I want to truly indulge myself and learn more about the genre so that I have full understanding of it.

The main thing that I have now found is that many mystery films revolve around a detective. Usually they aren’t an official detective but mostly just someone that is determined to solve the mystery that the film is about. For my own film, this is something that I would definitely like to include as it is a key part of the genre, I really want to work to make my detective stand out. It is important that they have a motive for solving the mystery, they need to have some type of drive. Since my film opening will only be about 2 minutes, it is very hard to fit many of these things in, so I have to work to make everything fit in and be cohesive. 

Another key element in mystery films is the suspense. Suspense is a huge part of the genre and it is also something I need to focus on. Building suspense can be a little hard sometimes especially in the 2 minute timeframe, I need to make sure there is something that makes the audience interested in the film. Suspense is most often built by the audience knowing something the characters don’t know. For example, the main character is about to open a door, what they don’t know is that inside the door is their killer. Since the audience knows what is behind the door, there is a built suspense on what the character is going to do and what is going to happen to them once they open the door.

To be able to make my mystery film opening stand out, one essential part is to be able to have a good hook as well. The mystery that should surround my film needs to be eye catching, something unique and interesting. I don’t want it to be some regular old crime, it needs to be something that could appeal to my target audience (that will be soon determined). 

Another important thing to note is that mystery is a genre that is often piled into many others, many thriller, crime, and many other film genres often contain mysteries that are added into their plot lines. When taking a look at one of the most famous mystery films/literature which is Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was the author of Sherlock Holmes, was able to create a character who has now been loved and known for decade’s .Through his books and films, Doyle created a detective with many redeeming qualities that allowed people to be inspired by both his flaws and strengths. The first mystery films are dated back to the silent era. Since their first appearance around the 1900s, there are many notable themes that take part in them. Things like suspense, drama, plot twists, as well as memorable characters all take a huge part in the genre. These are all points that I need to think about when developing my own film opening.  

Sources:

Martin, Emily. “The Appeal of Sherlock Holmes.” Novel Suspects, 13 July 2021, https://www.novelsuspects.com/articles/the-appeal-of-sherlock-holmes/. 

“Mystery Film.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Feb. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_film. 

Class, Master. “What Is the Mystery Genre? Learn about Mystery and Crime Fiction, plus 6 Tips for Writing a Mystery Novel - 2023.” MasterClass, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-the-mystery-genre. 

Getting organized

 Okey so before I start planning more of my project, I need to create some time frames before I go crazy. I need to make sure I stay organized and have enough time for every part of my process without having to rush anything. I also need to plan time in case something goes wrong or maybe if I need to do a lot of reshooting. So here goes:

First, I need to organize what steps I need to take. I know I need to do more research before anything, I already did my research on mystery film openings, but I need to get down to the nitty gritty of what makes a mystery… a mystery. Then I need to plan out what film I want to do, what will my plot be? What will my setting be? My characters? All of that planning will also need time. Then I need to create a detailed storyboard that will have my film opening all planned out. I then need to obviously do all the filming which will take a while so I have to plan enough time for that, as well as time for any reshoots that I might want to do. Then, probably one of the most time consuming, editing. As I am not an editing expert, I need to find a good software I can use to aid in my editing process. There are many more tiny steps that I will also need to take but for now that is the basis.

Steps:

-research 

-planning

-filming

-editing 

-final touches 

So, this project is due April 3. I have approximately 6 weeks to do all of it which sounds like a lot but I already know is going to fly by. I know I want to get all filming done at least by March 22, which would allow me a little over a week for all editing. I really do not want to rush any part of this project so this planning of my steps has certainly helped me know exactly what I need to do. This was certainly an essential part which has eased my nerves overall.

Genre…

Finally… the most awaited moment of this century, I have finally chosen a genre! And it is………… MYSTERY!!! WOOOOOO! Exciting right? Yes yes I know. I’m actually super excited for my mystery film opening. I am honestly such a huge fan of mystery movies and literature which is one of the main reason why I chose it. I also leaned into mystery because I have so much fun coming up with different scenarios and plot twists which is going to come in really handy when I start developing my ideas and plot. Now comes the research part. To be able to film a successful mystery film opening I need to really indulge in the genre and learn all there is to learn. 

