Print Minor Task Research- Clueless

 Clueless another 2000s classic about,  shallow, rich, and socially successful Cher is at the top of her Beverly Hills high school's pecking scale. Seeing herself as a matchmaker, Cher first coaxes two teachers into dating each other. Emboldened by her success, she decides to give hopelessly klutzy new student Tai a makeover. When Tai becomes more popular than she is, Cher realizes that her disapproving ex-stepbrother was right about how misguided she is and falls for him.

The Title at the top, immediately draws attention, especially with the contrast of the red and black. 

By the girl being in the middle we know that she is the main character and by the red dress she is wearing which highlights her. The boots, the stairs, everything is very minimalistic and classy which is what they are trying to achieve with this poster. 

 The expectations for the movie are wealthy teenage girls whose  issues are money, clothes, and popularity. It suggests that the genres of the film are comedy and drama as the girls don’t look that smart either.

Although the text on top of the poster usually works, I  wouldn’t do it on this poster because we can tell what the movie will be about by the clothes, they are which look very expensive. By the characters in the back and the books they are holding we, know they are also teenage girls, and this will also have a big take on school. The text on the bottom is too small and we can barely see the release date of the film also the color pattern doesn’t match as we can barely see what is it saying. The purple carpet in the back also doesn’t make any sense I would make it black. 

Although this is a good poster and gives us everything we need to know about the film, there are some details that I mentioned previously that I need to pay extra attention because these little things that don’t make sense could confuse the audience on the message you are trying to give of the film.

 

Social Media Minor Task Research- Barbie

The brand partnered with Zara, Burger King, and Xbox. Influencers on TikTok, and Instagram, went viral on Twitter, trying to reach the audience's attention, and intentioanlly becoming a fever everywhere.  

Barbie's social media campaign was everywhere, from getting influencers to post about the film on their social media, they also partnered with Zara, Burger King, and Xbox; meaning barbie was everywhere. They also used nostalgia combined with social media (influencers, releasing trailers/TikTok, etc.) Influencers genuinely passionate about the Barbie movie and its themes can channel that enthusiasm to their followers, creating a ripple effect far beyond the initial collaboration. By partnering with influencers who align with their values, Barbie’s team can cultivate authentic relationships that extend beyond a single campaign or initiative. These relationships can lead to ongoing collaborations, increased brand loyalty, and a deeper understanding of what their audience wants.

During the marketing of Barbie on social media they created nostalgia and emotional bonds being the audience and the product. They created an expectation of bringing Barbie into the real world where she would have to deal with sexism and misogyny, creating this nostalgic and realistic feeling. 

They focused their social media campaign towards women and made it anti-men in a way. They didn’t advertise the movie to the male population and focused only on engaging with the female audience. Regardless of their targeted audience being everyone, the way they marketed was interpreted a different way. 

The Barbie Movie Campaign was incredibly well thought out since they chose a broad number of ways to advertise the production. Promoting nostalgia in social media, using influencers' collaboration their BRANDING was what made it so memorable because anywhere you turned you would see Barbie content, not only on social media platforms but also in our day-to-day lives. I also want to create meme posters, relating it to a new production coming out, at the same time as mine, and publish them on the social media made for the movie 

Their campain with Burger King the burger with the "Barbie" sauce 

There were also viral posters of the movie being combined with the new hits that was also being released at the same time as Barbie, Oppenhaimer. 

Print Minor Task Research- Bride Maids

Bride maids is about Annie a single woman whose own life is a mess, but when she learns that her lifelong best friend, Lillian is engaged, she has no choice but to serve as the maid of honor. Though lovelorn and almost penniless, Annie, nevertheless, winds her way through the strange and expensive rituals associated with her job as the bride's go-to gal. Determined to make things perfect, she gamely leads Lillian and the other bridesmaids down the wild road to the wedding.

Title of the film, production companies, releasing date, previous productions that the producer had made are used to influence the audience to watch it, specially if they had enjoyed the productions made the producer .  

The color used in the poster are pink and white which emphasizes that the movie will be about the woman in white (the bride). The predomly presence of women emphasize that the movie will probably have the message of women power/ doing whatever you want, taking control over your own life and  having other women supporting you. The text used is also in the colors of white and pink; there isn’t a lot of text, but it still expresses the message that its intent to. We can tell who is the maid, and that they are exhausted from whatever encounter they had to face in the production. 

