Characters and More Info

Welcome back to my blog! On the last post we last left off on the plot of my film opening and now I am going to go more into depth on the characters and what tools we are going to be using during this process. So to start off we have the two characters in the interrogation room, the gang leader and the detective. Nicole and I are still trying to figure out names for them but we know what they do. Now for the flashbacks that the leader is going to be having during the opening, we have a few characters. We have the original gang leader, an accomplice, and the victim (a possible lover for the leader). Throughout the blog you will see more development with the characters, but for right now we only have the main outline.

Now it’s time to talk about technology and other things that are going into the film opening! The camera that we are using to film it is the Nikon D3400 which is pictured below and we are also using my iphone 7 to take videos also. We found props to use for the opening like a fake vintage style black costume cigarette holder and some costumes at the thrift stores around town. For our setting, I have asked my mom if we can use the interrogation room at the police department since she works there. We are still waiting for an answer but if it does not work out then we can use my garage. Nicole and I plan on filming every weekend and during the week after school. That’s it for today! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates!

Lets Get Started!

A lot of thought and time has gone into what exactly we are doing for this film opening. For our genre, my partner and I were thinking about what we should go with. Do we go with Film Noir or Horror? Well… we chose neither. We decided to go with a crime/drama genre. Now, a lot of Film Noirs have crime and drama in it, but we do not want to go with the stereotypes that the genre possess. For example, Film Noir is in black and white, but we really want to use color like red to add intensity. But one thing that the genres do have in common is independent female leads. Film Noir is known for femme fatale. Femme fatale is an attractive and seductive woman who uses her looks to manipulate men and gain power and money. Now this sense sets up the entire plot for our opening.

What Nicole and I were thinking for our plot is to have a female gang. This gang would be set in the 1930’s or 40’s and their leader was caught for a crime. We want the opening scene to be an interrogation and while the detective is asking the leader questions, there are going to be flashbacks to the scene of the crime. Now the flash backs won’t have the actual crime being committed, the audience will only see small details that have to do with the questions. In my next posting I will go more into depth about the characters and what tools and equipment we will be using in the opening. Stay tuned!

Marketing Campaign

Hey guys! I’m back on the blog account to talk about my music marketing campaign that I did in class. It was a group project and in my group, I had my partner for this film opening, Nicole Alesso. For this project, we created a band based off of a song that our teacher sent us. Our song was called “Mountain at My Gates” and we chose to name our band Rock Nature. For our band, Rock Nature, we created an entire marketing campaign to try to convince our class to fund. We talked about the target audience, marketing, distributing, and we presented our music video.

We started off by getting to know the genre of the song we got and what other artists compare. The two bands that we decided to use were Death Cab For  Cutie and Arctic Monkeys. Nicole and I analyzed the two bands and looked into their target audience, their marketing plans, and their distributing methods. The two bands distributed their music through digital media like Spotify and Apple Music, so we decided to follow in their footsteps and distribute our music the same way. My group also realized that their websites are a big way to connect to their fans, so my band made sure to connect with their fans through their website.

For our marketing techniques, we made sure that our band's name was seen everywhere. We made merchandise and hung up fliers all over. We also created a website that allowed fans to connect with the band and listen to their music. On our website, we also announced tour dates and music releases. The band also had a very big Instagram account that had thousands of followers. Since our target audience was teens we knew that social media, especially Instagram, was a good way to market our information. Our band also had four pieces of merchandise that were being sold and we also did ticket bundles. When someone bought a ticket for one of our shows, they got 15% off a piece of merchandise. The link to our website is https://nicolealesso.wixsite.com/website and our pictures of our merchandise are found at the end of the post.

I learned a lot from this project and it really opened my eyes on how much artists and their management work to succeed with their music. The project was a huge process that was so fun and creative. I learned a lot about specifying your target audience and making sure you have the right marketing techniques. I also learned that working as a team really helps make the process a lot easier. But as long as you have one person by your side, then your work really pays off.