Still undecided!

After talking with my teacher regarding the separation of church and state law, I was informed that a faith-based film would be acceptable to do. This information both helped me and hindered me at the same time since I am still undecided on what to do. Although I am still stuck, I have done more research and started watching several film openings for each genre.

Drama

In regards to the drama genre, I have found one common characteristic is to make the characters relatable to viewers, therefore, the logical next step was to research who the audience was. According to a slideshow I found, the target audience for a drama was young adults and mature audiences regardless of gender. The main appeal for a drama is how the script is written and how relatable the characters are. If I were to do a drama I believe it would take a great deal of research when I have to come up with my characters and the dialogue for my opening in order to make them appealing to the target audience.

I went on artofthetitle.com and viewed some drama film openings, in order to view first hand what would be expected of me were I to do this film. I viewed 3 film openings:

The Neon Demon (2016): This opening was simple, it had a medley of soothing tones paired with unnerving music to create a contrast that everything may appear perfect on the outside, it is far from perfect on the inside. The majority of the opening sequence were credits and the names of the actors and director. I must admit that this opening was devoid of many techniques that were taught to me throughout the year and is not something that an independent director should do.

American Hustle (2013): In this intro, there is much more variety. At first there are the credits as simple as any credits are, and then it is followed by a long shot of one of the protagonist putting on his toupee. After that, the audience gets a glimpse of a luxurious house and the two other characters come inside. The two male leads have an altercation that prompts one man to mess up the main character’s toupee, which he had worked so hard on in the previous scene. Overall, the shots and camera angles were not as structured as most movies. Instead, the opening focused more on establishing a relationship between the characters, and intriguing the audience to see who they are throughout the movie.

Children of Men (2006): I also saw this film opening in class and loved it because it did a fantastic job of setting the tone and atmosphere for the rest of the movie through the newscast of the death of the youngest man alive, and the mise-en-scene throughout the first two minutes. The director is able to capture the cruelty of a war torn dystopian society within the first few minutes of the film, which is ultimately what I am trying to achieve during this project. This introduction would kind of be the one I would mostly lean towards (not the explosion of course) because it seems like it is the easiest one to get done with the timing that I have.

Faith-based

When it comes to faith based films, I learned that the faith-based film industry is not as easy as I had once believed. Although these films have a more defined target audience, it is difficult to make a faith-based film that truly captures the message the director is trying to create. By that, I mean that many films in this genre focus too much on spoon-feeding the readers the message of the film, instead of letting them think critically and figure out what that film is trying to tell them.

Despite the challenges this genre presents, studies from moviemaker show that faith-based movies are rising in popularity in the box office. One example would be “God’s Not Dead” that made 8.4 million dollars opening weekend with only 2 million dollar budget. More faith based films are coming out this year like “The Shack” starring Octavia Spencer and “Silence” that was released on December 23, 2016, starring Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson.

I went on YouTube and viewed three film introductions for faith-based productions. The three films I decided to view were:

God’s Not Dead (2014): In this opening, there is a lot of country scenery being showed, and since the majority of the film takes place on a college campus, there is a lot of aerial shots of that along with students living their lives on campuses. Moreover, in the background, there is an upbeat worship song that then leads into the title of the film ‘God’s Not Dead’. Since all of the shots in this project must be captured by me, I do not think I will be able to capture such breathtaking shots, unless I get a hold of a drone, which is highly unlikely at this point.

Miracles from Heaven (2016): In this film opening, there is soft music playing in the background as a series of nature shots appear. The nature shots consist of a farm, some trees and a forest. About a minute into the opening, a voiceover begins talking about miracles, hence the title. And finally, it shows a country wife played by Jennifer Garner getting her family ready for church service. This is a rather unoriginal and stereotypical representation of the lifestyle of the “perfect christian family” however, sometimes that is what a film needs in order to appeal to their target audience. One idea I drew from this film was, if I were to do this genre, to do a voiceover and soft music instead of trying to gain access to a copyrighted song.

90 Minutes in Heaven (2015): In this film opening, there was asynchronous sound of heavy rain while the credits were rolling, and the scene slowly fades into a man driving in the rain trying desperately to see where he is going. Throughout his struggles, there is worship music playing in his car until he gets struck by a bus on a bridge. The first lines of the film are “I died on January 18th, 1989.” which sparked an interest in me as a viewer and made me want to keep watching. If I do go a voiceover route, as I previously mentioned, I too must make sure that the first words spoken in my film spark just as much interest as these words do.

Overall, I think I have enough information on both genres to make a decision as to what I’m going to be doing for my project. I will just have to sleep on it and let you know tomorrow!

Buffam, N. (2015). Drama. Retrieved March 09, 2017  from https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/drama

Malysa, S. (2011, June 02). Characteristics of Drama Genres. Retrieved March 11, 2017, from http://www.ehow.com/info_8528738_characteristics-drama-genres.html

Hoffman, M. (14, April 15). The Christian Film Genre: A Dangerous and Pretentious Label. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.cinemablography.org/blog/the-christian-film-genre-a-dangerous-and-pretentious-label

Honeycutt, H. (2016, February 11). Box-Office Prophets: The Rise of the Faith-Based Film Industry. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.moviemaker.com/archives/moviemaking/directing/box-office-prophets/

Ebonypeart Follow, E. (2013, February 22). Target audience. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.slideshare.net/ebonypeart/target-audience-16706479

Art of the Title. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2017, from http://www.artofthetitle.com/