Dramatic Media Texts Part 3

 Media Text #5: Stand By Me

I chose to research this film #1 because it's sooo good and #2 I love how real it is. It doesn't feel other worldly or completely bizarre, it's the kind of story my dad would tell me about from when he was a kid (maybe minus the murder). The film highlights the power of friendship between 4 boys as they go on an adventure to see a dead body. 

However, as each of the boys struggle with their own personal struggles and traumas, they overcome these issues by being their for one another despite their own individual weaknesses. This film, unlike the last few media texts I've researched, isn't hyper stylized or uses elaborate costuming or coloring tricks to tell a story, the story just flows (no hate to what I've researched so far). That, is what I hope to achieve, although I could like to incorporate such technical aspects in to my short film, I don't want to be so reliant on these things to move the story along. 

Media Text #6: The Dead Poets Society 

This film has been critically acclaimed for years now for it's deep and profound understanding of boyhood and the importance of literature. Many reviews have stated that this is the kind of story that stays with you a life time. It captures the growth of characters during their most developmental and vulnerable years as well as seeing how their friendships and teacher, played by Robin Williams, play a pivotal role in this time in their lives. This type of reaction is what I want my short film to have, for the story to stick with audiences for years to come and gives them them something to think about. 

Citations: 

Steinberg, D. (n.d.). Stand by me (1986) and the Power of Friendship | Hollywood Suite. Hollywood Suite. https://hollywoodsuite.ca/stand-by-me-1986-and-the-power-of-friendship/ 

Hinesman, L. (2023, October 19). “Dead poet’s society” review. The Communicator. https://chscommunicator.com/87408/a-and-e/2023/10/dead-poets-society-review/#

Dramatic Media Texts Part 2

 Media text #3: Saltburn 

This specific drama piece is also uses lighting and coloring techniques to move the story along but also uses costumes. As we know from our media studies, costumes are supposed to be a representation each character, it can tell certain stories that can't necessarily be told in the form of dialogue. For example, Jacob Elordi's character, Felix, is often seen wearing outfits that are pretty worn down and as the clothes were just thrown on without any real thought. However, he is seen wearing brands like Ralph Lauren which illustrates the idea that although he was born into money, he doesn't really care much for it, or isn't cognizant of his extreme wealth compared most other people especially considering he surrounds himself with people who are also very wealthy. 

This style contrasts that of his costar Barry Keoghan, who plays Oliver. Oliver's styling is an extreme contrast to Felix in that it is very purposeful and exact despite his financial situation. Furthermore, the characters purposeful costume choice reflect his plan to be in Felix's world. As the story progresses we see Oliver's style converge to be more like Felix's, the only difference is that Oliver's style is extremely performative. 

 

 

Media Text #4: The Black Swan 

The Black Swan is psychological drama that has been acclaimed for it's extremely stylized approach of the ballet 'Swan Lake'. The film highlights the juxtaposition between control and letting go regarding the lead characters struggle to play both parts. Not only do the ballet costumes themselves hold symbolism such as the white swan representing innocence and vulnerability while the black swan represents the fierce, dark, presence, but costumes outside the ballet represent Natalie Portman's character, Nina's, psychological descend. For example, her makeup and costumes slowly become darker as the film progresses. Her natural makeup is replaced with bolder and darker colors and her style of clothing becomes more and more edgy as the film goes on, hinting at her transformation into her own 'black swan' 

Citations: 

Mcqunt, A. (2023, December 16). Saltburn costume analysis. Saltburn Costume Analysis. https://alexandermcqunt.substack.com/p/saltburn-costume-analysis

Malik, N. (2024, August 16). Shattered reflections: Artistic expression and symbolism in “Black swan”. Another Level Higher. https://anotherlevelhigher.wordpress.com/2024/08/16/shattered-reflections-artistic-expression-and-symbolism-in-black-swan/

Dramatic Media Texts Part 1

    While researching for my short film I became extremely interested in the lighting aspects on many dramatic pieces. Previously, I briefly mentioned the hit TV shows 'Breaking Bad' and 'Euphoria'. I specifically mentioned these two shows are they both heavily rely on technical aspect, such as lighting and color to develop a tone as well as overall mood and environment. 

