AICE Media Studies Blog

          Wow so I'm shooting this week and honestly I don't know how I'm going to fit it in with my schedule but if I want to stay anywhere remotely on pace I'm gonna have to figure it out. Noah and I were talking about it and came up with a general idea for how we are planning on scheduling it but at this point in the year, its difficult to get even two or three people together after school so its going to be a little tricky to coordinate a shooting session, let alone an entire sequence of shots in various locations.           Our general plan right now is to shoot the urban scenes sometime this week, by going to the nearby movie theater (I outlined in an earlier post why this would be one of the best locations to shoot) with our friend and new cameraman. This would take place right after sunset when it starts to get dark, so we will have ideal lighting for the night scenes. One is...

          I've had a while now to come up with an image for this movie in my head but I still have this feeling that it will look way worse when I actually shoot. Even though that's probably true, focusing on mise-en-scene will probably really help the accuracy of the shots and the overall sequence fitting in line with the image I have for it.           Even though I've said some of this before, putting all of my mise-en-scene plans into one post will help me plan better for when I actually set it up and putting it into words might help me better display my specific idea for this. First of all, I want this film to look very dark, but with contrasting colors. In my mind, the lighting is slightly dark, but with deep shadows and contrasting bright lights. The setting is urban, but not a futuristic utopia, more like a city with a futuristic tone but a modern feel. The costuming is modern, wit...

          Acting seems to be what people always take away from a film after seeing it. Not necessarily the editing or cinematography, although those are very important, but the connections they make with the characters and the actors/actresses that play them is what forms a memorable movie for the audience. This is based mostly on my own experiences because that's the most memorable part for me: the characters. And if an actor gives a great performance, it makes it that much more memorable.           Because of that, I want to take extra care and thought about who is going to act in this movie, because it will be one of the most important parts for the audience. If I'm really being honest though, it's probably gonna end up being Noah and I. We are planning on just filming each other for the solo scenes and having one of our friends be the cameraman if we need to shoot a scene with both of us in it at the same time. This is defi...

          As I'm just starting pre-production, one of the first things that I was thinking about was where exactly I was going to shoot the film. I need to find somewhere local that I could easily access, but also somewhere that would fit in with the theme of my film. Another issue that comes up is who will act in the film, whether it be myself or an outside source.           For the location, the original idea was to get a location mostly urban, to keep with the futuristic theme, but also one with colorful lighting that wouldn't make it seem overly dark and would give the setting some contrast. Our first idea for this was the local movie theater, which is at a location that is just what we had in mind: a mostly urban setting with neon lighting and somewhat populated. We chose this both because it would give the film a really awesome aesthetic, but also because..... we don't have the money to make a huge set or use any sort of CGI ...

          Now that I've finally finished the research and financing stages and am planning to go into pre-production, I can't keep from thinking about one thing: this is going to be a mess. I know I should be positive about it and optimistic of the experience, but honestly I can't do it. I can't help from thinking of all the ways that this project could fall apart or simply not be appealing or entertaining to anyone even if we do pull it off. Not all is lost, though. Just a brief look at the film industry showed me that sometimes even the greatest films ever seemed like a dumpster fire during production.           One very popular example in Sci-Fi specifically is Blade Runner , which, when I looked more into it, is one of the greatest examples of a disaster production scenario (in this case, multiple disaster scenarios) becoming a legendary film. In fact, the horrible production scenario became so infamous that multiple documentar...

     As I've said before, I'm working on a near non-existent budget for this thing so Noah and I were brainstorming ways that we could attain funding if we were to actually make a full length film as an extension of our short excerpt, since we're broke and don't have thousands of dollars to make something like this. We were researching different methods, each with different pros and cons to them that we noticed.      For example, one way that we noticed was crowd funding. It sounds sketchy but has actually raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for some films. We want to make this film appeal to not just Sci-Fi fans, but fans of a great film story and design. If our idea sounds pleasing to the people, we get instant cash to finance our vision. This is an easy, direct way to obtain funding, put could be problematic if the film doesn't succeed and we are left with a bunch of frustrated people who felt like they wasted their money and got nothing in retur...

     I've been planning what my general script and plot is going to look like, which at this point is obviously a rough outline of what it might look like when I actually film. One other thing I've been considering is the goal or mission statement that I want my film to follow. This is present in some films, and I feel like it would be good to add since it is a clear outline of how the film should turn out and how it should seek to interact with the audience.      For the mission statement, I'm not really thinking of anything specific, but something along the lines of aiming to affect the audience in a way that shocks them and get them thinking about our theme, how technology could negatively affect us in the future, long after the credits roll. If I follow this line well, I feel like I will be more focused and more on topic, and the film overall will be better quality and more aligned with my vision and mission.      I'm working with...

