Marketing Reflection

After the whole marketing process, I think this was the most rewarding part of the project cycle for me. Being able to watch the final product of our work as well as others was an awesome experience. Now, for this cycle, we tried to "pitch" our movies not only to our colleges, but to our peers as well. We used trailers, posters, interviews, press junkets, and even put our ads in newsletters. I think marketing teaches us something about writing that other forms don't. Marketing makes us really think about who we are marketing for. We try to write things that would entice the audience and bring them to our screening. Also, I thing marketing is primarily visual based. Posters, trailers, facebook, you name it; they are all very visual. Writing a persuasive paper is very different from marketing, but they have the same goals; you want to have the support of your audience. Well, in this case the audience was our peers. I think this made a huge difference in the quality of our works. In a regular research paper, you merely write to get a good grade, or impress your professor, and move on with your academic career. I think in our marketing, we were desperately trying to impress our peers, and bring them to our screening because we took part in making the short films. I think that gave us a better incentive to try and bring people to the screening. I guess the fact that the screening was shown to our peers played an important part as well. I would rather try harder to show something worthwhile to our peers, because I know that they will appreciate it if it was good. A regular essay or paper will leave you with a measly grade letter or a percentage; not much feedback or intristic reward from writing a paper. Overall, this was a good experience, as well as a rewarding one.

"Love At First Bite" Review

I really enjoyed watching the final product at the screening night. I already could tell from the rough draft that they had it going pretty well. The comedy is light, witty, and funny. I think the actress/actor did an amazing job, portraying the right character for the job. They were very animated and had awesome facial expressions. I liked the editing of the film as well. The film had well timed cuts and angles. I also liked what they did with the sound for the car scene. Only hearing her sing outside the car added a comical twist to just watching a car run along the road. I especially liked the projector screen scene. I was really surprised and even wondered how they panned the camera so slowly and steadily as it moved across the room. The angle was very interesting as well. I think it was a good idea to cut away from the setting completely and go into a whole different setting for the projector screen part. It entices the audience into thinking that something is going to happen, and parts away from the regular way of doing things. I also enjoyed the transition scene from Betty being hit by the car into her "dream" scene. I thought it was very funny how the camera just spun around her. It's not very professional, but I believe they made it this way intentionally to make it funny. I also thought they did a good job for how Betty got hit by the car. They found a good way to make it short and not very detailed, but still get the point across. They showed nothing, but still told the story. The dialogue was very funny. It was mostly Betty doing the talking, but its very funny because she is unaware how much of a fool she is making of herself. All in all, a very good short film, probably my favorite of the night.

The Mythology of George

It is interesting to see how we associate the characteristics of the movies George Lucas makes to his own personality. I think to an extent this is true to some movie makers. This is because a lot of movie makers influence their works by their own life experiences and their characteristics. In the case of George Lucas, we would think that he a scientific technological junkie because of the technology and the images we see in Star Wars. Star Wars is filled with spacey images, technology beyond our own, and digital effects that amaze us. However, as we read in the article, this is not true. George was just a normal high school student who was into fixing cars and racing them. He was more into editing and writing rather than effects and visuals. He learned these things throughout his college career, but they were not his main passion in movie making. I think if we see the variety of the types of movies that George has made in general, we should get a more general idea of what kind of movie maker he is. Indiana Jones, Apocalypse Now, and American Graffiti are three totally different types of genres that Lucas has made. All three were made by the same person, but they all have very different atmospheres to them. Star Wars by itself should not be used to describe George's movie making characteristics.

Press Junket Interview

Q: Hello mister Park how are you doing today?
A: Hey! I'm doing great! Glad to be here!

Q: Good to hear. Now I just had some questions about the upcoming short film you worked on. Rhythm is the title yes?
A: Yes that is correct.

Q: Now, what part did you take in making this short film?
A: I did lots of things, from costumes, photography, audio, production assistant, and even cinematography.

Q: Wow, that's a lot of roles to partake in. How did that happen?
A: Well we were limited in staff to begin with, so we did whatever we could to help.

Q: That's great! What would you say was the hardest role, if you had to take one?
A: Production assisting was definitely the hardest part. Making sure things get done on time is not an easy task since things go wrong all the time.

Q: What were some of the things that went wrong?
A: I think the biggest thing was that all of still had a second life to live. We were all busy doing other things, and it was hard for us to make time to shoot.

