Genre Research: The Judge Movie

This movie was like many others that I often enjoy watching on my free time. It displayed real-world family problems and relationship issues. What I found the most interesting was when the lawyers' child began speaking to him about the divorce he and his wife were thinking of having. She showed actual knowledge and did not hide the fact that it bothered her.
     The only thing I can say that I did not like about this film was the mother dying and them announcing it in court at the beginning of the movie.

    Camera Shots:
1. Wide Shot: When the lawyers are in the bathroom and Hank is confronted by the counsel on the opposing side
2. Long Shot: When "The Judge" is entering the courtroom
3. Point of View: The conversations in the car
    Camera Angles :
1. High angle: The drive on the way to his fathers' house, showing the city and the water
2. Eye-level: Throughout the dialogue
3. Low angle: The confrontation about the car accident
    Camera Movement :
1. Tilt: "The Judge" entering the courtroom in the middle of the movie
2. Zoom: Hank is on the plane, and receives a phone call about his father
3. Flashpan: Dialogue back and forth with officers in the department

    Costumes: This movie takes place mostly at the courthouse and the homes of the characters. They wear business attire when in the courtroom and semi-formal throughout this film.
    Lighting: The beginning of the movie is filmed outside where there is natural lighting and sunlight. The lighting is the same throughout because they are in buildings, except for when they are in the basement because of the storm. The light is very dim then.
    Action/Actors: In the beginning, they are in a courtroom and there is a quarrel between the two lawyers, in the bathroom one of them urinates on the other. They show the body of the main characters' deceased mother in the casket. Most of the actors are either a part of the trial, policemen, or family members of the main characters.
    Make-up: The deceased mother is dressed up in the casket. Throughout the movie, the attire of the characters does not really change. When "The Judge" is vomiting and defecating himself in the bathroom, he looks rather pale.
    Props: The empty ring box that Hank has. Everything else is inanimate and stays the same.
   Setting:
- The house of "The Judge"
- The courtroom
- The courtroom bathroom
- The judges' chambers
- The cars

Genre Research: PINK Movie

One of the movies that fall under the Legal Drama genre is a movie called “PINK”. This movie can be found on Netflix. It’s about a sexual assault victim that is getting charged unjustly with attempted murder of the man that attacked her. She’s defended by a retired lawyer that challenges the rape laws in their country that is India. This movie was interesting as it brought awareness to the things that happens to people in other countries. I liked the fact that although the lawyer suffered from bipolar disorder that he was ashamed of, he still came out of retirement to defend these girls. Being that the attacker is the son of a politician, no other lawyer in town wanted to take the risk of defending her.
What I didn’t like about this movie is the fact that it portrays Indian society towards women who don’t follow what they think is the right thing for women to do. Another reason why no one wanted to defend the victim is because they felt that she was in the wrong although she’s the one that got attacked. This movie was overall a whirlwind of emotions.

Camera Shots
- Extreme Close Up: First shot of the lawyer. He’s now introduced to the plot.
- Two Shot: The scene where the attacker and his friend were filmed on their way to the hospital.

Camera Angles:
- Eye Level: This is filmed as the girls are panicking and and in a frenzy about what happened.
- Low Angle: Show the girl in the jail cell.

Camera Movement:
- Zoom: It zooms into the attackers bruises
-Pan: This was used in the courtroom during the trial.

Editing:
- Fade-in: This is in the beginning of the movie as it goes from credits to the opening scene.
- Cross-cutting: Camera went back and forth between the girl getting kidnapped to the lawyers house.

Sound:
- Diegetic Sound: Sounds of cars passing by.
- Dialogue: All throughout the movie.

Costumes-
This movie takes place mostly at the police station, outside in the streets and the actor’s homes.

Lighting-
This film was shot indoors and outdoors. Outdoors there is natural lighting and indoors there is no ring light but there is ceiling light.

Acting-
The acting in this movie is good. The girl plays her role as a damaged sexual assault victim being that later on in the movie, the attacker found her and kidnapped her. This was to roughen her up. The guy is very aggressive and well executes his role as he does an excellent job of acting in it. The lawyer takes medicated pills to keep his bipolar disorder at bay.

Makeup-
The females in this movie are not wearing makeup. If so, it’s for the scenes where they are crying. This is done to make a dramatic effect. It has the ability to keep the audience intrigued.

Props-
The props used in this movie were hand props such as the lawyers briefcase, phones, pills, and weapons.

Settings-
The settings in this movie varies. The setting include home, hospital, jail cell, the park and the police station.