     At this point in the project I am considering the production and distribution aspects of my film. Even though this is a student made film and I'm not actually paying anyone for this or producing or distributing it, it's still interesting to see what strategies I would utilize in doing so for real.      As for the production aspect, I was researching different companies that produce low budget sci fi films, but sci fi is a genre where it is very hard for a low budget film to succeed, and it was hard to find any companies that actually specifically produce films for a low budget in that genre. However, I would use a small independent production company in order to minimize costs and match the small scale of my film. Working with an independent company would also give me a lot more creative freedom and I wouldn't be limited as much as if I worked with a large corporate controlling company. An interesting one I found was Vibrant Media Product...

     Our film is going to be extremely low budget, and is somewhat misplaced among the big blockbusters that take millions to compile a futuristic setting, hire a star cast, and more large aspects that would be impossible with our budget, which is close to $0.      I found some interesting advice for low budget movies while researching, though, and I think some aspects would be beneficial to my film. One interesting tip is that "Some 'niche' audiences are large enough to make for a very profitable market, if you can reach them". This is something I will take into consideration when planning, because niche audiences can in some cases make the movie a profit, even if it is very low budget. However I'm probably going to focus on the second piece of advice: "If you're aiming for a more general audience, quality matters. A lot. " I feel like this is how a lot of low budget Sci-Fi films become successful, and a shining example of this is Primer. ...

          My film's audience is obviously the people I want to impress and leave a good impression on. In order to do that, I have to understand what they find to be good or bad in a movie, specifically a Sci-Fi film, and what changes I should make to reflect that. Being a Sci-Fi fan myself, I know what I want in a film of that nature, so that helps me in the design of it, but I still need to get a larger outside idea of what the larger community as a whole wants and doesn't want in a film.           One source I was looking at was denofgeek.com, which has a really great article on why people adore the sci-fi genre so much. One way is that although it is set in a fictional setting, the plot twists are very realistic and the films almost never have a truly "happy ending". This keeps the audience guessing and engrossed in the plot, and is something I will consider when writing the ending/plot twists for my film. Another reason is that...

         I'm finding in my research that the truly great science fiction movies almost always have captivating and creative openings sequences, because that seems to be one of the most important things for a movie: a solid first impression. Captivating the audience and giving them a positive first opinion right when the film starts is huge, and this is clearly evident in what is considered to be one of the best opening sequences of all time, the scene from the original Star Wars.       Every second of this 7 minute scene is amazing. It starts out with the famous yellow text crawl to set the exposition, with the awesome theme music playing in the background. It then shows a giant star destroyer chasing a tiny cruiser, firing the laser cannons directly at it, with special effects that were years ahead of its time. Then, in the interior of the ship, the scene builds a lot of tension and suspense as the rebel soldiers await the imperial in...

     I'm taking a closer look at how Sc-Fi movies specifically represent different groups of age, gender, race, etc. so that I will correctly represent them in mine. One specific example is from X2 , the X-Men sequel. The plot is that the mutants are being oppressed and their rights are being revoked by society, and one mutant leader, Professor X, wants to solve it through peace, but the enemy mutant leader, Magneto, wants to end the oppression through violence. This is obviously similar to the civil rights movement and shows how one type of representation in film serves to represent not the diversity of the actors, but the plot represents important moments in history for certain groups. This is also seen in historical fiction movies, or "based on a true story" movies, but in Sci-Fi specifically, it is usually the plot element of history repeating itself in a different form.      As for the most commonly analyzed type of media representation, the diver...

     Pretty much all of the Sci-Fi credits/titles that I looked at had black backgrounds, which is common in all movies, but especially in Sci-Fi. As for the fonts, they vary by the style of movie, but they are very different from other genres. For example, horror movies have messy, red font, while Sci-Fi has large, defined, and in most cases, square and uniform lettering. Of course, it depends on the type of movie, as some more futuristic, positively toned movies have more colorful, curved fonts like Tron: Legacy or Star Wars . The more realistic dystopian films like The Terminator and Alien have simple, monochrome, black and white, blocky font that keeps with the nature of realism set in the films. Obviously this doesn't apply to all movies in the genre, but its a good reference to base the title/credits of my movie off of. Some titles incorporate the type of technology that is shown in the film. In the Tron Legacy picture, the light blue color reflects the c...

      A key aspect of the film that we definitely need to get right is who the characters will be and how they will be shown, represented, and how they will contribute to the story. I've noticed that the Sci-Fi genre has an extremely wide range of characters that you can use and make your own. Heroes (Luke Skywalker), villains (Darth Vader), monsters (Xenomorphs), anti-heroes (Han Solo), comedic characters (Jar Jar Binks, who we are definitely not going to use or base any aspect of our movie off of), experimental scientists (Doc Brown, and that one shady scientist from Jurassic Park), law enforcers (Robocop), captains (Kirk, Piccard), and many other character types that we could use and make our own unique character.           However, we want our film to have a dark tone, so the character type specifically that we might use are anti-heroes, characters who might not be on a good side or a bad side, and they exist in a grey area of morali...