Genre Research

 Genre is a term used to way categorize pieces of media. Comedy is one of the most popular genres in the film industry with about 28% of all films released between 2016 and 2018 being comedies. A substantial amount of them being romantic comedies (romcoms.) These kinds of films generally target woman and girls ages 13-40. Conventions often seen this genre is a hyperfeminine lead or supporting character, sunny settings, heart-to-heart moments, and cultural references/archetypes. With every genre comes its institutional conventions for romcoms these include: 

• A meet cute
• A comedic relief character
• A transformation of a character (whether it be emotional or physical)
• Pop music and bright colors. 
• Big party/event
• Grand gesture

This is likely what has earned them the nickname "Chick Flicks"

One very popular Romantic Comedy, directed by Gil Junger and released in 1999, is 10 Things I hate About You. This film starred Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles and grossed at $53.7 million dollars. This film starts out with the pop-rock song "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies and is tuned out by the hit, rock song "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts illustrating the difference in characters. Throughout the coarse of this film we see plenty of conventions such as the lead character, Katarina "Kat" Stratford. She is perceived to be a loner, having very little friends, and having a "grunge" or "alternative" style, seen by her choice of clothing, music taste, and hatred for those deemed "popular." This film features your classic grand gesture when Ledgers character, Patrick Verona, sings "Cant Take My Eyes Off of You" to Kat in front of a football field filled with people. This film is also praised for Kat Stratford's poem at the end of the film which gives the film its name and is what many people know the film by. 

Another Romantic Comedy that takes a slightly different approach at the genre is the movie Clueless. This movie starts with the lead character Cher, played Alicia Silverstone, describing her life in Beverly Hills and fashion choices. Throughout this film characters not only have a transformation within themselves but also have physical transformations. This is seen when Cher gives a makeover to, Brittany Murphy's character, Tai. Consequently this caused one of the main conflicts in the film as Tai gains popularity. Cher on the other hand, has an emotional transformation later on after she realizes the boy she liked was gay and she starts to realize her feelings about her ex-stepbrother. This film features pop music and bright colors giving it a nostalgic feeling when watched today. Furthermore, the film is known for Cher's iconic yellow plaid costume even being the background of the movie poster.  

Other films that embody this genre include:

• 
  When Harry Met Sally (friends turned lovers) 
  

• 
  The Princess Diaries (teenage girl navigating both love and royalty) 

• 
  27 Dresses (a perpetual brides made struggling with her own love life) 

• How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days (a magazine writer and ad executive fall in love while trying to repel the other) 

• The Wedding Planner (a hardworking wedding planner falls in love with the groom while planning a wedding)

Representation in the Media

 Representation in the media is very important as it can change how entire groups of people are viewed or portrayed. In the movie Encanto, representation is used all throughout the film to demonstrate Colombian culture as more than what it has been known for in the past, drug possession. 

The movie Encanto, follows a young girl, named Mirabel Madrigal, struggling to find a way to fit in within a family of gifted and magical people. The story show cases representation through it's musical story telling and show casing of multi-racial families. 

The construction of music in Encanto, plays a huge part in the movie and is part of the reason as to why it was such a success when it was first released. Not only, did it feature songs of Colombian origin, Colombian artists, such as Carlos Vives and Sebastian Yatra, but it featured a song in Spanish, 'Dos Oruguitas'. This was monumental as many other movies in the past that tried to showcase Hispanic heritage has never done this before. Part of what also made this scene so impactful was that it included a very important part of Colombian culture that many people did not know about before watching the film, that being 'La Guerra de los Mil Dias' or, the War of One Thousand Days; echoing Colombia's long history of displacement. 

This film, also features an elderly character, Abuela Alma. Throughout, the film the viewer learns about her life story and history through inserts/flashbacks, so she was seen as an elderly woman throughout the majority of the film. This is very significant as it is not often scene in films, and lets the audience know that her story is important and  worth telling. Furthermore, during her time as an elderly woman in the film, she is not seen as the stereotypical grandma, sitting around, often brushed off by others, but she is authoritative and a big part of Mirabel's character development as well as having character 
development herself. 

Encanto, also depicts a multi-racial family, something not often seen in films without being mocked or laughed at. The majority of Latinos, specifically woman, have experienced exoticizing, such as being called 'ethnic' or 'exotic', or have experienced the feeling of 'not being Latino enough.' This is due to media often portraying Hispanic woman as one thing, tan girls with long dark hair, hoop earrings, and an attitude. This film did the exact opposite, portraying the Madrigal family in shapes and colors and not one being othered for looking any different than the rest. One example, are the characters Aunt Pepa and Cousin Dolores. One being thin and tall, pale skin with red hair and the other being short with curves, dark skin, and curly dark hair. Most importantly, these characters, along with being blood related, have fully developed character arcs and neither are ostracized for how they look despite looking completely different while sharing the screen. 

Overall, the movie Encanto, through it's use of construction and selection, is able to properly depict Colombian cultures and features many historically underrepresented groups. Encanto's use of storytelling destigmatizes Colombian culture as a whole and was able to create a space for people to come together to enjoy the intricacies that were put into making this film so magical.

Sound Project

 Sound is used to compliment visuals in a film; it gives dimension and adds emotional emphasis. In this lesson, we learned all about sound, editing, and how it all works together to produce a film. Sound can be used in many different ways to develop the story, one way is through diegetic sound. Diegetic sound is any sound heard that comes from the narrative world on or offscreen. Examples of this are, typical environment sounds such as computer typing in an office setting. Non-Diegetic sounds are sound that do not belong in the characters world and draw emphasis to a specific action or moment. This can include, a narrator speaking, a theme song, stings, etc. 

Editing is also a method of story telling as it is a 'visual metaphor.' One method of editing that we learned that stuck out to me the most is symbolism. This is when shots are cut together to convey meaning. One big example of this is the shower scene in Psycho. Specifically the graphic match between the shower drain and the woman's eye. This moment signifies her life literally going down the drain as she slowly dies. Without this editing, the moment would not be as special in the scene. 

For this projected, we were directed to create 1-2 minutes scene and build the plot using only sound. We needed to create a detailed outline explaining the sounds that we will use to create our story. Then, use online tools to collect audios and edit the piece together as well as using 4 foley sounds of our choice. 

My partner and I, being inspired by Grey's Anatomy, decided to base our scene in a surgery room. During brainstorming we thought of different ways the scene could play out such as what was going to happen to the patient, what is being done to them, etc. In the end, we landed on the idea of them dying during heart surgery (dark, I know.) For the outline we split it up into 5 different parts, this way we knew when everything was happening chronologically. This helped us organize the sounds we would use by attaching the link to each sound to directly next to the sound description. Look at the image below for reference.

Once planning was done I decided to use the app 'Audio Editor' as it is relatively easy to use and I have previous experience working with it. However, this for me was definitely the most challenging part of the whole process. Although, I do think in the end my partner and I did a good job editing it was definitely a struggle for me and something I would like improvement on. Overall, my partner and I worked very well together to create this scene and were able to build off of each others ideas but we could still both use some practice.

Sound Project.