Genre Research: ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’

Genre Research: ' To all the boys i've loved before'

Common camera angles- 

Two shot is a very commonly used angle in this movie. Due to its focus on two main characters many scenes are a two shot of both characters whether kissing, fighting or just talking. Another commonly used angle was a closeup and medium close up. This was done to focus on the main character as a voice over was used to help us understand her emotions better.

Common Mis-en-scene-

setting: The setting in this movie was all pretty similar. The main ones were school (high school movie), Her house (where she talked about her feelings), and the field (where many big things happened to  Laura). These were done to have viewers feel as if they were apart of her life. Decor: Throughout the entire movie there is a common set of decor through each setting. In the houses there are bright (blue, yellow, green) pillows and pictures around the house. In the school bathrooms there are blue stalls and tile floors. This helped keep the mood light throughout the movie. Lighting: The lighting through the movie always seemed to be tinted a certain way. The colors seemed to pop and even pop in the way that the character was kept concentrated. This plays into the genre of the movie, the fact that its tv-14 and a drama/romance, the colors are kept illuminated to provide a positive tone. Costumes/makeup: The makeup of each character seems to be done. For Lauras best friend, her personality is very outgoing and witty and has makeup with many colors and an outfit that sticks out. For the boys, like peter, they have very calm personalities and their outfits are plain and simple, like black and white. This helped characterize each person in the movie and their role.

Common sound- 

The common sounds that we heard in this film, was voice over and type of music. For the voiceovers, it was for the main character Lara and was done to express her suppressed emotions that she could never say out loud. It gave viewers insight of what she was really feeling about the people around her. The other common sound was music. Throughout the whole film, the music being played was in the pop genre. It was light hearted music that kept the tone light yet still helped the audience focus on the plot of the story.

Common editing- 

There were many jump cuts in the movie to show passage of time. When traveling from school to her home or running from her home to the diner she goes to, they were cut short. There were also many shot reverse shots. During conversations, like Lara and Peter at the diner, instead of an over the shoulder scene, we see the shot constantly being switched back and forward to show the conversation progressing.

Elements-  

Some elements of this romance compared to the research in the genre romance are things like, the idea of a boy and a girl being together. In this movie the two main characters are the people in relationships. The other main aspect of a romance was the happy ending. In this movie Lara ended up being with the boy that she wanted and it justified the elements of romance.

Likes-

In the film, I really enjoyed the colors used throughout the movie. I feel as if there was a tint that almost made me feel as if I was in the actual movie, I could imagine myself in Laras situation as each scene was so detailed with props that were used to intentionally reach out to the audience.

Do NOT like-

Overall the film was done very smoothly. Not many things I would say that did not appeal to me but if I had to choose a category, I would say the editing could have made the film a bit more interesting. Since it is a teen film, the audience may have less of an attention span. There could always be that one cut, like an action match that would have the audience want to know what just happened.

Genre Research: 'Crazy Rich Asians'

Genre Research: 'Crazy Rich Asians'

Common CLAMPS:
CLAMPS stands for...

Camera angles:

• tilts
• pan
• track shots
• high angle
• low angle
• mid close up
• two shot
• three shot
• wide shots
• establishing shots

Lighting:

• it depended on what the director wanted the audience to feel
• with the sad moods the lighting was dark and or the color tone was muted
• the happy moments were bright and full with pastel and bright colors
• the lighting for the romantic scene highlighting the people the lighting was cast over

Acting:

• the acting for this movie was very good and showed lots of emotions
• the lead female was a strong character but sensitive on the inside
• the lead male was a very minor character in this and was oblivious to most things
• the lead males mother was a strong character that had lots of character development at the end
• the lead females best friend was the comic relief when the times were happy or confusing for the audience it provided the lead female with strength when she needed it

Makeup:

• for the main characters the makeup was at a minimum to show how they weren't fancy until they went to the party
• the females that were used to add tension in the story all were dressed really fancy with many props and flashy makeup

Props:

• there were a lot of props in this movie
• to the decor of the wedding
• to the food
• to the dresses
• to the peoples clothing and purses
• to the things in the houses
• to the dogs and the toys
• to the kids and their props
• to the jewelry
• to the things the lead females friend bought
• to the mahjong table and pieces
• to the helicopter and airplane
• etc...

Settings:

• london
• singapore
• new york
• Kuala Lumpur
• Langkawi
• Penang
• Malaysia
• the beach

Common Sound in the movies...

• there was many changes in sounds
• sound of the city
• sounds of the airport
• sounds of the music
• classical music
• chinese pop music
• voice overs

Common Editing in the movie...

