Discussion - Group Meeting #1

     Welcome back everyone! It is now week 3 of my portfolio project and today in class we participated in group meetings. In these meetings were were assigned in a group of 5 people and were tasked with discussing our projects as well as give feedback and comments about our openings. This assignment was given in order for us to learn from everyone's project idea, get inspiration, and obviously receive feedback.

Discussion of Openings & Plots

    My group consisted of my classmates: Maria, Will, Arianna, and Samira. Maria went first and she had her genre and inspiration figured out. Her inspiration and blog consisted mainly of genre research and inspiration from the movie Knives Out (2019) which is an Mystery film from what she told us. I personally never watched but I might wanna go check it out! In her opening she wants to focus on mise en scene elements and I recommended using props such as missing case files, a bulletin board with clues and with this she could display her credit sequences in these props. This is something I really enjoy because it correlates with the foreshadowing of the mystery that she wants her opening to develop. Samira also recommended for her to make it about a detective who is compiling all this information about a missing person and by the end they have a finished bulletin board about the missing person. I also gave her the idea of having a background of the missing person such as having a history of drug abuse and that's why they're missing. This is a nice clever touch because it doesn't give away too much about the plot as well as show the audience something they can infer is about a missing person. 

    The next person who went was Samira and I'd like to say she was really prepared and had an idea of behind of scenes in terms of cast, genre, and shots and composition that she would include in her opening. She had the idea of having a sports comedy movie that would include her little brother who is 8 years old and plays baseball. She had the idea of including his friends to play baseball together and she got inspiration from the movie Sandlot (1993). I don't really watch sports movies so Will was telling me it was about baseball players in the summertime and that it's also a coming of age film. I recommended that Samira should have the plot be about her brother and a friend who go to tryouts and try to find kids around their neighborhood to tryout and be apart of a baseball team they have at school. The reason why I recommended for her to figure out the plot is because it will be easier for her to develop the technique she wants to include if she has her plot idea planned out.

    I went afterwards and I was describing my full plot idea that was about a nurse assistant who is a college student that shadows a doctor and goes onto take his victims who also happen to be his peers at the medical office. The student is going through a residency and is trying to kill off his competition. It will be a psychological horror that has medical aspects and mise en scene elements. Samira recommended to me that the beginning of my opening could start off with the man finishing off a patient and cleaning off equipment and typing up documents but have foreshadowing elements of the missing nurse that he killed off but the audience doesn't know that. She also goes on to give me another idea about having a screen of many characters with different characters finding out at different times about what happened to the nurse. I don't know how this would work out but I will take it into consideration. Then, Will gave the suggestion of having a conversion at the end with dialogue between the doctor and main character and have another nurse come in and interrupt the main character and have it finish off with the main character figuring out his next target. These were amazing suggestions because now that I got my plot idea I finally have an idea of what I can include in my opening and now I'm a step closer into making my storyboard.

This is what Samira was referencing to when she gave me that suggestion: 

    Will went next and he also was doing a sports comedy based off Adam Sandler's movies. His inspiration is also Happy Gilmore (1996). He had his plot down and he had two versions which included a man whose going through a conflict and starts playing golf. His first version was having a golf competition be because of a cash prize and his second version was to have the guy lock eyes with a girl. I recommended that he would go with the second idea because in order to successfully do the first idea he would need research on golf competitions, how much money he can find, make his own flyers, and put in more effort into the small details. Whereas, if he went with the second idea he can follow up with this guy having a crush on a sporty girl who is portrayed as whimsical, witty, and athletic. He also mentioned that this guy is not good at golf and he would learn just for her which is a very comedic trope that I feel would reflect really nicely with his ideas.

    Arianna was the last person to go and she went on to explain that her genre was a sports drama. Clearly this is a reoccurring pattern that is in our group and I feel like that is very beneficial because they can reflect on each other's commentary and get inspiration from their openings and mise en scene like costuming and plot ideas due to having very similar genres. Her project is in a group and they have an idea of it being based off an American girl doll story where they are basically coming of age films. She has the idea of a gymnast falling and breaking her leg. Will recommended that she should do a time rewind in her opening of a baby beforehand and having a realization with a whistle come back into reality where she is a gymnast competition. However, we never got the chance to ask if they already have access to a gym with gymnastic equipment because otherwise it would be tedious to ask for permission to film there.

This is the document I utilized in order to take notes: Group Meeting.docx

Now What's Next?

With all this being recapped, I can finally go into figuring out my entire movie plot idea and place my pieces of the puzzle together to figure out who will be casted, my full storyboard, and actually start filming in order to get ahead in my project. That is all for tonight bloggers, stay tuned for more updates on my film opening!