    For example, the famous yellow coloring of breaking bad is typically used in scenes that are set in Mexico and are typically flashbacks. This, is a way of providing context as well as separating the different locations by associating one with a different color hue. 

    Similarly, colors in this show are often associated with different characters as well as there relationship towards one another, kind of like a color wheel. For example, the chart below shows many of the leads characters basic color palettes and how they developed throughout the seasons. As you can see, as their color palettes develop through throughout the seasons, they typically do not mix into each other. 

 

    Euphoria on the other hand, often used lighting to convey emotion especially that when the lead character Rue, was under the influence (which she is a lot of the time). This is often represented by purple and blueish hues throughout the show although the entirety of the show has a yellow-blue contrast, an artistic approach by the director. The director, Sam Levinson, has said he uses color to physically show how the characters feel. The mixes primary colors and provides multiple light sources to highlight the intense moments/emotions characters go through. For example, the image below illustrates a character as she is about to go meat an older man she met online, this later becomes a larger plot point and is symbolic of her traumas that later explained in the show. 

This shot uses 3 different light sources including a backlight, and overhead light and warm lights seen in the upper left and right quarters of the shot to create an intense and almost scary tone. 

Citation: 

Binder, S. (2022, June 20). Euphoria Cinematography Breakdown — DP Marcell Rév on Lighting, Camera Movement, and Oners. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqvM4r4GDAM 

Kogge, M. (2022, August 27). Euphoria: Lights, camera, high school. The American Society of Cinematographers. https://theasc.com/articles/euphoria-rev 

Colors | breaking bad wiki | fandom. Fandom. (2025, December 3). https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Colors

Genre Research

 Having finally decided on our project of choice, a short film, I decided I need to look further into the specific genre of our short film. The plot isn't quite finished so I don't want to give too much away but the main premise is a guy dealing with the grieving process of losing his sister, the short film will be essentially narrated by him as he discussed his emotions during his first therapy session. 

With this in mind, I decided I need to research on the dramatic film genre.

Beginning my research I found that dramas are typically centered around character conflicts regarding one another, oneself, or nature and the majority of these films deal with real world problems, something viewers can often times relate to or see themselves in, hence why it is important that the representation of certain groups is depicted accurately. Moreover, dramas often take you deep into the minds of the characters, or at least the lead of the film. However, contrary to other genre's there is not always necessarily a hero or villain, instead the audience witnesses the highs and lows of the lead character and how this affects their environment as well as how their environment affects them. To put into clearer terms, the drama genre is centered around conflict. 

Furthermore, drama's are heavily reliant of dialogue in order build relationships and plot. With this in mind, I've realized that many drama's are also heavily reliant on other technical aspects to convey a certain mood or tone or illustrate an idea because, let's face it, watching people speak at each other for 2 hours in frankly, boring.  

The yellowish hue of 'Breaking Bad'

The purple hue often seen in the TV show 'Euphoria'

There are also many sub-genres to the drama genre given that it has such a vast definition. Subgenres include: 

• Dramedys
• Melodrama's 
• Biopics 
• Dramatic Mystery 

Citations: 

Hellerman, J. (March 2026). Explore the drama genre in film and television | no film school. no film school. https://nofilmschool.com/drama-genre 

Hay, L. V. (2023, July 5). What is drama? A working definition for your screenplay. Bang2write. https://bang2write.com/2018/02/drama-definition-for-your-screenplay.html 

Yellowbrick, Y. (2024, March 21). Through the lens: The Visual Dynamics of Euphoria. https://www.yellowbrick.co/blog/film/the-visual-dynamics-of-euphoria 

CNN. (2019, July 10). Memorable moments from “breaking bad.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/26/entertainment/gallery/breaking-bad-scenes-rebuild

Scheduling (scary)

One of my biggest concerns for this project this my team and I's schedules as we are both extremely busy especially these first few weeks as we out 3 weeks out from out school musical 'Mamma Mia' and we have to stay late at school pretty much every day leading up to the show. That being said, out main goal with this schedule is to keep ourselves as organized as possible without having to grapple with too much at once especially with our extracurriculars. 

 2/23-3/1:

• 2/23: Have project option and general idea DONE and set in stone
• 2/25: Work out more details for our genre, target audience, etc.

