Final Production Film Opening

 After these long few weeks, we have finally completed our film opening. This process has been a huge learning experience for everyone in the group and I can proudly say we all grew together when creating this film.

Final production CCR

 As the project comes to a close this week, I look back and reflect on the entire process of creating our film from start to finish.

Post-Production

 This week is the final week before spring break as well as the last week to wrap everything for our portfolio project. With this in mind, this week has been spent revising and editing our film to its final form.

How we used editing

We used editing in our film to create meaning and intensity by the use of fast cuts and transitions. By quickly cutting between scenes a feeling of rush and intensity is added. This complements the other meanings already established by the other elements of the film.

The process of editing originally started off rough. We were first instructed to use Adobe premiere pro, however, the computers were experiencing issues that did not allow the students onto the software (still unknown) which resulted in the class having to switch to WeVideo. Normally, Wevideo would be fine as it is very user-friendly, though it does not have all the tools Adobe has and even contains a watermark. Luckily for us, our wonderful teacher bought a subscription that thwarted all of this. Through this, I learned that WeVideo is actually a decently good editor when you have the paid version. I also learned that doing voice-overs is way harder than expected and takes many tries to perfect. Luckily for us, WeVideo was very user-friendly so we did not have to consult any type of youtube tutorials to achieve what we wanted.

Following convention

The mani convention we followed in our film was definitely the title. Conventionally in Sci-fi films, titles are short and or point to the main event in the movie.

As you can see here all these titles are short (1-3 words) and they all talk about what the film is dealing with. For us, we named our film "His Journal" because our film is centered around a journal.

What we added

Through editing, we added a plethora of transitions, effects, and credits in our film. Firstly we added the transitions (such as fade out and quick cuts) to give the film a feeling of intensity and we added the credits slowly using fade-ins at the start to slowly introduce all the people that worked hard on our film.

Sound has also been a rather long and interesting process as we had to add a voice-over to our film. The way we accomplished this was I recorded myself saying all the lines then we imported it into the editing software and made cuts to put the audio into the correct spots where the dialogue was needed.

Colors

The overall color of our film (in reference to filters) was simple. We never had to add any filters into our shots because all of our filming was done at the same time of the day resulting in the background staying consistent so no corrections had to be made. Also, we never had any flashbacks or such in our film so that is also another reason why we did not need any filters and kept the lighting consistent.

Revisions

One of the biggest changes we had to make was taking out some shots as our film originally exceeded the 2-minute mark. Luckily the short below was rather useless in comparison to the rest of the shots we had.

How I feel about the project personally

Overall, I feel the process of editing was fun, however, it had its setbacks. The first setback was definitely the first day of editing in class where I had to constantly change computers attempting to find a computer that worked with the software just for the teacher to say not to use the software at the end of class. This was only a temporary problem so I believe we should switch over to the more lighthearted moments.

In my opinion, the best moments of editing were going back and looking at the clips unedited and having to cut out the endings because almost all the endings our actor would make weird faces or laugh.

For example:

Filming production

 The last week and half of our class time have been spent filming our pre-planned shots that we completed a few weeks ago. Normally, this process would be simple: Go in, film, and leave. However, things proved to be rather challenging not only for me but for my group as well.

The technical side of filming

The filming stage was rather different from the typical convention for technology as when you think of film production you think of big high-tech cameras and lights. However, my group used our cellphones because some of the shots we had to do were rather risky for a big camera such as the running shots and especially the stare case shot that required the phone to be held over a drop of at least 30 feet. The cellphone in question that we used was an iPhone XR.

Through this, I feel that my group both learned that incorporating lighting in a shot can be extremely tedious.

I feel like this picture in particular shows this the best as the tedious light above that door created so much glare onto the camera and we had to adapt accordingly since we are filming in our school and we do not have control over the lights or anything like that.

Luckily for my group, we are all well-experienced in filming with a camera and also our telephones due to the plethora of filming projects we were assigned throughout our time in Media Studies.

All of our shots were original and were created following standard convention for most films, we did not really take any ideas from films as far as our shots were concerned. We wanted to be original but also be normal and not too over the top.

Hardship

To talk about our experience and the great challenge we had ahead of us, I need to take you back two weeks to the 28th of  February when I seen this.

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This became an immediate problem as in every written and verbal plan for filming I was the main role playing Darren. Normally, this would be no problem we simply put off shooting until I'm better; however, this project is time-sensitive and we MUST use the time allowed for filming, no more no less. So as a quick solution we had to use one of our group members (Kendrick) who was expected to be the cameraman, now turn into the main actor. Though this is a major problem concerning the filming this wasn't the only difficulty we faced on the way.