First, I need to look at some popular mystery film opening:

Knifes Out:

https://youtu.be/UmgscfptEkw

Knives out (2019) was a really popular mystery movie that was able to gross about $26,769,548 on the opening weekend. This goes to say that it was a successful launch. The question is why? Amongst the many mystery movies, why was this a hit? The first thing to analyze of course is the opening. The first thing I noticed is the music. Music takes on such a big role in mystery films, the use of the dark and suspenseful music allows to create the ambience for the rest of the film. So the first thing I should take note of for my own personal film opening is to allow myself time to find a good opening music song. I need something that will set the line for the rest of the opening, something that will captivate my audience within the first few seconds. Another interesting thing to take note of is the lighting of these 2 minutes of the film. There is noticeable darkness to most of the shots, this also adds to the suspense and mystery of the film. And of course the most noticeable aspect of this mystery opening… the dead old man. Of course within the first 2 minutes of the film we are introduced to a dead person which we know is what the mystery will be about. This is the classic whodunnit scenario that is of course a theme amongst mystery films.

Memento:

https://youtu.be/WHhlTXyBxPM

Now this is genuinely one of the most interesting movie openings I have ever seen. The creative decision to use a reverse effect on this first scene is what allows it to captivate the audience so early on, it is such a creative and risky choice. This is an important thing to think about, I have to be creative enough and use new techniques to captivate my audience. This mystery movie opening also contains something that is used in many of these movies…can you guess what it is? Yes… blood, blood, and more blood. Of course the thought of dead corpses isn’t the best but dead people is something that creates a great amount of suspense. This is also a very big theme amongst mystery movies, most of them revolve around solving someone’s murder. Which of course will also take part of my own mystery movie opening. 

Pink Panther :

https://youtu.be/_pKPxHZ5OcQ

Pink Panther (2006) is personally one of my favorite mystery movies, it is a comedic mystery which is my absolute favorite. While the movie is live action, the opening credit scene is the classic animated Pink Panther. This is also something that is used to attract their audience into their movie. They are also able to use this animation to create a unique set of credits. This allows for the credits shown to not be boring like they usually are. They use creative techniques like setting them on fire to add an interesting illustration. This opening credit scene, while not live action, is also used to introduce the characters and it shows a little of their personalities. This is useful because while there are no words heard, the audience is still able to learn about the characters and plot.

Overall, this research has definitely aided in my process going forward with my mystery film. There are many news things that I will now need to add and look for in my own mystery film opening. The main thing that I need to focus on is being able to really captive my audience with my opening. Using things that are creative and have not been seen before will be extremely helpful.

Sources:

“Knives Out.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 27 Nov. 2019, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8946378/. 

Beginning of my Media Studies project

Good morning, afternoon, night or whatever time you are reading this. My name is Lara Gimenez and today starts one of the most exciting project of my life so far.

First of all, I am nervous. Not only because of the actual creation of the project but also because of this blog. As an over-thinker, this whole “writing down my thoughts and process” is hard. I feel like I do not know what to say or write. I know it’s going to be a long and hard process, but honestly part of me cannot wait. I feel like this project is going to be so fun and really going to allow myself to improve on so many skills such as communication and time-management. 

Since this will be a very long project, the first thing I did was read all directions very well. Since I was absent on the day the instructions were given, I had to rely on my reading skills to fully understand everything, my friends were also a big help on helping me understand the project. Now after understanding the project, comes the first obstacle. Choosing a genre. I genuinely believe I am one of the most indecisive people on this earth, I simply cannot chose between anything. I have a hard time choosing my favorite color so having to choose a single genre for this project is impossible. But after a lot of thinking, I am choosing horror. Or maybe comedy. Or action also sounds fun. Okey… I don’t know yet. I simply need to sit down and think about what I would do best and what I would enjoy the most.

While I know that you are probably EXTREMELY excited to know what genre I will chose… okey fine maybe not that excited but… maybe a little? Anyways, you will simply have to wait for me to choose, I really want to think about what I would enjoy the most to create. Since I know I will not have fun creating a romance, I can at least cross that off the list! One down… probably like 50 to go.

Welcome to my hopefully entraining and exciting blog.

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

 In my music marketing project, it was first extremely essential to be able to organize the whole project as a group. It was necessary to arrange our ideas and thought on the project to be able to start the project right. This included reading the instructions clearly and making ensuring all parts were clear and understood. If there were any questions, we were able to use our class time to ask for clarification. This process ensured our next steps would be well ordered and erased confusion. After, a crucial step in our procedure was to create a plan moving forward. This included a schedule, as well as what each member of the group would be in charge of. This organizations allowed us to have enough time to finish our project and allowed all group members to be equally involved in all aspects of the project. 

