Welcome Back (post pandemic)

 WOW! The start of 2020 has been the craziest I have experienced thus far, but, the heat is on as far as AICE media A level goes. Considering this happens to be my last year in high school and last year to receive my AICE diploma I have major challenges ahead. Leaving school last year was bitter sweet, pretty good for my partners and I though considering we finished filming and editing just a few days before the virus spiked. I am really looking forward to A level; it consists of new projects and makes me feel like I am a master at film making. So far since the first day of school we have already been dipping our feet into the projects we will do in this course over the year. A longer film submission is what I am most excited for considering AS level was only a two minute film opener. So many more ideas and concepts to be portrayed. Coming back this school year is still going to be a crazy year because we are still facing hardships over the pandemic. AS level has taught me one thing and that is to always think quick on your feet; especially if you're a film maker. I do not believe we should be caught off guard this year, but anything could happen. This year I will be working with a partner on a project, although I'm pretty independent. My partner and I are coming up with strategic ways to work through our first project. Being a person who didn't know much about filming prior, accomplishing AS level and being a part of A makes me know that as a learner, anything is possible. Since it has been a while I am a little rusty on my camera angles, movements, and mis-en-scene. But I know I will quickly pick back up on it once the ball gets rolling. The one thing I do challenge myself this year is to improve on editing and using different techniques versus the basics. Also to work on my camera movements because I do tend to stick to the same basic camera movements. Lastly, I really wish we were on campus learning the material, but considering this course is kind of self-taught isn't too bad.  

Audience and Institution Practice essay

To what extent is digital distribution vital to the media area you have studied?

Film consumption has changed dramatically in recent decades. Movie viewing has grown exponentially in domestic and mobile spheres, driven by increasingly flexible access to content and the diversity of screens this material can now be delivered to an individual's cellular device within minutes.  As of 2018, 54 percent of U.S.-based respondents stated that their favorite moving watching location was at home.Only around 13 percent of respondents stated that they preferred to watch movies in a theatre, while 22 percent stated that they like the theatre and home options equally. The digital distribution has become a vital part of the film industry. 

An extensive viral marketing campaign was created in order to promote Ridley Scott's Prometheus, and the film became a massive success due to this contributing factor. Any major film studio is going to have a marketing campaign which includes some kind of online element, perhaps a trailer and a few film clips, but only few reach a major, viral victory, and Prometheus was amongst those that had, due to very generous investment from 20th Century Fox. Everything was distributed digitally to the public via the internet - on the 'Prometheus' website and the 'Prometheus' channel on YouTube - or through television (trailers shown during advert breaks), which allowed for a good number of people to become aware of the film and created a lot of hype surrounding it. The film had a budget of $130 million and with the help of digital technology the film was able to produce nearly $404.5 million in the box office.  In terms of consumption, Prometheus was released in over 15 markets during cinema exhibition, both in 2D and 3D, which was an experience that could not be topped by digital distribution, but was then sold to online distributors such as LOVEFiLM and Netflix, having been released on DVD and Blu-ray in over 50 countries prior to this, so as to reach an extremely wide audience.

The franchise Fast and Furious has taken a similar approach to Prometheus in terms of using digital distribution to their advantage. The franchise used a website created for Furious 7 called www.furious7.com where there are contests, pictures, videos, information, and more. Their advertisement was distributed digitally to the public via the internet. The big exception to this is the sygenry Universal Studios used to promote the movie. Adding the Fast and Furious ride was another way that the company promoted the film. The company has been resisting releasing them with online distributors like Netflix and Hulu. While the film made $1.5 billion in the box office striking a deal with an online distributor could increase their revenue significantly.  

The film Trolls World Tour made nearly $100 million in the past three weeks through digital sales, according to The Wall Street Journal, reportedly bringing in more revenue for Universal than the original Trolls’ entire domestic theatrical haul. Due to the pandemic the increase in digital sales may have just proved that using other means of distribution can be just as successful if not more than solely relying on theater releases. 

Another film which relied heavily on digital distribution during the marketing stages was The Inbetweeners Movie, although this was not quite the case during the consumption of the film. The film became the third fastest-selling British home media release of 2011 after the two final Harry Potter instalments, after selling approximately 575,000 copies on the first day of its release. The film grossed just over a staggering $88 million dollars during the cinema exhibition, which was unbelievable since its budget had been only $4.375 million dollars. The Inbetweeners which was a tv series before a film gain so much revenue because people who have not considered watching the film if not for the tv series. They used trailers shown during tv breaks to keep the hype surrounding the film. 

Overall, digital distribution affects the marketing and consumption of films quite significantly, as the internet is becoming increasingly popular as the years go on and a cinema experience is becoming less of a must due to the continuing development of technology.