I'd say the biggest problem for me was not being in school to help out, there was very little I was able to do as I was extremely sick to the point where I was almost bed-written so it became extremely hard to collaborate with the group. Nevertheless, under no circumstance would I want to become dead-weight so I compensated why overviewing all the shots and I would commonly set alarms to wake up during the time we would be in class so I could speak to my members through text so I was still caught up in the loop. In addition, I also picked up the role of doing voiceovers for all the shots and dealing with the sound in order to make up for my absence.

The good ending

Though all of this sounds extremely negative, there was still lots of good in it. These were found in the form of viewing all of my group members having fun with filming. I'd say the funniest part was waking up to seeing at least 20 videos being sent to me via text message of all the shots that were taken that day and you could hear the laughter of everyone as they were filming. Even though I wasn't there to experience, I know everyone had fun as did I looking back on these shots. Unfortunately, these videos are no longer available as they were all deleted as we prepare all of our final sots for the editing section of our project.

Case study

     A big part of creating a film is looking at the process of others. As some may say, "Don't reinvent the wheel". With this being said, a part of our blog post requirements for this week is to conduct a case study on a movie in a genre. I find this essential in really grasping the process on how the movie process is done. This is also great for me personally as the movie I will be doing was done by a large studio which I was considering choosing in the imaginative thought that we were seriously creating a full film at a high level.

                      Godzilla vs. Kong

History/Target audience

The history of this concept of these two iconic Kaiju's battling it out is not one of recent. In fact, we have seen this before in the 1962 film "King Kong vs. Godzilla". This film is not as commonly known as other films in the franchise as this was originally released in Japan by Toho Co. This movie also appeared in the U.S in New York City in 1963. Overall, this film is largely unknown in the mainstream world today when someone brings up Godzilla vs kong they are not talking about the old "King Kong vs. Godzilla" of the '60s. Though this idea has been done before, the target audience for this film was not exactly for the die-hards of the franchise wanting to see the battle redone with today's technology in fact, this film gained centered its hype around the move of "Kong: Skull Island" from universal studios to the Warner Bro's studio worked as a catalyst for fans all around the world to speculate we might see these two large beasts duke it out. Once Legendary confirmed the film to be true, they set out a release date of late May 2020.

Production

The production of this film was very long and complex as most major films are today. Before we get into production it is important to note who called the shots in this ordeal. Adam Wingard who is well-known in the film direction and production industry was named announced as the director of the film in May of 2017. As stated in interviews, Adam jumped at the idea almost instantly as he felt it would be amazing to be the filmmaker that would answer the half-century question of "who would win". Beyond this, when creating a film you need it to be financed and g' did this film have a lot of it. Legendary financed the film with about 120 million dollars which were also supported with 40 billion dollars from Warner Bros. Studio.

Writing

Just like the director of the film,  the writing team was also assembled in March of 2017. The writing process was different from most as there was a lot of fun transpiring inside the studio. All the writers it seemed are long-time fans of the franchise and have done work in the past with these monsters so it was refreshing to take a stance. Interviews of different writers and other people in the production process all allude to the fact that they want there to be a definitive winner of the battle between these two. Moving past this, the first greenlit idea was the overall idea and framework for the film (this comes before the script itself) done by Terry Rossio (Co-writer of a previous Godzilla film). Members of the writing team all found it important to include elements from many films in the franchise to keep it consistent with the story we are all used to. In fact, the script was redone a few times by Michael Dougherty (director of Godzilla King of the monsters) to make sure that the film still carried themes established in previous movies. An example of this in fact would be Kong's relationship with people, as in previous movies he was never depicted as a monster who just attacks everything he sees; they wanted to keep this idea alive.

Casting

The overall casting was rather normal, starting off in the middle of 2017 announcing that Zhang Ziyi is joining the film. As for the rest of the actors, it appears that they went after experienced actors (though not all).  FUN FACT: The popular youtube personality, James Rolfe was actually offered a spot in the film however could not attend due to personal issues.

Filming and Post-production

Filming overall took place in early November 2018. The film took place in Australia, Hong Kong, and Hawaii in numerous locations for each. Filming was done in these real locations largely because Wingward wanted to show scale as best as he could. There was a vast abundance of footage that was filmed so much in fact, Adam Wingard revealed that there is actually 5 hours worth of footage (of course a majority of this was cut in the final leaving the film at an hour and 53 minutes). The Post-production was very interesting as Godzilla vs. Kong contained a lot of CGI. So much work had to be done in post-production in fact, three companies were hired to work on the effects (Moving Picture Company, Weta Digital, and Scanline). 

