Portfolio Project Genre #2

    Right behind coming-of-age comedies, romantic dramedies would have to be my favorite and most-watched genre of film. Both commonly leave a lot of leeway for the plot and don't have many constraints for how the story may go. 

    There are many genre conventions of a romantic dramedy that helps to cement films into the genre. While there are obvious ones like having two lovable leads, a break-up conflict, and a happy ending, there is one thing that can make or break the effectiveness and success of the movie. If the two-leads move forward through a typical romance plot but lack the chemistry to go along with it, the movie falls flat and usually loses the audience. This chemistry is a product of two very important factors: good writing and good acting. These two are necessary for the audience to truly feel the connection between the characters and want to root for them to stay together. 

    Film inspiration:

    Eternity is a romantic dramedy with fictional elements that follows Joan in the afterlife as she decides who to spend eternity with, her first husband that died tragically young or her second husband who started a family with her. This film, although including heavily fictional elements, provides an insanely raw and authentic look at love and loss. I usually hate romance films with love triangles as it always seems pointless and just a cheap way to create conflict, but the afterlife element this film adds real stress and tension to a completely fictional complication. The romantic scenes between Joan and her husbands, Larry and Luke made it so I truly had no idea who she would end up with. Joan's scenes with Luke and Larry felt like two completely separate dynamics and helped the audience to understand Joan's difficulty with the decision. 

   

    (500) Days of Summer is also a romantic dramedy. It follows main character Tom Hansen, a helpless romantic, before, during, and after his relationship with Summer Finn, a girl he believes to be his soulmate. This film is a very unique one in the genre as it subverts the crucial convention of having a happy ending. While the plot is centered around Tom's relationship with Summer, it feels one-sided. The entire film is from Tom's perspective as he narrates the emotional rollercoaster he'd gone through in the past 500 days with Summer. Although having fun, comedic moments the conflict in this film is extremely complex and nuanced. It is also very stylized and creatively snaps between Tom's fantasies and reality in a visually interesting way that adds more to his character while also getting the audience to relate and sympathize with him as the events in the plot unfold.

Backstage. (n.d.). Acting chemistry: Definition and examples. Backstage. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/acting-chemistry-definition-examples-76453/

IMDb. (n.d.). 500 Days of Summer (tt1022603). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1022603/

IMDb. (n.d.). Eternity (tt24950660). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt24950660/

Medium. (n.d.). Why (500) Days of Summer is a masterpiece in exploring the complexities of modern relationships. Medium. https://medium.com/@vinurish/why-500-days-of-summer-is-a-masterpiece-in-exploring-the-complexities-of-modern-relationships-125a7d3eae1e

ScreenCraft. (2025, June 13). The 9 elements of all great rom-coms. ScreenCraft. https://screencraft.org/blog/the-9-elements-of-all-great-rom-coms/

The Hoya. (n.d.). Review: Eternity is an enchanting yet imperfect romance. The Hoya. https://thehoya.com/guide/review/eternity-is-an-enchanting-yet-imperfect-romance/

Portfolio Project Genre #1

     The time has finally come to pick a genre for our film openings. I was immediately drawn towards coming-of-age comedies. I've seen my fair share and have a large catalogue of inspiration as it is my favorite film genre. A personal thing I want to stray away from is a boring, basic story. Part of the success of the genre is the relatability that it brings for audiences, but part of the reason it occasionally fails it by being too generic and falling flat. I want to create something relatable but ultimately unique. I'm also currently exploring the idea of coming-of-age comedy with a college-aged ensemble cast as I feel there's a slight over-saturation of high school stories. This is something I want to have a focus on when researching. 

    TV and films have their own set of characteristics that help categorize them through genre conventions. Comedies often rely on timing, delivery, and arguably most importantly, good writing to get a laugh out of the audience. Comedy scripts usually include some sort of social commentary by creating exaggerated characters that are a satirical reflections of popular stereotypes. 

    Coming of Age films contain dramatic themes that would be typically found in an awkward, transitional phase during the protagonists' adolescence. Things like romance, conflicts with friends, and struggling with school are common plot points as they are widely relatable and are often inspired by the writer or director's own life experience. 