Extract essay, Game of Thrones

For this component I got to play with an extract from the series Game of Thrones. After viewing the extract, I concluded that the theme the director wanted viewers to convey was the use of power and authority. How when you demand a better title, it is not simply given to you, you must earn it and justify your right to it. And once you have it, to try not to abuse it. 

The Theme starts off in the first scene by using a bird view shot and wide shots, to introduce the  location and scenery in which the actors are going into. For example this was on a boat in the middle of the ocean entering into a kingdom which was evidently not their own. During the scene the lighting is very low and dim, the scenery is kind of muddy looking, this gives the impression that the men are going on a long journey or coming home from something that may have been harsh. A crane shot of the statue also allows the viewers to know that they are definitely entering into someone else's territory. Several camera shots and angles are used, those of which once they get inside the bank, there is a long shot of the hall to demonstrate the static in the hall.  Lastly, closeups were being used to catch the reactions of the actors' faces in their very heated conversation. For example when the guy from the bank questions the lord of the 7 kingdoms ability to handle the valuable gold. 

While there wasn’t much music, mostly dialogue, which was vital in setting tone to the theme also gave the viewers what the main purpose of the extract was. The use of echoes in the bank is a good example. The uses of these in the first scene contribute to the theme of asserting your title for example some ambient sound of the seagulls as well as the men on the boat. This contributed to the facts that both of the men on the boat were in charge. 

The editing aspect also contributed greatly, for example the shot reverse shot of all the men talking showed us the quarrel between them was real. Also again the use of close ups highlighting emotion. The establishing shot of the opening scene when the men were entering under the statue shows they have reached their destination and are now entering into somewhere they seem as if they do not want to be. Moving along into costumes, contributed to the time era and maybe even location of the story line. The way the men were dressed versus the men on the boat shows the power difference in them. 

All in all these different shots and editing techniques allow us to draw the conclusion theme of power and who in the end will be the ultimate victor of it.

Creative Critical Reflection

                                         

                                         


The next three videos above are my CCR questions that I have answered based on this particular experience during the movie making process. The videos discuss the 4 questions at hand and I go into much depth on what it was like to film and the progress not only from just the movie film but as far back as our commercial. I hope these visuals really portray to you the big shift that I have faced/endured as an AICE MEdia student. including all of the things I have learned throughout the way. The experience in AICE Media for sure, kept me busy especially outside of school. At time it did become a lot but it was just one more thing that tested and pushed me to be a better film student.

Pool Day the Movie

    Above is our movie in which we were fortunate enough to shoot before the Coronavirus pandemic. While we did not get to shoot any re-shoots we were able to have good enough footage to put together and make a movie out of it. The whole experience has kind of been bitter sweet because we wanted to get some better shots and make our video about 15 seconds longer, but this is the final product. Pool day starting myself and Amelia. The challenge with this was, we were on edge on how to conclude our final genre since it no longer was a science fiction. We didn't know which genre it belonged too. We concluded that because it followed some conventions of a thriller that, thriller was the best suited genre category to allow our movie to fall under. On the plus side, we did not save anything to the school computers; so that did make it a plus on our behalf to be able to have our footage on our person. This allowed for us to edit a whole lot easier and actually have footage to present to you guys. The one thing I have learned from AICE Media through this worldwide crisis is to appreciate those in the film making industry because all of the things consumers don't see is what is make it or break it for a film. Also to learn how to be able to think on my feet a little more due to everything not going according to plan.

What About Your Friends Music Video

   Our music video was our next big project. With this film we saw so much more improvement with our film making and production skills for sure. We were more comfortable with using our shots and knowing what we wanted to go where. So basically backing up to the beginning of our process, our story-boarding, is hat helped us improve they way we filmed. A lot of setbacks were faced during this music video, I guess considering it wasn't filmed on campus, trying to get everyone together was super hard. I remember Amelia and I actually being there and Amina didn't show so we left and tried again the following week. We faced issues with the skate park we filmed at and it was just a lot going on. But in the end editing became so much easier although we did have trouble figuring out the sound situation. Our music video was inspired by our favorite girl group coming out of the 90's, TLC, so we had a lot of fun maybe too much fun filming this. All of the props were not accounted for came filming day so we did have to think quick on our feet if we wanted to film everything in that one day. We were also racing against the clock to finish shooting before the park closed.

Fright Night Event

  This was the very first video our group and I were assigned to film. We came up with the idea of filming at school during Fort Lauderdale High’s first ever fright night event. It was an event hosted by the class of 2021 that displayed haunted houses and lots of festivities during the week of Halloween for everyone. This was Amina's, Amelia's, Josh's, as well as my first time even picking up a camera to film something of that nature. We pretty much all had no idea what we were doing! I remember the day we filmed, none of us knew how to open up the tripod stance or how to even hook the camera up to it. Once filming was done, we then had to figure out how to work pinnacle studios to edit. But then we ran into several issues with that particular software so we did eventually move on to using IMovie. A software for any apple products. Everything was so much easier and convenient.