Distribution

The overall release of this film was internationally (March 24th, 2021). The United States released the film shortly after this on March 31st, in theaters and also on streaming services like HBO Max. Unfortunately, the film's release in Japan was delayed due to covid and didn't hit the theaters there until July 2nd, 2021. Because of the effects of Covid on movie theaters, the release of this movie was rather hard so the company had to find alternatives in the form of streaming services, however, they didn't want to fo allow this route and it is rumored by many that Netflix offered hundreds of millions to have the movie on their platform. To add to this, the release on HBO Max only granted one month of access to the film from the streaming service. Fun fact: There was internal term-oil due to Lengendary entertainment feeling as if Warner Bro's was not transparent with their plans on release and even legal actions were largely considered.

Marketing

The marketing for this film was majorly done online via interviews and such, however, beyond that clips were previewed at 2020's Comic-Con. Furthermore, we saw different marketing in January in the form of a Twitter post by the account "GodzillaVsKong" (this was also the marketing agency known as BOND). Essentially, many online posters were teased and shown throughout the months up until release. I.E 

Finally, we got the first trailer at the end of January.

Cross-media coverage and synergy

As far as this goes, different deals were signed by Warner Bros. to further push the popularity of this movie, an example of this being the signing with an exhibition company "Cineworld" that would the film the first thing to be showing in its reopening. The film also saw a few sponsorships: Snickers, Youtube, Roblox. With snickers, we saw a platform for fan voting, and with Youtube, we saw a plethora of teasers as well as previous films being released for purchase on Youtube finally, Rbolox hosted an event where players could unlock rewards exclusive to the event. Warner Bros. also sponsored a challenge on the popular teenage app "TikTok" that included an abundance of its most popular influencers on the site.

Reflection

Overall, reviewing this whole process has really opened my eye to how long and troublesome the film creaiton process can be. This has given me a new found of respect for all those involved in film creation. Furthermore, this also makes me re-think my prrevious words in my earlier blog posts where I said I would choose a large film company. Upon seeing all the work that needs to be done as well as the connections needed I think it may be time to rethink my decision (joking).

Sources

Chris. “Adam Wingard Filmed 5 Hours Worth of Godzilla vs. Kong Footage!” Scified, Scified, 4 Apr. 2021, https://www.godzilla-movies.com/news/adam-wingard-filmed-5-hours-worth-godzilla-vs-kong-footage#:~:text=Add%20A%20Comment-,Godzilla%20vs.,the%20film%20finally%20came%20out.

Thilk, Author Chris. “Godzilla vs. Kong – Marketing Recap.” Cinematic Slant, 31 Mar. 2021, https://cinematicslant.com/2021/03/31/godzilla-vs-kong-marketing-recap/.

“Godzilla vs. Kong.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 31 Mar. 2021, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5034838/.

Owen, Phil. “The Plot of 'Godzilla vs Kong' Explained.” TheWrap, 4 Apr. 2021, https://www.thewrap.com/the-plot-of-godzilla-vs-kong-explained-hollow-earth/.

Mendelson, Scott. “'Godzilla vs. Kong' Is a Rare Blockbuster Sequel to a Box Office Disaster.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 13 Apr. 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2021/04/13/how-godzilla-vs-kong-made-box-office-history/?sh=767054c9314e.

DaVETTE SEE March 25th 2021. “Godzilla vs. Kong: 12 Fun Facts from the Set.” Fandango, 25 Mar. 2021, https://www.fandango.com/movie-news/godzilla-vs-kong-12-fun-facts-from-the-set-754269.

Funding, production, and distribution

 Today in media studies we were tasked to study the funding, production and distributions of films. This is important because of our portfolio project. While we may not be making an actual film, we are still following the film progression from start to finish. We are not using a budget for our film and finding publishing companies, distribution companies, and so on however, it is important to know the steps.

Production

The production of a film is the most important. This IS the making of the film from editing, hiring a cast, acting, using equipment etc. This is all (typically) done through a production company.

Larger companies

As it stands, there are 6 major companies that control and own  90% of media. These companies are very popular names and you've more than likely heard of them: Paramount pictures, Universal, 20th-century fox, Warner Bros. Pictures, Walt Disney, Columbia pictures. These simple companies are actually in control of 90% of the media.

Smaller companies/Indie

Indie companies are companies that work outside of the larger companies or the "Big 6" these often small companies are often known as independents. Not all Indie companies are unknown however, there are some names becoming rather large such as Summit Entertainment, Film 4 productions, and Icon productions.

Indie vs Large companies

When filmmakers choose their producing studio (Even if it wasn't their first option) it affects their film in multiple ways. When you choose a smaller company, you lose out on a lot of extra funding so it is hard to pay for large amounts of advertisement, this alone may lower your potential viewership as just not enough people know about the film. Furthermore, these indie companies often don't have much of a name for themselves so people may look at your film and not take it as seriously as they would take a film by Universal studies for example.

