Research- The Hunger Games

To help me plan for my film project watching films of a similar genre is helpful. I watched The Hunger Games. This is a science fiction and dystopian society genre movie. While watching the first two minutes, it started with words describing the background of the hunger games and non-digetic music playing. It switched to a two-shot of characters talking on what seemed to be an interview talking about the games. An establishing shot was used next with text of "District 12". This showed trees and a forest landscape. A sound bridge was used with a scream into the next scene to introduce two new characters, Katniss and Primrose. An over the shoulder shot showed Katniss cradling her frightened sister. It was made clear that Primrose was awaken due to a nightmare. The films budget was 78 million US dollars. The profit made from the movie on opening week was over $286,384,032. No jobs were included at the beginning of the movie. The Hunger Games has been awarded with nominations ranging from MTV to People's Choice etc. It's most known being a golden globe for Best Original Song- Motion Picture. Watching this movie greatly helped with the planning of my own movie and gave me a better understanding of what to do.

Research- Black Mirror: Playtest (S2 EP3)

To better help my understanding of the film project I am watching films similar to my own genre. Black Mirror: Playtest is a short film from a Netflix original series. It is a simulation based episode which is similar to my chosen story line. The first two minutes of this film opened with the title of the film, Playtest written in a video game like font which shows a bit of what this film might have to do with. It then switches to a man packing items into a backpack. The mis-en-scene used lots of shadows in his house, especially over a family portrait while he is leaving. There was incidental music playing to create a somber eerie feeling throughout the whole time, and he is seen ignoring a call from his mother. Some editing included was a graphic match where the view from the car window matched with the exact view in the airplane window. There was little dialogue used and not a lot of the story has been told yet. No jobs were mentioned at the beginning of this film. The budget of this film series was around $2 million while they profited $40 million. This episode was nominated for a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) TV award for Best special, visual, and graphic effects. This episode helped me see a lot of different editing techniques I could use in my own film.

Project Selection-My Decision

The project I have chosen to do is the film project. I am very interested in making my own film and I believe I will enjoy and have more success with this project than the magazine project. The skills I have to complete this project are I have prior acting experience, and film and editing experience. These skills benefit me more in this project. Our film would be in the genre of science fiction because it incorporates the ideas of science and technology. This would be a fiction because of the unrealistic ideas that life is a simulation. I will be working in a group of three, Carl Fedora, Victor Garcia, and Katie Terres. Each of these members have the necessary skills that would benefit the creation of this project. Victor would contribute to the editing and filming of the movie. Carl would contribute to the filming by providing a camera and the necessary editing software for this film. Katie will provide the script and has previous acting skills that will help with this film. This project will take lots of time and effort but with the right skills and people, which I have, we will be able to get it done.

Project Selection-Film

The film project would be a very interesting project to do. Producing my own film greatly interested me about this project. The Newsroom, showed that with just bits of information gathered by the journalists, the producers were able to put together a great show. Being able to put together a movie from scratch would be a great experience. If I chose to do this specific project, a problem I might face might be disagreement among the group. If we could not all decide on a topic, it would be hard to make progress in the project. I would love to write a script, edit, and film my own movie. This project greatly interests me and I cannot wait to look more into it to discover more that I like about it.

Project Selection-Magazine

I am interested in doing the magazine project. The  aspect of print journalism that interested me are the gathering of information. When we watched, All the President's Men, I liked that they would get to go around interviewing all kinds of different people. The journalists in the movie were able to go to many different people and use what they said to make a great newspaper article. When we watched The Newsroom, I liked that they would all sit together going over ideas and working with each to make all their facts work together. The skills that I have that would make the magazine project a good fit for me would be my ability to  gather information and make a nice design layout for my magazine. I would enjoy designing a magazine  for people to view. Choosing a specific topic to write about would be a challenge for me when doing this specific project.