(Blog posts: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday)

3/2-3/8:

• 3/2: Research social media + discuss the type of social media page we will create
• 3/3: Create a schedule a filming schedule, tentative dates and reach out to people to be featured in the film.
• 3/4: Outline our entire film component, firm concept that won't be changed after this week

(Blog posts: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday)

3/9-3/15

• 3/10: Solid script for project finalized + send to actors in film
• 3/11: Final planning details 
• 3/13: FINALIZE filming dates, possibly even begin filming

(Blog Posts: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday)

3/16-3/22: SPRING BREAK, Audrey and I have a field trip Wednesday-Saturday of that week

• 3/16: Work on print component
• 3/17: Film as much as possible, film while on the trip if we have to
• 3/20: Keep up to date with social media

(Blog Posts: GET THEM DONE WHEN I HAVE TIME)

3/23-3/29:

• 3/25: Finalize film, editing + revisions.
• 3/28: Finalize digital and print parts of project
• 3/29: Begin Critical reflection planning

3/30- 4/5:

• 3/30: Critical reflection planning
• 4/2: Begin writing the critical reflection

4/6-4/10:

• 4/7: Critical reflection finished, peer editing 
• 4/8: FINALIZE critical reflection

Whole project should be done at this point!! Have everything fully uploaded by 4/10!

A Level Portfolio Project- The Beginning

 Hi Cambridge!! I'm so excited, and so scared at the same time, to be starting on my portfolio project. I have so many ideas yet none at all at the same time. I feel like the thinking monkey meme. 

For this project I'm working with Audrey (yay!) I'm super excited to work with her as she is one of my closest friends and we are both very creative people and are very good at building off of each others ideas. 

Audrey (right) and I (left)

Moreover, she and I have many similar interest as we both do theatre and have a lot of the same friends so coming up with a story we both want to tell won't be too difficult for us. Currently we are deciding between doing a documentary or a short film for our portfolio project. 

Personally, I am more interested in creating a short film as I felt as thought last year, for my AS level portfolio project I spent a lot of my time wanting to build from the story my team and I had created for our excerpt. Additionally, Audrey and I have previously worked on a documentary project together and I would to get the chance to try something knew. A short film gives me an opportunity to do just that, to tell a story in its entirety and to get to go into the details of it all. 

I have had a few ideas for a short story but I wont share them just yet to not get my hopes up but if we choose to go in that direction I'll be sure to let you guys know.

Critical Reflection

When researching for this project, my main inspiration for the interview style was a piece I watched in class called 'American Promise'. The interview style of the interviews was different for both the children involved in the piece and the adults. The piece used mainly a direct interviews style when interviewing the kids and indirect when interviewing the adults. Seeing this, my group and I preferred the direct interview style and so it is illustrated in our documentary. 

Main subjects of 'American Promise'
in an interview

 However, looking back on our documentary, I realize that an indirect interview style would have suited the piece better. An indirect interview would've allowed the piece to flow more and would've created the feeling that the interviewee's were truly 'speaking from the heart' and not being prompted by the interview questions. Furthermore, seeing as the as we interviewed 2 subjects for this documentary it seemed as the the documentary was split into 2 different parts. Although this wouldn't have been a bad thing if done intentionally, this was not the goal. In hind sight, this issue could've been fixed in post-production by including clips of both the subjects interviews throughout the entirety of the piece. This would've also helped in making the documentary as whole flow better.

The goal of our documentary, "Lineage" was to exemplify what intergenerational activities mean in the context of theatrical productions. We strived to represent the south Florida theatre community by interviewing 2 extremely active members of Inside Out Theatre Company, an extremely prevalent community theatre company that has been active in south Florida since 1998. 

The 2 members we chose were Lito Becerra(54) and Brandon Jerry(18), these two have been working with Inside Out Theatre in varies different productions and even met during Inside Out Theatres Production of 'The Hunch Back Of Notre Dame" about a year ago when they worked along side each other playing Clopin and Quasimodo. 

When deciding who we wanted to interview we made to sure pick people who were in vastly different stages of life but still shared one common interest, there commitment and passion for theatre. Our goal was to represent the whole of the theatre community in south Florida, and given that south Florida has one of the largest hubs for the International Thespian Society, we knew that Becerra and Jerry were an excellent representation.