In

What this means for films

Commonly known, movies are expensive. So it is very unlikely for a small company or even solo-artists to publish their own movie. More often than not, these people have to pitch their idea to one of these studios if they wanna go big. The large size of these 6 companies makes it very hard for filmmakers to get them on board with their idea as they always have a constant flow of pitches coming toward them so more often than not filmmakers have to settle with indie companies to produce their film through. 

What production company I would choose

While our portfolio project doesn't have a budget requiring us to pitch our idea to a major company, it is still important to choose the right company. For me personally, I would choose Warner Bros studio. The reason why I would choose this studio is that our film is Sci-Fi. This is important because not only does Warner Bro's have a lot of money and new technology to bring these films to life, they are known for very popular Sci-Fi films: The MEG, the Terminator franchise, the King Kong movies, the Godzilla movies, and many more. I feel like if we had them on our side we can make our film top tier. Furthermore, Warner Bro's is an extremely large company. This means that this alone can cause a lot of attention to our film that we would not get from a smaller indie company, however, it is important to note that the size of the company would also make it extremely hard for us to pitch our idea to them and actually get it passed, though it would be worth it.

Funding

How to get your movie funded

The funding process is done at the beginning of the film, this is often granted by investors, grants and a plethora of other sources that provide the one making the movie with a large sum of money to continue production. The funding side is often secured by the producers as well as sales agents.

When pitching your idea to these investors get your movie funded it is important to give them some sort of security, there is no guarantee that your movie is gonna sell well or do well at the box office so it can be hard for investors to just give up money for it to be financed. Investors are always gonna ask questions like "Has this director had previous success" "Does it have easy selling points" "Is this a new idea" "Has this idea been successful before" considering questions like these are important because when we talk about finances we have to strictly look at the business side of it and ensure to get make everyone's money back and then some.

How funding helps our group

For our portfolio project, there is no budget so likewise there is no funding. However, it is important to research other films similar to ours and how they got their funding.

Godzilla Vs. Kong: This movie was budgeted at a whopping 160 million. A large number like this makes our head spinning wrapping around the question of where could they have possibly gotten that money from. Well, this is all thanks to funding where I've previously written about with their production company that financed the film being Legendary Pictures. 

When we look at funding typically, the money comes from a large production company if they think the idea is good enough to make the company profit (money).

Distribution 

Distribution is very important for the films as everything else is. The distribution is responsible for marketing the film, this company is often the same as the production company. This is why we see can commonly see the production companies also handling the marketing and advertising. This step is what gets the movie from the studio to the theaters however, the actual viewing of the audience in theaters and other technologies is done by something else known as exhibition.

What distribution company I would choose

I would choose a popular distribution company that has some work with Sci-Fi films in particular. These would include companies such as Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, and Walt Disney Pictures.

While these companies do not generally focus on Sci-Fi they have some very popular films in the Sci-Fi genre. Furthermore, I could use their popularity to my advantage getting a lot of deals and agreements where I could have my film playing on a plethora of systems. Overall though, I would choose Warner Bro's Pictures. This is because this company is also my ideal production company due to its popularity and work with the most well-known sci-fi films.

Exhibition

As stated before, exhibition is part of the filmmaking process where you choose how your film is gonna be seen and WHERE it's gonna be seen. This process starts off as distribution where you get done with the legal side and the agreements that follow that. Your film can be exhibited in many wars, whether you want it to be shown in the theaters or maybe you want it out of the theaters on things such as DVD 

It is important to choose your mode of exhibition carefully as this is the experience of your film and the environment of it that it's gonna be viewed in.

How I would go about exhibition

Personally, I would go with the new era of exhibition. Essentially, I choose modes of exhibition such as Television, the internet, streaming services, etc. I would go with things such as nontheatrical exhibition where streaming services would stream my movies (companies like Netflix). I would do this because I feel this is the best way to get your movie out in 2022 as a big part of the world is on the internet. I feel like theatrical modes like the theaters itself would not do well as personally, I don't see any of my peers or even those older than me go to the movies often anymore especially because the grasp that covid has on our social lives currently.

Sources:

Cohen, Jeff B. The Money of Movies, 5 Nov. 2019.

“Exhibition.” Film Reference, http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Criticism-Ideology/Exhibition.html.

“Film Distributor.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Aug. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_distributor.

“List of Film Distributors: Film Distribution Companies: Exhibitor List.” Screendollars, 17 Jan. 2022, https://www.screendollars.com/directory/distributors/.

robertclackmedia Follow. “Production,Distribution,Exhibition an Intro Final for Media.” SlideShare, https://www.slideshare.net/robertclackmedia/productiondistributionexhibition-an-intro-final-for-media.

 

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