film(s) of sci-fi

Today with my partner, we've stumbled upon our final choice for our portfolio. We chose that we want to do the film in the Sci-Fi genre. Since I have this basic knowledge now, I felt it would be good to get a hard start review 5 different movies that share the same genre as my film to better see common Sci-Fi conventions being used and how they mix it in the film opening. I also felt it would be a great benefit to my group to research how openings are done themselves.

Importance of film openings

A film's opening is arguably the most important part of the film as it introduces us to the upcoming events. The opening is typically the first two minutes of the films screen-time. These two minutes aren't always action-packed however, it contains enough to keep of intrigued about the future events that were hinted towards. The opening of a film also sets the meaning and tone for the film. This is done by a combination of camera angles, camera shots, editing effects, and music to set this feeling. Whatever the genre might be, we can almost certainly tell through the introduction. However, they do this in a way where not too much is being revealed. This is done by only giving us minor hints for the true motives and plot points of the film. 

The five films

1: Godzilla vs Kong

The Godzilla vs king kong movie is a staple in the Sci-Fi community. The film opening contained many conventions that are true to the genre of sci-fi. The opening scene of this movie introduces us into a new world unlike any we are used to. Furthermore, our main character who we once viewed as an antagonist is now painted in a new light: He appears to be on the good side this time. Beyond all of the content aspects of the opening, it contained many Sci-Fi techniques to bring the genre truly to life. This included things such as even composition, advanced technology being normal and a plethora of other things. What truly brought this opening to life was it's use of close-ups to show the characters emotions and reactions to one another. The camera angles used in this opening also gave us a feel of the characters. Right off the start we can tell just how powerful Kong truly is compared to us mere small humans. The opening in a broad sense also followed another common convention: The day in the life. The day in the life is commonly used as it introduces us to the world that these characters reside in opposed to our world with a whole other set of rules.

You can view a full shot-by-shot analysis done by me here 

Sci-fi Research

                                              Sci-fi films

The sci-fi genre is a genre with a huge industry behind it. Sci-fi refers to science fiction. When you hear science fiction many things could come to mind, but commonly we think of things such as aliens, super technology, Frankenstein etc...

Conventions of Sci-fi

Sci-Fi has many conventions. Every little element of one Sci-fi film can be found in another. When we look at character conventions we see things like the mad scientist, the super genius and their technology alien life forms, robots etc.. Beyond this, we have common conventions that apply to the plots and themes themselves such as alien life visiting earth or even robot invasions. When looking at top science fiction movies we can almost find one of these conventions in them for sure. The way Sci-fi films are structured also follows a convention: Commonly, Sci-fi films almost always maintain a constant straight and balanced composition. 

Location of Sci-fi

Another common convention of Sci-fi is their settings. Commonly, we can films in this genre take place in a hyper-technological society that takes place far in the future, an example of this being the popular movie franchise Star wars with their advanced technology or other movies such as back to the future. Another common setting is a dystopian society, we sort of see this in movies such as the hunger games as well as their society that contains very advanced technology we would only see in the far off future.

Who watches Sci-fi films

The common audience for Sci-fi as not been officially documented however, surveys of readers and watchers shows that the difference in gender is rather balanced between male and females. Nevertheless, Sci-fi is made for all ages, we commonly see not only young men in the theaters for the newest addition in science fiction, but also people in middle ages such as 40's and above. This is largely due to the long history of science fiction as it was introduced in the early 1920's.

Titles of Sci-Fi

When looking at these films we can find something that is very common amongst them: The font.

When viewing the font it is very sharp yet sleek. It is not too big, yet it is also not too small to where we cannot see it. The most important thing to notice about all of these though is what they convey for instance, movies like "Guardians of the galaxy" that name immediately reveals what type of genre we are dealing with. Other movies such as "Age of extinction" though it is not as obvious as Guardians of the Galaxy, it still gives off that Sci-Fi hint with the word "extinction". When creating a title for a science fiction film it is important to give off the feel of the upcoming world we are about to experience. Additionally, the plot points are also involved from time to time, looking at the movie "The signal" it does not scream Sci-Fi, it lets us know that the movie is about some sort of signal.

Representation

When looking at the representation of characters in science fiction, we often see a non-minority male in the lead character position. As it stands however, movie companies are pushing to create more diverse worlds however when viewing most science fiction movies we commonly see a non-minority male in the lead position and women being in the position of side characters. Sci-fi can also represent the fears that we all have for the impending future such as a robot invasion or evil alien life etc.. On a positive note, it represents different social groups in a great light: Nerds. When we think of a Sci-Fi viewer we sometimes think of the nerdy type which can sometimes have a bad connotation. However a common convention of Sci-Fi is turning these "Nerds" in practically superhero's. In most Sci-Fi movies that have conflict we can count on a super smart character to find the solution even though its small, this has made a big change in our society making people wanna embrace that nerdy side in all of us.

Who we want to target with our personal film

When we look at all of this data as it refers to the demographic, we feel like its perfect. We simply wanna target people of all ages and gender simply to give them the experience of a new world and even a hint of mystery. When we think intended audience we think of the average joe simply looking for a cool movie to enjoy and cause the brain to think. We plan on getting people to watch our movie by it's mysterious nature with some mysteries not even answered in the movie itself. We feel like this fact alone could potentially make people flock to our movie to try to find these answers.

Sources

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-science-fiction-writing-definition-and-characteristics-of-science-fiction-literature#what-are-the-common-characteristics-of-science-fiction

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244018780946

https://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_film

Portfolio introduction

   

Finding our genre

Today in class (January 19th) my group partner and I came up with our idea for our film. Over the course of this week and last week we have been working on story pitches for our project. In total, each student is expected to have at least 5 story pitches. When looking at my pitches and my partners pitches, the genre that came up the most is Sci-Fi so, likewise that is the genre we decided upon. 

The film

The movie we are trying to create is a Sci-Fi movie that follows the life of a boy as he tries to prove the existence of alien life (Subject change). We felt this is a great topic to cover because a convention of Sci-fi film is alien life so we felt there would be a lot of prior resources to base our opening off of. Furthermore, we both loved the idea as it sort of follows the TV show that we all watched as kids: Gravity Falls.

 

What I think about the project

Personally I think the project itself is gonna be a lot of fun. Even though it may be fun, I feel like it will be a lot of work that me and my partner have to complete. As is stands it is just the two of us in a group whilst all of the other groups seemingly have an upwards of 4 people which leaves us with half the amount of arms and brains everyone else does. Nevertheless, I feel like my partner and I will have no problem managing.

 

What we want in the film

For the film, we want to follow common Sci-Fi conventions as it refers to content: Aliens, extraterrestrial lifeforms, mutants, super intelligent computers, robots etc... Beyond that however, we wanted to follow the common theme of meeting with alien life forms so we made this the made plot point. We also wanted to follow the common character traits such as the mad scientist (Which we plan on adding through his father).

 

The research 

When researching our genre we strictly analyzed movie openings as this is what we have to create for our portfolio project (a 2 minute opening). We analyzed many of the common films in the genre such as the Avengers films and other huge names in the sci fi industry such as ET.