Schedule:

When taking forward our research, we made sure to really focus on understanding rock music as a whole. It was necessary that we understood the brand of rock and what makes it so unique and interesting. It was interesting being able to focus on just one genre of music, it brought forward a whole new aspect of rock and we were able to truly appreciate the genre as we learned more about it. The research was able to aid in our music project because it was a foundation that we built of off for our artist, for example, once we learned that a lot of rock music artists really focus on building a connection with their fanbase, we knew that we should also focus on that aspect with our artist and fans.

Moving forward with the project, our next step as a group after researching and learning more about the rock genre was to think about the artist that we wanted to create. There were many aspects were discussed as we started to build our artist and brand. We decided to talk about what were some unique qualities our artist could have to appeal to our audience. It was important for all members of the group to give their thoughts and ideas regarding our project. After discussing what our artist and brand would look like, we started brainstorming what the music video would be. We decided we wanted to tell a story through our music video that would allow our audience to get to know our artist more through the story they wanted to tell. When filming the music video, it was a lot of trial and error, there were some shots or scenes were we thought did not fit into our music video like we originally thought; therefore, there needed to be some changes from our original plan but overall it all worked for the best. 

Storyboard:

Post-production, it was important for all members of the group to give their thoughts throughout the whole process. If there were any suggestions or comments we were all sure to mention to help our music video to be what we liked. It was important to be proud of our work and to be something that we were all thrilled to share with our class. It was also key to think if our music video would be something that our group, as music enjoyers, would be interested in if we come across it normally. It is a major step of the process to also organize all of the points we wanted to share. Our points needed to be clear and we needed to be able to express all of our thoughts and ideas so they could be understood. This project also allowed for a lot of creative freedom when creating our artist brand which allowed us to add some fun aspects such as our “clickbait” YouTube videos.

Example:

When presenting, it was really important that we divided up all the parts for each person, we tried to give each member of the group a slide that they understood well and could easily communicate all points. It is always hard to present as a group since not everyone might have the same presentation skills and some people are simply not comfortable with public speaking, with this in mind, it was also important they we all as a group were confident in our topics and tried our best when speaking. A key part was making sure we all practiced presenting together before to ensure our presentation was meeting the required time and to help each other with our points.

All in all, this project has been an essential part that will aid in my Cambridge portfolio, it had taught me a lot about hard work and time management. Having to work with three other people also helped me trust other people and helped me gain more experience working in a group. This project also taught me the importance of communication, it was important to never stay quiet and to voice my opinions. It was a very time consuming project that taught me so much more about marketing as well, it will aid me when formulating my Cambridge portfolio with all the marketing strategies I was able to learn more about. 

Music Marketing Blog Post #1

In the music marketing project, we first created a group chat as well as a shared document to stay organized and share our ideas. In this document, we created a detailed schedule plan within my group. This was an essential part of our project so we were able to stay organized and consistent. 

Schedule:

After having a planned schedule for this project, we also were able to talk about our strengths and weaknesses so we could take advantage of each other's strengths when it came to our music project. Then we started to analyze our song and think about what it meant to us. This was done so we could easily create our artist and music video tailored to our chosen song. In this case, we then planned out what we thought our music video style should be and what the message we were trying to convey through it. An important part of our process was to share and be open to all ideas when brainstorming and planning. 

Music video ideas on our shared document:

Some difficulties in this project process were some conflicting schedules when it came to filming. Within the given time frame, there were many times where not all group members were available to meet up. This was able to be resolved through distribution of all work, this ensured that all members were working equally and all took part in the project. Another challenge in this project was some conflicting ideas, since this is a group project, not all people will always agree on an idea. This was easily managed by respecting each other, as well as remembering that not everything will always be as one wants. This is always a key thing to remember and remind others of in situations like this. Overall, my group was able to work together and resolve conflicting situations at the moment.

The next steps of this project are finishing the music video, mostly editing it to our liking and ensuring we are getting our message across. Currently, I am working on the presentation, making sure all of our ideas are communicated through it. It is important that it is interesting enough as well transmitted correctly to the audience to ensure our ideas are understood. Being able to communicate with my group is also important in these steps to ensure everyone has taken part of the project.

All in all, this project was able to be organized with my group to ensure all needs and requirements are met. This was able to be done through good communication and group work. It was essential for everyone to also keep themselves in check and make sure they are doing the necessary work