Group Blog

For my first project in A level media, we have to film a five minute short film. For partners, I chose Eva and Trent. I chose Eva because of her excellent editing skills. I chose trent because of his excellent acting skills. I have worked with Eva multiple times so I know what kind of quality content we can produce. Although I haven't worked with Trent, I have seen some of the films and videos he has acted and produced. We are also well acquainted outside of AICE media. Eva is not only a skillful editor, she is also great at cinematography and acting. I am unfamiliar with trent's skills outside of acting but knowing him, I am sure those skills are vast. I have seen trent's acting and I can truly say, it is something special. 

Overall, our group seems pretty solid. What we lack in numbers, we certainly make up for in skill.

Audience and Institution Essay

Trent Jacklich

Audience and Institution Essay

1.      Assess the importance of marketing in the media area you studied.

The Concept of marketing has been around much longer than the first commercially sold movie was made available to the masses. Before people reserved movie tickets in an online application with credit cards, film distribution can be first traced back to 1894, where the Holland brothers made a business by selling kinetoscopes and their short loops of film. Only the rich and businesses could afford to own these large floor bound boxes, but the first kinetoscope storefront that opened up in Manhattan amazed the public with this new innovation. However, while these first “movies” could be sold on the wonder alone, the present market is much more saturated and distributor companies do much more to make people see want to see their movie. Without marketing, people would not even know movies such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Black Panther, and Ugly Dolls.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 was the highly anticipated sequel to its predecessor, Guardians of the Galaxy. As a sequel to an already extremely high grossing movie, Vol. 2 was set up for success, however, this did not stop Disney from using cross platform promotion to advertise the film. Disney put in place many cross promotions, such as main characters on bags of Doritos, Action figures, and even Lego sets. A total of 15 companies were signed on a Disney advertisement campaign a large number even for 2017, the release date of Vol.2 . Even though the film had a large possible returning audience, Disney had a particularly vigorous marketing strategy, which lead to Vol. 2 having an international total box office outing of $863 million according to Variety, around $100 million more than its predecessor. This success shows the importance of marketing as Disney had much stronger and prominent advertisement with much stronger financial turnouts. I even remember looking down at some coke I was drinking and seeing the main characters face staring right back at me!

Black Panther released to theaters in 2018. While black panther did not have nearly as much physical promotions (although it still retained toys and collectables) Disney decided to promote Black Panther in a much less physical way: Music and events. Popular singer-songwriter Kendrick Lamar preformed a Song from the movie’s soundtrack at the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, this event was televised, showing this relatively niche superhero from the avengers comics series to a whole new audience. Even after the movie was released, the mixtape of soundtrack that was made available a month before the DVD release came to critical acclaim. This wide appeal could not and did not rely on past viewers of a predecessor movie; instead opting for a much wider appeal. This much wider appeal allowed black panther to transform from a once relatively niche superhero from the ever-dwindling medium of comic books to a household name.

On the opposite side of the spectrum of success the movie UglyDolls made less money than it cost to produce. UglyDolls, by comparison to the two previous movies discussed, had much less marketing and much less outreach. For one, UglyDolls had a horrible release time fighting with the always exciting new Avengers title (the finale no less!) and Detective Pikachu, both box-office hits. However, that factor is not the only or even the most contributing factor to UglyDolls Demise. A lack of major marketing without main children appeals such as toys or clothing made UglyDolls not stand out to its competition. The farthest Alibaba (The distributor) goes in reaching out to children Is An ice cream flavor at Coldstone creamery with exciting toppings and other food related Cross-promotions, strangely. While the cast is nothing short of star studded, with singers such as Kelly Clarkson and Blake Shelton, even this could not save the destined flop, as fans of these artist are above the age group that UglyDolls is obviously trying to appeal to. Without the Backbone of strong marketing and with an unsavory release time, UglyDolls was doomed from the start. Personally, I remember seeing the children’s menu at my local burger place and wondering what those multicolored blobs were. After looking it up, I realized that the movie had already flopped!