 Looking back, I wish we would've been able to get at least one more perspective from someone a little younger, perhaps someone in the early years of high school or middle school. This would've helped to in having a more accurate representation of the intergenerational theatre community in south Florida. However, when we talked to the owner of Inside Out Theatre Company she explained as this would be hard for us to do as they would be minors and since we were working in her rehearsal space that would make her legally responsible for them and their safety so, we opted against it for her and the child's sake

 

Moreover, our target audience was of course those interested theatre as well as anyone interested, but unsure, of participating in a multi-generational production rather than age specific one. With this in mind, and also realizing that this audience would likely have a wide age-range we made sure to create a piece that was geared towards all age ranges. This was difficult as, being teenagers, we all were looking at the project from the lens of a teenager. This forced us to take a step back many times to try to look at the piece from an outside lens, not only from the lens of a viewer but from the lens of someone at a much different stage of life than us. 

Through this, we were able to create a piece that was engaging to the full range of our audience.

Furthermore, we engaged with our audience by creating a sense of community within our documentary. We did this by including footage of rehearsals and productions that exemplify intergenerational activities a long with structuring our interview questions in a way that would guide the interviewees to talk about the community that such activities have built for them. 

In conclusion, despite its flaws, and the hiccups we faced a long the road 'Lineage' successfully achieved its purpose in bringing generations together and exemplifying what one can learn from intergenerational activities.

Documentary Project #4 production/post-production

 Hiii! So for this project we did have some trouble being able to shoot any b-roll ourselves of any rehearsal processes or productions as our schedules just didn't match up (as I explained in my last blog). Because of this we had to talk to the owner of the Theatre Company we were working with, Robin Braun, in order to get some archived footage of any rehearsals and past productions and luckily she was able to provide us with lots of footage. 

The 'bottle dancers' from a production of
 Fiddler on the Roof

During post-production, we found that it would be very difficult for us to try to edit the documentary the documentary all together as we were in a bit of a time crunch especially since one of our group members would be out of the country the days leading up to when the project had to be complete.

 So, one of our group member, David, volunteered to be the main editor. This was also the most convenient way to go about it as he was the one who provided the camera so he wouldn't have to worry about exporting all the footage to someone else for them to edit. Funny enough, he was the one that would be out the country but he took the initiative to edit while on the plane. Despite this, he still kept us updated throughout the editing process ensure that the project turned out how we had all envisioned it.

Overall, despite some bumps in the road, the documentary worked out as it was indented to and we were able to follow through with the purpose of the documentary which is reflected in the final result.

Documentary Project #3 production

 Hiii! When it came time to film we had initially planned to film for 2 days out the week in order to get ample footage, unfortunately, we only ended up having one day of filming as the rest of my group was not available later that week to film and I caught an upper respiratory infection and the flu so yay me! 

Anyway... 

The day we filmed we arrived at the rehearsal studio at 5 pm. We talked to the director of the the Theatre Company and she gave us a designated room for us to be able to set up and film our interviews in. We decided to film in a space in which the camera had a view of the window in the room to make the shot look a little prettier however, the sun set pretty early so there wasn't much to see. Because it was getting dark so quickly the camera quality started to become a bit grainy but after adjusting the focus of the camera and changing the position of the lights we were using the camera quality cleared up quite a bit, although it still wasn't 100% perfect. 

Lito Berrcera in the interview room

As we set up and discussed how we would go about filming, our first subject Lito, arrived at around 5:30. We decided that along with our pre-planned interview questions we our interviewer, Audrey, would ask additional questions as we saw fit. 

Working with Lito was honestly such a positive experience. He came in with so much professionalism and kindness. He gave extensive responses for each question which was great for us as it gave us so much footage to work with. 

When it came time to interview Brandon we ran into a problem which was that out camera had ran out of storage. I, as cinematographer, hadn't noticed that the camera had stopped recording until about half way through the interview. However, after deleting some footage from a past project we were able to get back on track although we did have to ask the subject to restate his answers for a few of the questions. 

Overall, despite some hiccups, everything went according to plan although in hindsight, I should've gotten a few more angles of the interviews for each of the subjects. 

