Figuring Out The Basics

Hey Blog!!! So I actually am enjoying this blogging thing. I feel that it really helps me display my thoughts in an organized manor. As we are getting closer to the due date for our portfolio projects the anxiety is becoming more and more intense. My group and I are actually starting to get more into depth of the plot and I am pretty excited.

Nawal and I are both very big fans of the show Black Mirror and as soon as we knew that we wanted our film opening to revolve around zodiac signs we knew we wanted our plot to resemble some of the elements used in Black Mirror. One of my favorite episodes of Black Mirror is episode 4 of season 4 "Hang the DJ". This episode is about people in a Utopian society where in order to find their ideal soulmate they have to go on dates with different individuals until they get paired up with their most compatible lover. Since Reem was the member of our group that hadn't seen the episode, we made her watch it so she could understand what we are kind of going for. Nawal and I really liked the concept of compatibility in this episode and thought it would be cool incorporate it into our film opening. We know that we want to create a Utopian society where people are compatible based off of their zodiacs. The idea is that every aspect of their lives will revolve around zodiac compatibility; all their friendships and intimate relationships are effected by their signs. A struggle we were working with was how we will make it known what each persons zodiac sign is. We decided that to show this we would do henna (like the image below) on our characters wrists with the zodiac sign. Another way we thought of portraying the zodiac signs is by placing an icon above the peoples heads, similar to how the game 'Sims' is.

We have have decided on is that since we are trying to   portray a Utopian society, we for sure want to film most of opening in Weston as it is a very clean cut city. In regards to the plot, we have a lot of ideas for our film opening but we are unsure as to how they are all going to come together without revealing way too much. We want to leave the audience wanting more. In one of our next classes we are going to do a group meeting which will hopefully give us some new ideas for how to develop our film opening. Keep reading my posts to find out what will happen next for us!

Until Next Time,
Shelby 😊🎤📽

Plot Lines and Zodiac Signs

Hey Blog! ITS PISCES SEASON!!!! Guess what that means? Its' almost my birthday. T-19 days until I am FINALLY going to be legal! I. AM. SO. EXCITED.

Speaking of zodiac signs..... we have decided that we want our plot to be a love story revolving around two people of compatible zodiac signs. Zodiac signs have always been something I've found interest in so I am actually really excited about using them in our film opening. Using the idea of zodiac signs was a collaborative idea. We knew that we wanted our film opening to be different and Reem was telling me a story about how she was at a sleepover looking at the stars with her friends and she saw all the constellations for zodiacs and I thought that was really cool. After mentioning this to me and knowing that we wanted our film to be a romance I came up with the idea of using the zodiac signs in our love story. The title of our film is going to be "How The Stars Align". So far we have a general idea of how we are going to go about presenting out film opening. We know that we want our story to revolve around two main characters (of different but compatible zodiac signs). When deciding this I automatically knew I wanted my friend, Vianna to play one of our main character because she loves zodiac signs and she was in my previous music video that I made with Reem. Reem and Nawal were all for this idea. We are bouncing back and forth a few ideas on who to have play our second main character but still haven't decided exactly who we want to use yet. However, we have brushed upon the idea of making the relationship in the story a homosexual one.
We have decided as a group that we want to use parallel editing to show both of main characters lives separately and by the end of the film opening have them bump into each other in an absurd way, ultimately showing "how the stars aligned" to make the two people meet. In order to show the characteristics of the zodiac signs within our character we are going to stereotypical traits of the signs when working on character development in our script. By doing so, we also hope that will show the idea of "how the stars align" for the two characters when it comes to their zodiac signs. I am super excited to see how our ideas progress as we continue to work on the opening and also for the outcome of our film opening.

Until next time,

Shelby 😊🎤📽

FINALLY Starting!

Hey Blog! I am so glad to announce that as we reach the end of February we are FINALLY starting our portfolio projects. I am extremely excited to be working with Reem again (#DynamicDuo), and Nawal. I have never worked with Nawal, so I can't say what it'll be like, but I have worked with Reem multiple times and I have to say It's really easy to work with her. This is SOLEly (inside joke)  based on the fact that Reem and I are both PERFECTIONISTS!!! We both have serious OCD and if things are not done exactly the way we plan then we always find a way to fix it. Because of this we both feel it is evident to have set steps to follow in regards to researching for our project:

1. Brainstorm Ideas
2. Research Our Story
3. Research Genre
4. Research Technical Aspects of Genre

We have narrowed down that we want our film opening to be revolving around the genre of romance, but we have not yet decided the plot or the sub-genre. Hopefully by my next blog I can let you know what our plot will be. The one thing that we have all agreed upon is that we definitely want our film opening to scream "different". We don't want it to be like anything that anyone in AICE Media Studies has ever created. Overall, I am excited to figure out what we come up with. Don't forget to keep reading my blog to get updates on our film opening's progression.

Until next time,

Shelby 😊🎤📽

Hey Blog! It's me again. So, a few updates on my life: 

1. States is coming up and I'm super excited!

2. Recently we had to do a music marketing project with a group for AICE Media Studies; I am actually super proud of the outcome of the project and the music video we made.  

3. I AM GOING TO BE 18 SOON WOOOHOOOOOO!!!!

  Okay back to the topic of this post sorry; On to the music marketing project summary....

Summary of Project

So basically the project was meant to show us how to properly create and market something. We were given songs to choose from, and after choosing a song we had to create a new artist and market them through a campaign and music video. The song my group chose was called, 'Mountain At My Gates', and it was originally by an English, indie rock group that goes by the name, 'Foals'. We changed the name of the band to S.O.L.E. (each letter represented a band members name- Sam, Ollie, Leo, and Ester). Mountain At My Gates was about being face to face with obstacles so we ended up deciding that we wanted our main character in our music video to be pregnant. We felt that this idea was good because we were discussing a topic that matched our target audience (ages 16-25).  After we chose a topic for our music video we were able to make it and do a photoshoot of the band for marketing purposes.  After making the video we started on the marketing side of our project.

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH OUR MUSIC VIDEO!!↓↓↓

Research and Marketing

When researching for our project we had to find information on our case study and develop a baseline for our target audience. Our case studies were 'The Black Keys' and 'Foals'. Both these groups are signed to Warner Bros Records and are Indie Rock bands. The Black Keys have been around longer and are a little older than Foals. However, Indie Rock bands target audience is typically 16 to 25 years old. After finding all the information necessary to create our actual project and after making the music video we we totally able to work on the marketing side of the project. One of my group members, Reem, made a website to advertise our band. Within the website there was different pages such as 'Meet The Band', 'Tour', and 'Merch'. Within the Meet The Band section there was made up information on each of our band members (its not very serious information, Reem made it kind of silly LOL). The 'Merch' was linked to a website with merchandise that I made such as:

                                                        

A Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed this project! It was a lot of fun making the video itself and I was super proud of the video we created. I feel the project helped me expand my knowledge on how to produce a video and to market not only the video but create a whole marketing campaign. I especially feel that the planning of the music video helped to advise me on how to better create my portfolio project in a more sufficient and timely manner. Along with this I also think that creating the video helped to get our creative juices flowing. I now feel ready and excited to create my portfolio project and I can't want to share my progress with you blog!

Until next time,

Shelby 😊🎤📽

More Pictures of the Band: