Shot List

#1: Fade away from black into his face; close up; low key lighting

#2: Slow zoom out from face to show him eating breakfast; audio of arguing from parents intensifies from muffled to shouting. Asynchronous sound.
#3: When zoomed out, parents are seen screaming in left third of the screen; wide shot
#4: Mom leaves screen as dad is screaming and slams the door shut and what follows is silence; pan shot.
#5: Zoom in of kid's spoon dropping onto the table; Close-up shot.
#6: He leaves the table in a mid pan shot.

#7: NEXT SCENE BEGINS; long shot of bus arriving.
#8: Wide shot of bus doors in middle third opening, only to show boy standing outside, looking dejected.
#9: Wide shot from middle of the bus showing him as he walks up the steps. 

#10: Close up shot of his eyes looking for seats.
#11: Mid shot of him taking a seat.

#12: Over the shoulder shot of him putting headphones on and choosing music.
#13: Medium shot of him looking through the bus window as he listens to sad music.
#14: Pov landscape shot.
#15: Long Shot from behind the bus as it's driving,
#16: Tilt down from sky to bus as it's arriving and making a full stop; long shot; sound of bus stopping is heard even though it's far away and a long shot.
#17: Wide shot of bus as it starts again and leaves the frame, but the boy is seen in the middle third.
#18: Close up shot of his sad, tired face looking down as he looks at the school. As he blinks, the screen cuts to black for a second. 

#19: Boy is back on the screen in a tight close up, just as he was in the previous shot and opens his eyes representing a blink.
#20: Slow zoom out of his face as the bell rings and everyone gets out. He stays there for a bit longer. This shows how emotionless and tired he is.
#21: He gets up and walks out the door in a tracking pan shot.
#22: A girl bumps into him as he's exiting the door in a wide shot.

#23: Both of them start apologizing.
#24: She says,' do I know you?' and he responds with," no, I don't think so" in a shot countershot
#25: She then replies," maybe i should..."
#26: He stutters out," I mean..."

#27: She starts walking away and doesn't look back
#28: His face turns into a smile in a tight, close up shot.
#29: He gets on the bus and starts his ride home. Shots similar to beginning ones.
#30: He begins to reminisce about the girl as the scene fades to black; Medium shot. 

Change of Plans

        After discussing my idea regarding the schizophrenic man who falls in love with his hallucination, my teacher recommended I choose a different path. After pointing out various flaws, she told me something that stuck with me... I need to choose something more simple. After doing some thinking, I thought to myself, "I should create the story of a troubled male who falls in love with a female and makes his life better." Once I discussed the new idea with my teacher, she said it was much better and just needed some elaborating. This idea stuck into my brain and I started to think of ways to show how he's troubled. After long consideration, I decided to make the root of his problems his home life, more specifically his parents arguing. This can be shown by starting the scene off with a tight close shot of his face as he's sitting down eating breakfast. As the camera slowly zooms out from his face,
the sound transitions from the sound of him eating cereal, to the sound of his parents arguing (and possibly some thudding occuring). This theme will then be continued throughout his morning routine as he goes to school, but he will not react to it too much to show how this is a common process that occurs. When he goes to school, he will be going about his day and accidentally bumps into a girl in the hallway.  This encounter will be short but sweet and encompass a bit of shy flirting. This will also be the first time he smiles in the film opening. As he takes his bus home from school in the last scene, he'll remember her voice and it'll almost show the audience his thoughts by listening to her audio from the encounter on repeat. 

Main Characters

       Due to the eerie nature of the film, I want the main characters to be displayed as naturally strange characters. The woman shall be named Lucy and the man will be named Amon. Ways I can do this is by using a variety of mise en scene elements such as goth costume design for the characters. This would help the audience differentiate them from the rest of daily life. To add to this, I want the set design to be very bright towards the beginning and then have a subtle shift to darker hues once he meets her. This would help the audience understand her aura more. 

Scheduling

          To kick off my scheduling technique, I have created a planner for myself to stay on track. This works weekly and can vary on day but objectives must be completed within the time frame. I have already done a storyboard and have my ideas for shooting. It will soon be prime time to shoot. I chose the week of the 23 to the 29 to elaborate on my ideas and get everything in check. The next week, I will focus on music choice and possible mise en scene elements.. This comes with various permissions I would need to obtain. The next week will be used to film the opening. My filming dates  Finally, the two weeks after that will be left to editing. The last week will be used to revise errors and make any changes if needed. I will also write the Creative Critical Reflection.