• There were many inserts
• many jump cuts
• there was many different transitions

Elements of the Genre in the movie...

• the colors the director chose along with the lighting told the mood of the story quite well to the happy and bright colors to the dark and muted colors
• The settings were gorgeous
• london with muted colors for the past
• singapore with its bright and many colors showing the vast culture there
• the classroom showing a darker pallet showing incompleteness with being there from the perspective of the lead male character
• the mahjong table to show her sills and how she choose her paths wisely and not to play not to lose but to play to win.
• the camera angles showed the different characters personalities and styles throughout the movie. The lead character female has been shown with high angle shots at the beginning to show how she felt small with the male leads family but the angle changes when she decides to leave him for a bit and changes from a low angel to a straight ahead and mid to wide shots of her.

What Elements of the genre did the movie have that you like...

• I loved the wedding scene as a whole the beautiful music (voice-over), complimented the scene ,and what was going on throughout the whole piece.
• I was blown away at the care that the directors put in to make it look and feel like a real wedding.
• The props and all of the costumes and makeup was gorgeous.
• The settings the director choose made every element in the movie shine to the colors they choose to the way the scenes flowed together.

What elements of the genre did the movie have that do not appeal to you...

• I didn't like the MANY jump cuts and the constant use of inserts.
• For this genre and this movie I know they were just trying to appeal to the audience that watch chinese romance movies.
• Chinese romance movies have many inserts and jump cuts to see all the perspectives in a short amount of time while also giving the individual actor screen time but it was all to much.

Genre Research: 'Love, Simon'

 Genre Research: 'Love, Simon'

Deciding on romance, my group and I looked at four movies underneath the genre. Starting with Love, Simon, we chose a movie closer to our obscure image. Being LGBtT+ representative we thought it would be a good movie to examine. This movie is also labeled under the genre of drama.

Screen Behavior: followed the previously listed conventions for a romance film, featuring fades for the opening and exiting scenes, jumps cuts, wide shots, two shots, with close-ups, over the shoulder shots and included an aerial shot (or high angle). We saw many shot-reverse shots along with crossing to move along dialogue. The film also made use of inserts when the characters "texts" (really emails) came into play.

Sound: The film, for the most part, relies on diegetic sound, only using non-diegetic music when transitioning from one large plot tread to another, (In the entirety of the film, non-diegetic sound only appeared twice.) and voiceovers present to accompany inserts

Makeup: No over the top makeup was used, being kept at a minimum

Setting: High school, home, party, and fair 

Elements of the Genre: The story was fairly compelling, being that it was of two young men who had fallen in love without knowing one another. With a clear obstacle, the film seeks to resolve this a bring the lovers together in the end. The mood is set to be happy with moments of sadness to provoke the audience to root for the couple.

Mis-en-scene: The color blue, both in name and color, represented the second lover in the story and presented itself whenever a person would be assumed to be said person.

Missed elements of the Genre: Unlike most romantic films, we aren't truly introduced to the other half of the love story until the end. The story was written with an element of mystery, keeping the audience guessing along with the characters in the film. Along with that, this story was not the classic male and female love story the genre is used to seeing, and rightfully so due to its intention.

Elements of the film I liked: LGBT representation is big; going against the convention of the genre speaks volumes. I also admired the progression of the story and how the audience wasn't thrown into these characters but rather got to know them over the course of the movie until the reveal. 

Elements of the film I disliked: Even though it was intended I didn't like the selfishness of the story's perspective; it was isolated and limited to the one person instead of two, or less common for the genre none. 

Landing On Our Genre

Landing On Our Genre

After researching various genres, we finally decided on one. We plan to go with our second pitch and shoot a romantic film. We still liked our original pitch after researching so we will be implementing bits and pieces of the other two genres, making it a "romantic, crime drama.". We're not focusing so much on crime and drama per se, but where we envision the plot going includes areas of those two genres. That said we also plan on going against the larger conventions of the romantic genre. We are only considering labeling as "romantic" because it has to do with a couple.

Further Genre Research

Further Genre Research

For the two pitches we narrowed down, they would be considered "romantic" and dramatic". When researching we went through it with the same methodology as the powerpoint, looking at the convections of each genre as a whole. Between the two, a lot of commons were found since they are often used together.