Genre Research: Chosen Genre

After researching these three genres, we chose legal drama. The reason why we chose this genre is because we felt that it would be more interesting. Also, we would have more availability to get props and costumes for this film. Legal drama would bring a smart but twisted effect for our audience. We feel that western would be too standard. It is unlikely for us to be able to create a desert looking setting with cowboy hats and guns. For musical, we feel that it wouldn't be that much interesting. We wanted to choose a genre that would have our audience on the edge of their seats. With legal drama as our genre choice, that is sure to happen.

Genre Research: Western and Legal Drama

Genre Research: Musical Genre

This assignment was about explaining what a musical film is. We were given this genre and was told to give examples of camera angles, movements, and shots. Our PowerPoint was to choose pictures and colors that correlated with our genre. 

Since our genre was musical, we used uplifting colors in transitions that would help our PowerPoint pop out, and be more visually appealing. This assignment was to expose us to the fact that there's more to a genre on a film than what is shown on the surface. After this assignment, watching other films and productions made it easy to point out camera movements and angles. I believed the purpose was to do this and it worked. Musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing.

Chosen Pitch

The two pitches that we narrowed the choices down to is 'The Escape Room' and 'Two - Faced'. The reason why we canceled the 'Forbidden Love' pitch is because there is not enough availability for us to film it. It would be too long of a storyline. Even if we tried to fit it in two minutes, it would look very rushed. We also canceled it because Escape Room and Double Deceit would be more interesting approaches, than an African - American and a Caucasian falling in love. Additionally, those approaches have more availability to film. In the next paragraphs, we will explain why.

The first pitch is The Escape Room. This pitch is about a group of people who had their drinks drugged at a party, then they find themselves in a room they must escape from. The storyline that we were going to make for this pitch is how different obstacles are in the room, making it hard for them to escape. What makes it even harder is that the pill that was slipped into their drinks has the ability to impair their thinking. Only one person out of the whole group is going to survive this course. My group and I figured that this would be an interesting film to make. However, there is not enough availability. We would have to make an 'escape room' and all the obstacles to suffice our filming needs.

The second pitch is Double Deceit. This pitch is about a woman who is a lawyer by day and criminal master mind by night. She is defending a woman who is being charged with neglect for the kidnapping of her son. What the woman doesn't know is that her lawyer is the culprit. My group and I decided that this pitch is also a more interesting approach. It also has more availability for us to film. We would be able to incorporate the characters, the plot, and the cliffhanger all in two minutes. We feel that this may be our choice out of both pitches.

The pitch that my group and I decided to choose was Double Deceit. We chose this pitch because we thought that it would be a good way to catch the attention of our audience. There is no proper way to present a cliffhanger, than to have your character playing both sides. We also thought that it had more availability than the other two approaches. It would be easy for us to film a kidnapping, a law type of environment, and more. We feel that the most important part of this two - minute film is to leave the audience on the edge of their seats. Leaving them wondering is exactly what we will achieve by choosing Double Deceit.

Start of Final Task

I know its been awhile and you guys probably already forgot about me. Allow me to re-introduce myself. Hi, I am Janell. Last time you guys heard of me, I was working on filming the music video. By the way, that was a success. My group and I got a B on it. It was definitely a better grade than I expected since we were totally stuck on the editing part. However, it is a new year and I am ready to apply the skills I've learned in the next project we have. As you all know, my group members were Micahia and Jessica. However, we now have an edition to the group, Eric.

Within this half a year, I have learned a lot in this class. For starters, I learned how to blog. Yes, teens of this generations love our phones, but this "blogging" term is not something I did on a regular basis. My teacher has taught me how to structure these paragraphs, and how to get the information to you guys. I also learned how to edit. Believe me, I have not had to edit any type of footage a day in my life. That is until I got into this class. The talent that I am bringing is my writing skills. My group members and I all had talents that we portrayed in the last media projects, but I did most of the writing. Writing gives me a way to express myself and gives others a better understanding of what I have to say. 

A pitch is a term derived from Hollywood that is used to describe an idea of a film. This idea is an idea of the film that is spewed out quickly and simply in 25 words or less. An example of this can include a movie scene where one trying to move their way up in their current job position (an assistant that wants to become team lead), but the boss is too busy to spare more than five minutes of their time. This assistant is on limited time and therefore has to make a pitch that'll hopefully catch the bosses attention. I'm pretty sure we've all seen a movie like this. A recent example is what men want by Adam Shankman. Our 1st pitch: A group of people have their drinks drugged at a party, then they find themselves in a room they have to escape from. 2nd pitch: A Caucasian male and African-American female find themselves in love with eachother and although this isn't the olden days, their love is still forbidden. 3rd pitch: She's a lawyer by day and criminal mastermind by night and she abducted her client's child because she wants to build a family. Only one of these interesting pitches can be the topic of our 2-minute movie.