The Start of an Idea...

        I have spent the past few nights brainstorming, trying to find a plot for the film opening to be based upon. Yesterday, I finally figured out what to base my plot upon. I want my film to be about a man going through a series of schizophrenic episodes in which he meets the love of his life. Every once in a while, she disappears and he gets upset. This idea serves as the basis for my film and the introduction. For the two main actors, I already have two people up to the job. Along with this, the audiences interpretation of the man having schizophrenic can be aided by using frantic editing to further progress the idea that he's crazy. 

Romantic Film Openings

        Since I made the choice of using Romance as my genre, I decided to compile a list of the top ten romantic film openings. These openings combine various techniques such as color hues, music choice, camera/ editing types, and many others.

The Notebook

   
        In this film, the most important technique is the use of color hues to emphasize the tone of the story. The color red is a color meant to be one of love, passion, and desire. The scene contains various extreme long shots and establishing shots. I love this scene, not only for its aesthetics, but for its relaxingly slow romantic music. The sound used starts off with non diegetic music, but this slowly fades away as the the scene ends. The opening of the film ties into the perspective of one of the main characters, 'Susan' by showing her perspective of the outside world, but then brings the audience back to reality calmly. This was a very nice touch.

500 Days of Summer

        In this film opening, there is a narrating voice telling the audience the background story of the two main characters. This provides more insight into what will happen in the story. At the end of the narration, the audio switches to a song while credits are shown alongside old videos of the main characters as they grew up. These videos provide the audience insight as to how the characters act and creates a sense of joy. This matches the theme of the music. This perfect combination shows how important music is in the romance genre.

Romance

I have chose the route of romance for my genre choice. According to Screencraft, one of the most important guidelines is to show development of character. This helps the audience relate more to the film and have a better viewing experience. Along with this, I must build a plot for them to follow, simple enough for the audience to enjoy it, yet complex enough for it to be enticing. Along with this, I must include conflict, the heart of merely all romantic movies. The last essential element to this genre is song choice. In a film such as 'A Star Is Born', the songs that were played served to emphasize the storytelling through both lyrics and tone in the song. While some moments were filled with happiness, others were filled with sadness. Since the music choice for this project is going to be important, I will start searching for possible song choices and ask for permission. One song I love that I am going to try to ask permission for is a song called Desafinado by Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto. The song is a very romantic song in its native tongue and will add an amazing touch.  

Music Marketing

        Alternative rock is a genre of music with the highest demographic being male, age 15-25 years old. Though the genre hit its peak in the 1980's - 90's... music within this genre is still very prominent today. 

        A very important aspect of marketing often used within this genre is social media. Living in the digital age, not only does this help get word out to fans worldwide, but it also helps artists communicate in a more intimate manner. The band Coldplay used a very clever strategy to spread the word of their latest tour by creating Facebook events of all their tour dates around the world, their fans would see this on their feeds and it would line up hundreds of thousands of fans for a ticket, sharing their excitement.

        Websites also serve as a gateway for artists to share their music, tour dates, merchandise, and can even serve as a place where fans can ask questions in a small forum and these can be answered by the band. This would show a more authentic approach which is a very common theme seen in artists from this genre such as Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. I chose to incorporate these ideas into the website for my artist: Sam Fulton.

        I chose to develop the brand of my artist, Sam Fulton, through social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. By being persistently active on social media, this helps us interact with Fulton's fanbase. All of this adds up to create an intimate, connected feel that we want our fans to feel. Since his demographic is very centered around college students, shows in college campuses would help grow our fanbase and help reach new audiences due to the large population at campuses. Another important aspect is the use of collaborations with other artists such as Shinedown. 

        Here are some products created to further the marketing of Sam Fulton.

        Throughout the course of the whole production and development of the marketing campaign, I learned that in order to advertise something well... it was evident that all decisions must be made for a reason. While having a website may work well for one genre, it may not work too well for others. Another thing I learned at was that everything must always be tailored towards the demographic that is being marketed to. This influenced countless decisions, such as price of merchandise and tickets, locations of venues performed at, types of social media platforms to use, and various others. I also learned through research how important it was and how much of a difference it made to have communication with your audience. This was a key factor throughout our marketing campaign.