Romance

Common Camera Behavior: high angels. low shots, medium to medium closeup shots, with some point of view shots, and many two shots 

Common Lighting: very bright and well-lit with of use of colors (tints)

Acting: encompasses and hinges on various emotions such as envy/ jealousy, happiness, sadness, and anger

Make-up: more often than not, makeup is little to none for casual look expect when the scene calls for more

Props: no real commonalities found within this genre expect for the arguably infamous book/paper fall with wedding attire, alters, and rings being a close second

Setting: most contemporary settings would be a highschool, seeing that there are many "teen-love" stories

Liked Elements: The pacing of a movie matters most to me, and I feel, within most romance movies, the pacing is executed quite nicely

Disliked Elements: Though classic, the Romeo and Juliet trope as been played over and over; with the lovers always having to overcome some major and unreasonable obstacle to be together

Drama

Common Camera Behavior: high shots. low shots, aerials, and over the shoulder shots 

Common Lighting: very bright and well-lit with of use of colors (tints) often changing to envoke responses from the audience

Acting: focuses on feelings and responses to different situations, often needing a cause-effect/ conflict, resolution styled story

Make-up: makeup is often used in turning points of movies when a character experiences growth (in the case of  drama, usually a female character)

Props: no common props found 

Setting: a wide range with no restrictions, however, scenes within dramas are often in walking distance of each to keep its fast-paced nature 

Liked Elements: a good back-and-forth relationship between characters can be refreshing; agreements, bickering, and so forth is a personal favorite

Disliked Elements: there usually is so much happening in a drama that the audience can get lost and swept up in sub-plots

Shared Commonalities

 Shared Camera Behavior: both use over the shoulder shots, high angles, isolated close-ups, tracking shots, zooms, pans, many establishing shots, two shots, and wide shots

Shared elements: extremely focused on character development,  and the relationship of characters...a female, male dynamic is most common in these genres with romance taking the higher occurrence of the two.

Shared editing: both make use of jump cuts, inserts, action, and eye-line matches, split screens, and fades. 

Shared sound: both favor diegetic sound, only sometimes exempting music when introducing a new scene, must of the time though, sound and music would be attached to cars, radios, or cellphones

Genre Research: Powerpoint

Genre Research: Powerpoint

 Our Group put together this little powerpoint for a research assignment. While we were discussing genre we looked into the commonalities or rather, conventions of the crime genre. We tried to look at the special and subtle differences and similarities that made up films we classified under "crime", focusing (as shown above) both on-screen and technical elements. We reviewed how the camera was used in these films and how what the audience saw, affected the mood. We took scenes of varies films to help illustrate certain aspects, like dimly light scenes.

Filming the Music Video

Filming

Over the weekend, me and group finally took the time to film for our project. Our main I guess ‘leader’ Emily was able to find us a really convenient location to film in. We ended up going to a middle school after our classes were over, since her mom works there and we were able to go inside and pretty much do whatever we needed to do. We all got together after school and had our older group member pull up in her car, so that we could just skip everything and go straight to the location. After all, some of us had to be home by certain times and it was already nearly 3 PM, so it was about time to just get things done. With a few... minor scares in traffic we managed to make it completely unscathed. We accidentally went through some random hallway instead of the actual main entrance since some kid let us in through the doors. Now that I think about it... that definitely isn’t safe. But all that really matters is that we got in. We immediately made way to the cafeteria, since the auditorium is really just a tiny black stage placed in the cafeteria.

Dance classes were about to pick up soon so we had to film really hastily. Me and the other actress, Andrea, had to basically put on these dresses that Emily had brought for us and somehow take off our original clothes from under them. She showed us them earlier that morning, probably like 5 of them so we were able to choose our favorites. We didn’t want to change in the bathrooms because public bathrooms are kind of nasty so we just went with the old fashioned way. Right after, we got up on stage and had Emily go through the storyboard to tell us what to do. We filmed the second shot, the slow dance, on that stage. We opened up by walking through the curtains and striking a little pose, before coming together to dance. Now I will admit, I do dance a lot in my free time but slow dancing just isn’t my strongest suit. If I end up looking really awkward in my footage, we all know why. We also filmed us running down the stairs on the side of the stage, making sure to have Andrea in front of me holding my hand to lead me forward. 

Once we were finished with the indoors part, we left our things inside and went out into something like a ‘commons’ area? Basically just trees and benches where kids probably hang out during passing time. We did a few takes of some random running shots, honestly not sure why but I haven’t looked at the storyboard in a while. It’s probably in there somewhere.. us frolicking in fields or something. We also did a cute little scene of us hiding behind a tree and smiling at each other when we come around, just basic things to go with the soft song. We moved to our final spot, a little nook type area that had small wooden benches and a chalkboard. The final takes were done there, of me and Andrea from behind holding hands. Also the shot of the sun that will eventually be in the film, and so on. We faked conversation for a lot of it since we didn’t need real dialogue for what we were planning. Once everything was done, we packed up our stuff and got picked up by our rides and went home. Anything we didn’t finish was eventually fixed up by Emily at her own house.