The poster gives the expectation of a runway wedding, where the bride for whatever reason ran away from her husband or something really bad happened at the wedding and the other girls were there to help her. We can expect it to be a romance/comedy about women empowerment. 

The brick wall in the back of the poster, doesn’t make any sense to me I don’t understand how it could be possibly relate to the film besides visuals, maybe it is because I haven’t watched but this doesn’t tell me or transmits any feelings or emotions from what I'm about to experience while watching the film.

I want to use the expression of the actors in my favor, use the actors to express the feelings and emotions of what the movie is trying to bring. The poster doesn’t have to be complex as long as the message and feelings we are trying to express are there. The characters are also expressing to the audience how  their characters are going to develop in the film, giving away expectations for future characterization. 

Print minor task research- Hangover

 Researching into the minor task, I decided to look into more iconic comedies/High school productions  from the 2000s that are classics. 

The hangover is a movie about three buddies who wake up from a bachelor party in Las Vegas, with no memory of the previous night and the bachelor missing. They make their way around the city in order to find their friend before his wedding. 

The poster for this production consists of using a font that is very bright and the text used at the top sets the place ( Las Vegas). The dirty clothes, missing tooth, and the random bay show that something happened creating suspense and curiosity, giving the feeling of what the movie will feel like. 

The poster creates this expectation that everyone already has made in their heads of the setting, Las Vegas is place a place to party, have fun, "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". By the clothes that they are wearing we can see that held that statement through that trip. Making us feel intrigues and excited about the film. 

When creating my poster I want to be thinking about these same conventions. I want to transmit the emotions that were raised while watching the trailer through, my poster.

 How can I make the audience intrigued and excited about the production while also transmitting those emotions? 

Genre Research- General Takeaways

I started my research  by looking at generic teenage comedies, that are popular,  and comparing different styles of production, observing what the differences are and how they achieve different things towards the audience.  I started looking into the popular teenage comedy movies and exploring its sub-genres, soon I realized they were mostly all about High School/Teenage life, or at least that was the setting.  

Movies like 17 Again are made with the expectations of it being liked and relatable to adults and teenagers where movies like mMean Girls and Superbad, Mean Girls  re made  for pre-teens creating these expectations of what your life is going to be like when you're in high school, and once you get to that point in life and you rewatch the movie, it is not completely relatable but in a different way. As we grow and rewatch movies, we watch them not looking to create any expectations, but comparing it to our lives and experiences, looking at it from completely different point of view. 

Superbad is relatable to adults because you reliving the moments you don't want to tell your kids about, where 17 again you're looking at life from a different perspective, and more of the interactions you have with ur kids on a daily basis and putting yourself in each others shoes. 

Mean Girls you could relate to having a friend leave you for the popular kid, or being jealous a group of girls at school, having a crush on your friend's ex... there are so many possibilities and that's what makes movies that express emotions or try to transmit emotions work, besides it being hilarious, it has an emotional connection with the audience. Where most teenage movies are just about romance and some romance drama,  and being a teenager is slightly part of it, like Twilight, To All The Boys I Ever Loved, even vampire diaries (which is a series), it's mostly about romance, and being a teenager is just forgotten lot of these movies only have teenagers in so they can target that audience, and make money because truly teenagers will watch anything that makes them imagine or create this false reality in their heads. 

Superbad is relatable to adults because you reliving the moments you don't want to tell your kids about, where 17 again you're looking at life from a different perspective, and more of the interactions you have your kids  daily putting yourself in each others shoes. 

At the end of the day, Super-bad, MeanGirls, Project X are all relatable for different reasons but one thing they all have in common is how their branding is iconic, they all have that element that reminds everyone of the movie, in Super-bad it's the fake id, Project X is the song 'Pursuit of Happiness' and in Mean Girls, the burn book. 

I want to propose an emotional connection with the audience where, they would want more, creating this excitement in the actual film, and also have that iconic object, or element that will remind the viewers immediately of the trailer. 

The iconic scene from Super-Bad, where the fake-id is introduced. 

The Burn-Book, one of the most iconic scenes from the 2000s, to this day schools use this idea to make yearbooks reminding everyone of this iconic movie. 

Genre Research- Mean Girls Takeaways

 As I rewatched Mean Girls but from a different point of view, I analyzed things like Narrative, sound, editing, and cinematography. 