Q: What are your personal thoughts on the movie?
A: Well I have yet to see the finished product, but I think the short film will be great. It'll get the viewers to think and feel pretty good at the end.

Q: How were the actors?
A: They were great! They were so open to help, and cooperated very well. I think they did an excellent job seeing as how they didn't have much experience.

Q: Do you have any regrets making the movie?
A: Hmmm, I wish we had more time haha. I think we could have broken up our shooting schedule so we didn't have to shoot too much in one day. It tires the actors and us, when we have to shoot a lot in one day. I think breaking the shooting days up gives us more ideas and energy to go on!

Q: Well this has been an awesome time being able to talk to you!
A: Yes me too! Let's do this again sometime!

Filming vs. Screenwriting

In retrospect, I think there are many similarities as well as differences between film making and screenwriting. For one, I initially thought filming would be easier than screenwriting because the story was already laid out, and we just had to visualize it. I was wrong. Film making takes much more coordination, planning, thinking, and creative process. Film making is very cooperative. You can't make a film alone. You may be able to write a story alone, but you won't be able to film it alone. You need actors, make up artists, costume artists, cameramen, audio men, props, production assistants, etc. It's a very cooperation driven process. Everyone needs to be on the same page and the same vision to make good progress. I also think film making needs more creativity than screen writing. This is because you are somewhat limited in what you can do, but still have the freedom to visualize the story as you want it. One scene can have dozens of cuts, angles, transitions, shots, not to mention the lighting and audio. I also like filming in the sense that it is very hands-on. Although it was a lot more work, I enjoyed being outside and filming, rather than being stuck indoors with a piece of paper. There were however, similarities between filming and writing. I think the similarities are very essential and significant in that both process is a way of telling a story. Screenwriting and filming ultimately tries to tell a story in a particular way. This is the part in which we as writers and film makers have to think the most. I also think they are similar in that there are many ways to approach creativity. For writing, you can take walks, free write, have dreams, read other stories, etc. to get ideas. For filming, actors/actresses may improvise on the scene, directors may decide to change things up in the middle of a shot, or be very methodical. It all depends on how the director or the writer wants to tell the story. I also believe that you have to have patience for both process. There will always be things that go wrong whether you're trying to write or trying to film. I think its the ability to have patience and working around a problem that make a good writer or film maker. Overall both process were hard but rewarding.

Tim Burton's 9

This was a movie made in 2009, directed by Tim Burton. The movie was an animation but had a different feeling than Nightmare Before Christmas. The shots were much smoother, and felt 3Dish. To be honest, I had high expectations going into the theater. The commercials looked good and intriguing, but the movie itself turned out to be a disappointment. The synopsis of the story is that humans have created machines that turned on the humans and destroyed them. The scientist that made these machines left behind 9 doll like figures to destroy the machines. Many parts of the movie were very strange and mysterious, which is very much likely for Tim Burton's movies. I think the story was good, but in my honest opinion, there were many loops in the story that made the plot confusing. I liked how the characters were developed and their relationship with others. A little bit more explaining, and I think the movie would have been great. I also think the movie played too much with the audience's emotions. Just when you think there's closure, more events keep happening that makes you feel empty. As for visuals, the movie was very well made. The explosions and the character designs were very very good. It felt like Burton made this movie out of obligation. I didn't feel much depth to it. The script had a good potential, but the presentation was just not thorough enough.

David Cronenberg Masterclass

Personally, I do enjoy watching horror movies. I was hoping to get a glimpse of how Cronenberg came up with his ideas for his visuals, and what he is thinking of when he wants to put fear into the hearts of people. Nevertheless, the article was a good one. I thought interesting to see that Cronenberg was a writer before he became a director. He also emphasized that a complete filmaker would have to know how to write and be able to shoot. I may argue with this, in the sense that I think writing the script only makes the movie perosnal to you. If you can find a script that you didn't write, that is just as personal, I think a director can make it into a great movie. I also got the hint that Cronenberg made his movies for the audience since he was talking about how the movie must make sense for the audience in order for his message to get across. If the movie only pertains to the director, people may very well be confused. I also thought it was very interesting how he talked about the movie set being a three dimensional space. Cronenberg stressed that the camera acts like another person on the set, and should be considered as to how it will move within the set. I think that was a good advice for us as to where to set up our camera and how to move it.