Marketing is such a prominent part of any product a company could sell. Without marketing, these movies could be the best piece of cinema that had ever existed, and no one would ever see them. But alas, a distributor must take care in its marketing strategy, as a horrible market strategy can make a once promising movie flop. Marketing will, and most likely always will be important to the general populaces enjoyment of cinema.

Aice Practice Exam

I believe the director was trying to convey the idea that these two were fighting for dominance. At first, the woman seems calm, glancing at the clock nonchalantly and talking to the man who entered the room in a calm tone. But after the man becomes more intense eventually becoming physical, the woman begins to seem more panicked but not before retorting, still believing that she had the upper hand with the document on the table. An example of this is how the man tosses the table, and the woman shrivels backwards, realizing that this man is unhinged.

                The first part of this scene is we immediately watch the man walk through the door with a very miffed expression. We get a shot-reverse shot of the woman and the man, the woman seeming confident while the man glances at the camera. This shows the audience that he is aware that they are not having a conversation in private, which make his actions later in the scene very unexpected. After a short stare down with no words exchanged, the man places a piece of paper on the desk. The woman glances down, and then looks up with a slight grin. This shows both the audience and the man that she is cocky, and believes that her plan is coming to fruition or rather things are going her way. The man then turns away and there is a jump cut to two people, a man and a woman looking at the room with concerned facial expressions. After the woman is done looking at the paper, she sits back in her chair and glances at the ticking clock. Finally, the silence is broken by the woman’s stern demands for a plane which is met by a retort which she ignores. Her ignoring his statements angers the man for one and frames the scene as her making demands, not an interrogation as the room would lead one to believe. After more verbal debate, the man says something that the woman thinks is an empty threat. Completely disregarding her situation, she tells him to “stop wasting time”. All of this is framed with shot reverse shots with each character making a retort to the last spoken statement much like a debate. The woman, not believing the man is making such rash decisions again responds in disbelief. This leads the man to walk closer to where the woman is sitting. Suddenly, his voice explodes, and he throws the table across the room. The woman, obviously not expecting this, tenses up. The power dynamic of the room shifts from the woman to the man, and the scene jump cuts to the people outside also tense, knowing that the safety of the woman is now much more unclear. The woman stays calm, and makes another threat. The camera zooms in to the man’s face, giving the feeling that he is holding back or thinking on what to do next. He also visibly begins to shake. After gathering his bearings, he sits down. Feeling safe again, the woman makes another snide remark and then smiles, causing the man to explode again, with a pan shot of him pushing the chair against the wall. A split screen is present here, showing the man’s coworkers rushing to the room and a close-up of the woman’s face. This is the first instance in this clip of the woman having any other obvious expression. Both the running and the intense music make the audience tense as well. Finally, the dynamic switches and the man is finally in control. The scene concludes with the main character being brought back to reality, by the coworkers voice.

                Every aspect of this scene lends to the idea that there was a power struggle in the interrogation. The actions of both the characters, the emotions, and the mans outbursts make an interesting and visually appealing scene.

               

CCR

I had lots of very good ideas for my CCR. The one I went with was the wackiest I had.  I knew I wanted it in a Talk show format, but I knew I wanted to do something different as well. I decided to shake up the normal by having the host as my dog. weird for sure, but it allowed me to only deal with one human actor, that being myself. I decided to have no visual aide because I feel like I do a very good job describing the programs we used. also, the sudden cuts to the dog sitting looking silly while the subtitles are showing that she is asking a very thoughtful question. I also thought to add laugh tracks when I said something funny, but I did not add too many, for two reasons. One, I did not want to overuse laugh tracks in a largely informative interview. Second, I was really not that funny. I spoke to a theoretical audience to further prove my point and failed to crack jokes. I added applause in the beginning to establish an audience. I had fun just talking about the film. before writing my script I was unsure that I could talk about it for so long. Now, I realize just how much I know about that movie! I could have removed some of my pauses, but I wanted the ecstatic character I was playing to have to stop and think, to give the impression that he was not rash and thinks before he speaks. After cutting out lots of footage, the final time was just over 10 minutes. I feel that this CCR Does its job adequately. I am going to miss editing. I really enjoyed this class. It opened my eyes and I met some new friends. I had ups and downs, but in the end, I really had fun.