The cinematography focused on close-up shorts emphasing the characteristics and power of each character, for example when Regina first introduced, they use a focused close-up shot where  you can't see anything behind her making the focus of the shot completely on her and what she is saying, where when characters "less powerful" are on screen the selective shots aren't present, because what they are saying isn't as important. 

The story is built around the classic idea of the new girl who wants to fit in with the popular crew or in this case the “plastic girls”. The four leading girls all represent somewhat of 'Stock Characters' and stereotypes, 'The Leader'--Regina George, 'The Sidekick'--Gretchen Weeners, 'The Dumb one'--Karen Smith and 'The Convention breaker'--Cady Heron. Through use of stereotypes through this female character it is immediately insinuated that all girls have these characters in them, and females themselves fit the stereotypes that have been presented. However, due to the stereotypes being presented and the almost exaggerated and comedic personalities that are tied in with the stereotype, audiences are encouraged to believe that these characters are made purposely for comedic effects.

 The trailer is narrated by Jessy in the beginning when she is explaining the dynamic of the school to Cady and the audience. Later on, they start using actual audio from the film and they mix them up to create humor and tell a story. They use music and non-diegetic sounds to make it more realistic and keep the audiences’ attention and the music is used to match the speed of the clip. 

 

They use techniques such as shot-reverse shot, 180-degree rule, match on action, and the eyel-ine match. The effect of continuity editing is to keep the story in a coherent time and space. This makes it easy for the audience to follow the plot and the characters.

The expectation that she will ditch Jess and Damian is built from the beginning of the trailer when they introduce the plastic girls. It is also expected when they introduce Regina’s ex-boyfriend and that there will be conflict with Cady and Regina because of that. 

Takeaways: 

·      It is built in chronological order, with elements from every part of the film to delay and build expectation in the audience. 

·      They start off the trailer with a dark humor joke indicating that this is a comedy movie. 

·      They also introduce all the characters in the first 20 seconds of the film and tell the story of the main character.  

·      How will I tell the story in chronological order, developing the plot and using music to create suspense and tension in the audience? 

Social Media Research - (Project X)

Superbad and Mean Girls both have emotional meanings behind the productions. Project X, doesn't. As I rewatched the movie, from a movie maker point of view I realized the movie is BAD it has no emotional meaning or purpose behind the story, and the first 20 minutes are extremely hard to get through because of how dumb the main character acts and the truth is, he is a jerk. The movie has no character development, or plot development and it doesn't make sense. The movie has one goal, to create the ultimate house party dream. 

The three main characters are three high school losers, who get mad that they weren't invited to this big party everyone is talking about. So as one of their parents leaves for the weekend they decide to throw a party. But the little adventure that is supposed to have about 50 kids, gets completely out of hand with thousands of kids. 

Although essentially the movie isn't great, it created a fever all around the world. As the trailer for the movie was released November of 2011, it went viral on facebook, making it one of the most anticipated movies of the year, it became a sensation. The older critics didn't like the movie, but the young audience loved it, they just wanted to see a crazy party. The clash of generations divided this movie's reception, every teenager has dreamt of going to a house-party like this, being the reason why the movie is thrilling to watch. It is not about the plot of story its about having the most fun you can as teenager, you have no worries and the most freedom you will ever have, it fullfiled this fever dream of youth and madness. The cell phone footage and the way certain scenes were edited made it look real. (Part of the reason why they chose a music video director). 

So, what could I take away from this production? Regardless of how well the plot was developed, the idea is genius. The marketing of the movie was a fever all over the world. They were the first production to ever use social for marketing. They played live twitters of the audience's opinion on a bilboard. They had a project X party prior to release of the movie, with a live concert from Kid Cudi. The song played in the trailer is also one of the most iconic moments in pop culture till this day. Everyone knows 'Pursuit of Happiness', from Project X. 

The flyer of the after party, the day the production was released. Creating not only excitement or the movie but also for this event. Replicating the adrenaline rush created not only when your watching the film, but also at the party. Which is a teenage fever till this day. 

My goal with my Production is to create something special, with a theme song that every-time you hear you will think about trailer, it will bring you back to that moment, those feelings of excitement and curiosity from when you watched it. I also will be thinking outside of the box, like they did wtth the marketing campaign, because that was what made the movie work, regardless of it being bad. It is an amazing bad movie.

