Genre Research: Godzilla vs Kong

 

• Some conventions we saw in Godzilla vs Kong were the use of high angles, and low angles with camera shots that help add to how the character is viewed. It also gave us lots of wide shots, and pan shots to see what is going on in the scene. Lots of diegetic sounds, as well as incidental music give the audience more of a view into the scene. The movie uses a lot of eye-line matches when there is dialogue between characters, as well as reverse shots and action shots. The sets and props are also well designed in the movie to look realistic. 

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• In the movie, we liked how most of the camera angles were used. The low and high angles helped add a dramatic factor to the movie. The use of diegetic sounds gave the audience a better idea of where the movie currently is, for example, the wave sounds used in the scene where the characters were in the ocean. Another aspect of the movie that we liked was the props and sets and how well they were designed. This movie helped give us a lot of ideas of what to do in our opening sequences.  

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• Some aspects that did not appeal to us were how the dialogue took over most of the movie, and how it messed with action shots. Also, how it overused a lot of pan shots in the movie, causing it to become regular. There were also a lot of close-ups in the movie, in places where it did not need to be. The movie was great overall but there could have been more emotional scenes with some of the characters that could add to the plot. While we will not be able to add any CGI to our film, we will use a lot of other concepts in this film that have inspired us. 

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Genre Research: Stowaway

 

• There was a lot of suspense in this film which I believe we should try to do the same in our movie. Using music, we could put watchers on the edge of their seats just like they did in Stowaway. 

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• Stowaway was highly Music oriented, and I would like to do this in our movie too. There were also great props because it was like they made the whole ship one big prop throughout the movie. There was also the fact that Stowaway only had 4 actors on screen the entire movie. I believe this contributed to the lonely feeling of the movie. They truly didn’t have help and were on their own up there. 

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• In the beginning of the movie during the ship launch, there was very shaky camera movement, and I don’t think that this could be useful to us. There won’t be any intense scenes with lots of movement in our film. One thing that I didn’t like was that there were very basic camera angles. I had a hard time seeing what they were trying to portray through them, and I want to make it easy for our audience, so they understand our movie. 

Genre Decision Blog: Sci-fi

 Our group researched the different genres to do for our opening sequence and chose thriller, horror, and Sci-Fi. When researching these genres, we relished how while they are similar, they all have distinct aspects that make them its own genre. This helped us see how each genre would work in our opening sequence. Thriller is more of a suspense, horror is a fear factor to scare you, and Sci-Fi is science fiction which is imagined science. Some movies helped us get a better view of how each genre looks, rather than just reading about it. For Sci-Fi we looked at movies such as “Godzilla vs. Kong” “stowaway” and “Free Guy”. When looking at movie genres like horror “Halloween kills” and “scream.” which as we saw has a lot of gore. Finally for thriller we looked at “a quiet place part II", "countdown” and “hereditary” which finally put what we were missing into what genre we wanted to use. We chose Sci-Fi as our movie genre because it fits best for what we are going for and the kind of story we are trying to tell. Looking at the other two choices, it was easy to see which on we should pick for our opening sequence. Horror and thriller, while highly considered, did not fit how we wanted our movie to turn out. We thought that horror and thriller were the same until further research showed us that they are completely different and would not work for our movie. Since our movie deals with an alien, it falls more into science fiction than any of the other genres. If we chose horror, we would have to make it seem more extreme and scarier rather than making it more dramatic than it is. Choosing thriller we would run into a similar problem, the only difference is thriller has more of a buildup, so the kidnapping would seem more like something you know was coming rather than it shocks you out of nowhere. Sci-Fi gave us the right buildup, along with camera angles, editing, and sound we would use in the opening sequence. Choosing Sci-Fi has now given us a better idea of how our opening sequence will look. When doing our opening sequence, we will look back at Sci-Fi movies which could give us ideas on how to improve our movie. Our group is extremely excited to do Sci-Fi as it seems like it gives a more opening to being imaginative. We cannot wait to get started on the next part of our project. 

Genre Research Blog: Thriller

 Thriller is one of the genres our group is considering for doing our opening sequence.  

Common Camera Angles: Close-ups, Extreme close up, High & Low angles, Canted angles, wide shots, and panning shots 

The camera angles are used to show suspense and emotion from the characters  

Common mis-En-scene: Lighting, Make-up, Props/Settings, Costumes 

Used to help get the audience's attention and making movies or films make sense 

Editing: cuts, special effects, zoom, sound. 

Thrillers use fast and slow-paced editing specifically to create suspense and tension within a scene. 

Common sounds: music with odd and captivating beats, sound effects. 

The song keeps the audience on their feet, speeding up or slowing down depending on the pace of the action 

Example films of this genre: “Tennent,” “Nobody,” “Countdown,” “Hereditary,” “The Quiet Place Part II” 

These are all movies that represent the Thriller genre 

Elements we like: Some elements we like about this genre is the act of music. It could be interesting to experiment with the different music and sound effects available to our use. Another thing we like about this genre is the use of variation in the camera angles. However, this can also be used in other genres.  

Elements we dislike: Some elements that would challenge us in this genre is the use of suspense. Although we will have suspense in our film; Our suspense will come from a science fiction aspect.