TV/Film Inspiration:

New Girl (2011-2018)

    New Girl is a sitcom that follows main character, Jessica Day, as she navigates life after a break-up which forces her to move in with 3 men she met on the internet. It has a very specific comedic voice that is made for a particular audience as it doesn't necessarily follow typical "sitcom" humor. It commonly subverts the audience's expectation when it comes to the characters. They initially seem to be standard comedic stereotypes, but as the show progresses and evolves they become much more complex and realistic even though the show puts them in unrealistic situations. 

Edge of Seventeen (2016) 

    The Edge of Seventeen is a coming-of-age dramedy that follows Nadine as her friendship is strained by the fact her best friend, Kristi begins to date her older brother. It includes various cringey, yet relatable moments that are typical for teenagers to go through. Between the awkward moments and witty dialogue, there's also drama that adds relatability to the main characters as it help to humanize the story by adding realistic conflict. 

Backstage. (n.d.). Comedy: A guide to the genre. Backstage. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/comedy-genre-guide-78017/

IMDb. (n.d.). The Edge of Seventeen (tt1878870). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1878870/

IMDb. (n.d.). New Girl (tt1826940). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826940/

Strand Magazine. (2020, October 5). The Edge of Seventeen: A third of the Holy Trinity of female coming-of-age. https://www.strandmagazine.co.uk/single-post/2020/10/05/the-edge-of-seventeen-a-third-of-the-holy-trinity-of-female-coming-of-age

Sites at Georgia Tech. (2018, September 23). New Girl: Re-writing what humor is: Topic 2 – English 1102: Television and Feminism. Georgia Tech. https://sites.gatech.edu/1102tvfem/2018/09/23/new-girl-re-writing-what-humor-istopic-2/

StudioBinder. (n.d.). What is a coming-of-age movie? Definition, examples, and characteristics. StudioBinder. https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-coming-of-age-movie-definition/

Transition to Cambridge Portfolio Project !!!!!!!!!

     Hello Cambridge cuties! 

    Moving forward my blogs will be focused on the sole mission of documenting my thought process while developing my Cambridge Final Project. My initial thoughts are truthfully a little fearful as I've been looking forward to this project since I signed up for the course last year and really want to produce the best film opening I can possibly accomplish. I absolutely adore films and I'm specifically very interested in how differently they aim to set the tone and grab the audience's attention within the first couple of minutes. To prepare for this, we've taken notes in class to help guide us when crafting our film openings.

      I aim to focus on world building by creating characters that feel organic and real to the audience even though they’re meeting them for the first time. I’m also planning to at least slightly introduce the main conflict of my film, or give some form of foreshadowing.

  

     Extremely excited to document my process on this very long journey towards building my Cambridge Final Project. I hope you stick around to see the final product! 

"We Are Young" Vlog

 Hey cool cats!

    Over the past couple of weeks in my AICE Media Studies class, we've been working on researching music marketing techniques. As a project, we've put these new learned techniques to use by creating and marketing our very own band! Our genre was pop music which initially disappointed me as it's not what I usually listen to, but once we settled on doing the song "We Are Young," I got really excited at all the possibilities for the music video.

    Unfortunately, the music video itself is too large of a file to attach to this blog, but I hope you all take pleasure in watching the vlog below: "The Making of 'We Are Young'".

Mise-en-scene Project!

 

For this project we had to bring a character to life using mise-en-scene. We were assigned characters in class. My group and I got a movie lover. More specifically "A movie lover who enjoys social get-togethers with friends. They write a movie blog on which they post critiques of popular movies". Our teacher told us that this character was inspired by her friend. This got me thinking of my own friend and I who follow each other on Letterboxd and frequently watch movies together when we hang-out. Our relationship heavily inspired me when I was pitching ideas for the group. 

My group and I wanted to create a vast variety of things that, when presented to the class, would feel like a real person. When we initially started talking about the character, we had to come together and decide specific details about the character that were not mentioned. We decided that she would be a 'Wasian' 21-year-old aspirational college student named Cameron Lee that attends University of Southern California and majors in screenwriting. We came up with her name by brainstorming the last name of various film directors. We went through names like Greta Coppola, Sophia Spielberg, and Cameron Gerwig, before decided that Cameron Lee sounded the least fictitious; named after James Cameron and Spike Lee. We decided she majored in screenwriting to add more depth and realness as to why she would write a blog with her own personal critiques. It was very easy for us to bounce ideas off of each other to characterize Cameron as the entire group could relate to being a young woman and we all shared that common experience. 