Documentary Project #2 Planning

 Heyyyyy! So onto the actual planning of my documentary. My friend Audrey, who was a part of my team for this project, and I were in a musical called Fiddler on The Roof. I honestly think this experience is what inspired us the most. During this production we worked with people ages 76 to 2 years old and we realized that the intergenerational aspect of the production is what made it feel like a real community. 

Because of this experience, we decided to base our documentary off the concept of intergenerational activities/productions, getting different perspectives from people of different generations who were in this production and have participated in intergenerational productions in the past. More specifically, the goal was to get an inside look at the subjects personal experiences with these productions, and what the experience has taught them. 

We began by coming up with specific questions to ask each of them, during this process we decided it'd be best to give each of them a different set of questions to elicit varied responses and planning the different shots and angles we wanted to get. We also decided it would be best to get b-roll directly from the show. 

Planning Sheet

Doc. Outline

We decided to contact Lito Becerra (54) and Brandon Jerry (18) both of whom have previously been a part of multiple intergenerational productions. Luckily, arranging a time and place to meet up was easy as we all had decently clear schedules. Now all that was left to do was film. 

Lito and Brandon pictured in the center

First A level blog! (yay)- Documentary Project #1Research

 Beginning our documentary lesson all I knew was that a documentary was a way to tell about a subjects life, or a short period of time, or maybe a project. I soon learned that although this might be true, there are so many different types of documentaries and conventions, it's hard to sum it all up in one go. 

For this project, we began our research by watching documentaries both in class and at home. We began by watching an episode of Abstract that focused on costume design with Ruth E. Carter. This piece was extremely interesting to me as it gave an inside look on her process for creating famous costume pieces for films such as Do The Right Thing and Black Panther, which I have always admired the costuming for. 

 Another documentary we watched in class was called "American Promise". The documentary followed 2 young boy attending one of the most prestigious schools in the nation over the course of 13 years. Watching this documentary, it was hard to focus less on the content and more on the technique but I did notice a few things along the way. For example, for the majority of the piece, a hand-held camera is used which pulls the viewer into the their world as we follow their life stories. Another technique I noted was the fact that for the majority of the piece, the parents/adults are interviewed using an indirect interview technique while the boys (Idris and Seun) are interviewed using a direct interview technique. 

The next documentary I researched was an episodic documentary named 'Abstract', I specifically watched an episode about digital product design as it was something that immediately peaked my interest when scrolling through Netflix. I noticed a few key conventions and techniques about episodic documentaries. For example, they all start with the same theme song and opening, although the content is different to be able to develop different ideas based on the episode, they all start relatively the same. I also noticed that the b-roll included was a representation of a concept. For example, there were many clips of someone using a computer or a mouse moving across a computer screen, developing the idea of 'digital'. 

Screenshot of episode (min 17)

 Above, you can see this idea being developed through the multitude of digital devices and representations of modern technology and social media  that appear before the viewer. 

Using this research I found that for my own project I want to combine a mix of the two. I wanted it to look professional while also bringing the viewer as close to the subject as possible. This is where my brain storming began.

CCRs and film opening

 CCR questions 1 and 2: 

 

CCR questions 3 and 4: 

 

Film Opening: 

Reflection Post

 Hi! Wow, I can't believe this is my last post before turning in my project. Honestly, it feels like since week 5, time just flew by. This project taught me a lot about myself. I learned about my creative strengths and weaknesses. Such as that I excel in things like story telling and the creative aspects of the production process and that my weaknesses lie in the technological/ post-production area. I also learned that a project like this takes time and effort, and procrastination is simply not an option. 

Despite the challenges we faced, my group and I were able to create a film opening we are proud of. My group and I were able to work so great together as we all had different strengths that we were able to contribute to the project and were all willing to give our 110% to make our film opening. For example, after Elke finished editing, when we tried to export to OneDrive and Google Drive the file it somehow got corrupted (I'm still not 100% sure what that means) and really depleted the video quality of the film. Luckily, Isa, one of my group members, was able to figure out how to tweak and crop certain things to make it look better. 

Overall, despite the tedious parts, this project was so much fun to put together. I think part of the reason was because my group and I were all very open minded to each others ideas and were able expand off of each other instead of wanting things to only be a certain way, in simpler terms, none of us were selfish about the project.

This project, although it did keep me up many late nights, has given me so much hope and excitement for future projects. Anyway, bye Cambridge people!