Music Video

This is our second project of the year in our AICE Media Studies class. We first had trouble deciding a song that we could make a competent or at least funny video out of, but we found a very suitable one. Again, our storyboard artist did a great job of giving our whole group a great feeling on what we would do when we arrived at the beach. sadly, due to family circumstances, I was not able to attend the filming stage of our project. I felt bad about this, so I volunteered to edit. This was my first real dive into editing, and I enjoyed every second. I had a blast stringing videos together. Making the final cut perfect gave me lots of joy. The time given to complete the project was short, but my team made the most of it and we are overall very happy with this project. looking back, however, I wish I added many more visual effects to spice up the viewer's experience. maybe adding some artificial sun glare on the first viewing of the lobster, or a sound effect or two. The acting may have not been our best work, but we were inexperienced with non-dialog acting. Both of them do their best, and they serve their purpose. My favorite part about this film is the backdrop. the beaches are beautiful and make a superb atmosphere for this wacky beach story. The playground was also a happy accident, as my groupmates made the most of the slides. The props also were very important. instead of opting for a real lobster stuffed animal, we wanted the viewer to revel in the ridiculousness of the situation and instead opted for a crab with a lobster label. Even past some regrets, I am sure both I and my group are happy.

Commercial

This is the groups first project of our AICE Media course. despite it being our first, I am more than satisfied with the final product. there were lots of things working against us while filming this. First, we only had a total of 1 hour 45 minutes to film. that's it. along with being under the stress of time, we had our first exposure to the new camera, meaning we had to fiddle with the buttons to finally get our desired effect. another roadblock was the school computers. our school computers were simply ill-equipped to handle the software of choice. I remember it taking a substantial amount of time just to get the program up and running! not to mention the horrible lag that plagued our editing, further slowing down the process. I think what carries this commercial is the comedy and the acting. If one was to pause, they would notice the child farthest to the left is eating only a branch! the absurdist nature of this commercial makes it my second favorite project. I went all in, bringing costumes and props for the comedy. Our storyboard artist is very talented. He was able to give the whole group a great idea of how the final project would look. I would be willing to say that he was the foundation. This project served as a great intro to what we would be doing in the later stages of the class. Overall, this project both brought us closer as a group and established who is good with what job. Funny, too!

Original Movie

I had lots of fun through this whole project. This video is the last one we will make this year. Looking back on it, I am glad I took this class. I am also extremely happy with my group. at first, I was not sure how everything, and I mean "EVERYTHING" was going to go. I was pretty scared of acting and I was unsure that our group could make anything really special. But the state of this video should speak volumes on how we did. Everything has improved. The editing, the camerawork, the acting (if I do say so myself) has such a difference in the commercial we first filmed all those months ago. Our whole group was close at the beginning of this journey, but now we are even closer. we all had a hand in every aspect of this project. I now know how to edit competently. Editing competently has actually opened up a career in my eyes. It was tough, due to the looming threat of the coronavirus. Due to the virus, we could not meet physically for a long time. but thanks to technology we were able to fight through. I am happy about almost every aspect of the film. The music fits the scenes perfectly, thanks to my groupmates giving me good examples of tense music. The font strikes the eyes, Giving the viewer whiplash between that and the soft white background in the beginning. The visual editing gives the whole latter half of the movie a dark feel. Overall, I am extremely happy with the final project and would not have it any other way.