We then decided what would be made to show our character. Marisa created the tactical board that followed a soundscape made by Christina. Christina also created a doll of Cameron Lee that was inspired by a mood board created by Debra. I created a decorated room and journal entry with a movie review to show how we visualize Cameron Lee's room and journal entries. I also created a playlist that Cameron Lee would likely listen to. We all helped on the google slide presentation and also helped each other which everything we did. It felt like a group effort towards a common goal rather than individuals doing different parts of an assignment. It felt like we all grasped the kind of woman Cameron Lee was.

Although I am extremely happy with the outcome, with more time I would have loved to add more meticulous details. Creating her bed room, a fake social media, and fake text chains with her friends as they plan hang-outs would greatly add more depth and make her feel like a real-person. 

Here's the google drive folder to experience Cameron Lee for yourself!

Mise-en-scene "Cameron Lee"

Soundscape Practice!

What's up buddies!

    In AICE media we learned about sound which was always something that interested me, but little did I know how insanely difficult it is to create an entire scene using only audio for both sounds projects we had to do. Before we did the sound projects, however, we learned all the different technical terms along with the reasoning behind different uses of sound. I learned what a soundscape is and all of the different parts that need to happen for it to be created. It was really interesting and I got to learn a little more about foley which was cool. Putting that knowledge into practice and making the foley was a lot more difficult than I imagined it would be though. 

    Sound project #1 was a such a blast. For this assignment, we had to create a soundscape where we used only sound effects to convey a scene that the listener could visualize. It was really difficult and challenging but in a fun way, like solving a puzzle. My partner Christina and I wanted to stay away from doing something uninteresting and bland so we opted to have our 1-2 minute soundscape be of a medieval wedding that gets crashed by a fire-breathing dragon that gets slain by knights. As one could imagine, this very fun concept was extremely difficult to bring to life only using audio and sound effects. It was a bit overwhelming at first but taking it step-by-step and slowly layering more and more sound effects in ClipChamp helped get the job done. 

    Sound project #2 was surprisingly a lot more difficult than sound project #1. For this assignment, we had to go back to our OWF film and create a soundscape for it. Although the concept for our OWF was significantly more grounded and less outlandish than a dragon crashing a medieval wedding, it brought new challenges. It felt much more limiting creating this soundscape as we had to use the video as a strict guide for what sounds had to be occurring at exact moments for an exact amount of time or else it would look completely wrong. Sound project #1 was a lot freer with expression and we controlled and could easily manipulate the storyline we were trying to follow. 

    I loved them both and learned a lot of value through the hardships I faced with each, but I think I might have a favorite.

Click Here for Sound Project #1 "Medieval Wedding/Dragon Soundscape"!

Click Here for Sound Project #2 "OWF Soundscape"!

"OWF Project: Tolerance"!

Hey party people! 

    We've had another project for AICE Media Studies, but this time it was our first video project. For this project, we had to create a story based off a randomly selected word, and then turn that story into a 1 to 1 1/2 minute short film. My partner Debra and I got the word 'tolerance' which stumped us both as it felt very limiting. With the word 'tolerance' we both initially thought of a story including some form of bullying, but it felt too generic of a story and not particularly interesting. Due to the short nature of the film we decided that simple was best and created a story about tolerating someone slightly annoying, which we also felt was widely relatable. 

    After our brainstorming, we helped each other with ideas until we eventually had our fully formed and developed storyboard and shot-list which we used as a base when directing our friends on how to act in order to fully convey our idea. After filming, we used Adobe Express to edit all the clips together. I struggled deeply using Adobe Express as it crashed often and I had to wait an excessively long time in order to see the simple editing changes I was making. The quality of the video significantly dropped, becoming blurry and had low frame rate which quite frankly caused me a bit of emotional distress during the editing process. Nonetheless, it was really interesting and satisfying trying to figure out exactly where a clip should be cut to ensure the video was visually appealing and equally engaging throughout. 

    Although I am not disappointed in our final project by any means, I have learned valuable things from it. Next time, I'll definitely use all of my time to brainstorm to ensure that the final product isn't just "ok" but genuinely an interesting concept. My partner and I spent a lot of time brainstorming but once we found something we liked, we stuck to it rather than trying to improve even further. It was also extremely difficult to convey a story within such a short time frame and my partner and I commonly disagreed and had to make cases for which scenes are vital to convey the story and which had to be cut. 

    My partner and I had a ton of fun working on this project and I hope it's as enjoyable of a watch as it was to create!

Click here for "OWF Project: Tolerance"!