Genre - Research (Superbad)

Superbad takes a completely different approach than the previous productions (Mean Girls, Project X). Superbad was written by two middle schoolers who didn't feel as if they could relate to the High School movies made in the 80s/ 90s. Since most movies were glossy affairs with rich parents without any sense of consequence and stakes. Superbad is a movie about not forgetting and revisiting the past. The screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg utilized their own lives and personal experiences,  into the most iconic moments of the film. The initial idea of the movie was two boys just trying to buy booze for a party their senior year,  where they each hoped to hookup with girls for practice before college. But after years of revision they added proper story on top of the plot. 

The representation of childhood innocence, swagger, and misguided confidence is what makes this movie so relatable, not only to teenagers and pre-teens but also to adults who can relate to these acts from their childhood. Although the film was R rated, it blutenly represnted the way kids spoke/ or wanted to speak, with quick comebacks and invented profanities. The main actors were a representation of what kids wanted to see, themselves. But what their goal was to emotionally connect the audience to the film, in a relatable way. It was the relationship between Seth and Evan, and the world around them is what makes the audience truly care, and that feat is due mostly because of Superbad's unique development. From a perspective of an adult, it shows how truly dangerous it is for a couple of teen kids to be a party with adults, although it might have felt exciting and dangerous as kids. It is hindsight of their rewrites, that make the movie go bigger and terrifying. Through the eyes of Seth and Evan their world is so small and  everything  is beat to hit and an obstacle to overcome, for every bumbling cop, addict, and bully in Superbad their biggest fear is to lose one another, losing your best friend is hard and the rebunt jokes foreshadows how they truly feel. 

This clip shows the real meaning behind the production, their relationship. How they truly felt about each other, and their biggest fear, losing that relationship. 

This is exactly what I want to portray in trailer, behind the funny moments and jokes I want to emotionally connect the audience, have a true meaning behind the story, a lesson.  I want the audience to be able to relate their own personal lives, from different points of view,  leaving them wanting more. 

Genre Research- (Mean Girls )

 The first step in making my trailer is figuring out what genre to use. Going into this process I was lost in which direction to go in. But after doing some thinking I decided to go with what I like and enjoy. I love making jokes and would consider myself a funny/ entertaining person, which made me narrow down my main genres which are drama and comedy. 

So, I started doing some research into some of my favorite comedies, which include films like, Mean Girls, Project X, and Superbad After analyzing each movie I realized they all had a sub-genre in common, which is teenage comedies. That was when I decided on my genre and sub-genre. 

 I started by watching the trailer of all three productions and annotating on how they are funny in different ways. Project X catches the audience's laughter with the ambient, the scenes are funny, the sound is  combined with the events happening, like the dog on the trampoline, car in the pool, kids jumping off a roof into the pool.  Unlike Mean Girls, where the humor is presented through dialogues, like in the first scenes the teacher assumes that the new student from Africa is the only African- American girl in class, or by the way the characters talk/ act, the "plastic girls", are funny because of how they are mean and dumb, However it does implement funny scenes on top of everything else.

In this scene the character surprisingly slaps the other which is unexpected and funny. 

In this scene all of the characters are falling into a crowd of people, after confessing things about them. However not in this case, which caused people to not catch her, making the scene funny.  

They have an argument and she throws food at one of the plastic girls.  

These are the scenes I was talking about, when I mentioned the funny scenarios that happened unexpectedly which causes laughter. Overview in the trailer, that caused laughter besides the dialogues and representation of character. 

Introduction- Advanced Portfolio

The pressure is on!

Today is the first day of pre-production and I am extremely excited to begin this journey that we have; been waiting for since the beginning of this class. My name is Luise and I am making a Trailer as my main task for the Advanced Portfolio. 

For the past two years now I have developed a recent interest in films and filmmaking, I've been expanding my time learning how films, trailers, and music videos are developed and everything that goes on behind the scenes. Although I am working alone i will be focusing my development into directing the production. Besides my interest in films, I  also enjoy exploring my passion for music by playing guitar and going to concerts with my friends. I have also found interest in working out, playing sports, and challenging my body through exercising. 

Without further due,  I will be exploring all of my interests throughout this experience in developing my trailer, incorporating my personality and personal likings, and essentially expressing part of myself into this project! 

This is me!