Another Cliffhanger?

In my last post, I said I was going to talk about why I used the word "franchise." This is because it has almost become standard practice for action films to end on a cliffhanger. One of the longest-running jokes in Hollywood is the seemingly unending story of the Fast & Furious films. According to Wikipedia, a cliffhanger is a "plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode or a movie of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to incentivize the audience to return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma." 

Another franchise known for its cliffhangers is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The films in the MCU will often have a resolved story, but the credit roll at the end of the film likely will contain a small scene that often features a side character and sets up a future film. A good example of this is the post-credit scene from Avengers: Infinity War (2018). In the film, fans were shocked to see the Avengers lose to the villain Thanos and the film ends with a victorious Thanos and half of all life in the universe snapped from existence. In the post-credit scene, a side character in the film, Nick Fury, sees people around him begin to turn to dust (this is the moment Thanos snaps away half of all life). Fury pulls out an old pager and as he begins to turn to dust, the pager sends a signal to Captain Marvel, the titular character of the next Marvel film released after Avengers: Infinity War. The entire point of the scene was to encourage the audience to go see Captain Marvel when it releases to see how the character is related to the unresolved story of Avengers: Infinity War.

One film whose ending was groundbreaking was Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980). When it was released, Star Wars was nowhere near the level of popularity it has today, but with the great success of its predecessor Star Wars (1977), now known as Star Wars: A New Hope, fans were clamoring for a sequel. Thus, Empire Strikes Back was released. At the end of the film, however, the heroes are left battered. The series iconic villain Darth Vader is revealed to be the main hero Luke Skywalker's father, Luke loses a hand in a duel with Vader, and Han Solo is frozen in carbonite and taken away by a bounty hunter. This left audiences dying to know if Han Solo is ever rescued or if Luke would ever take on Vader again. The sequel to this film, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, resolves the story of what became to be known as the Original Trilogy of Star Wars films. The cliffhanger strategy worked immediately because Return of the Jedi ranked in almost $50 million more than Empire Strikes Back in domestic total. And this strategy of ending every film on a cliffhanger paid off in the long run because since then, Star Wars has become one with pop culture and is currently the 5th highest-grossing media franchise ever. There have been animated and live-action TV shows, prequel, and sequel film trilogies, toys, comics, books, etc. All from 3 films that created hype for the following one by purposely not ending the story.

It's very clear that cliffhangers are a widely used tool in action films to generate excitement for a sequel. A sequel means more money and more money makes the big executives of Hollywood very happy. While I'm only creating a film opening of 2 minutes, a cliffhanger would definitely add suspense and leave the audience wanting more.

Sources

Wikipedia Page for Cliffhangers 

Highest-Grossing Media Franchises

Star Wars Box Office Numbers

Avengers: Infinity War Poster

Star Wars Episodes 1-9 Posters

Who's Watching These?

Since the action movie genre has been around for almost half a century, there have been many different takes on the genre. There are the gritty beat-em-up films like the John Wick franchise, the psychological ones like The Matrix, the adrenaline rush ones like Mission Impossible, and even the comical ones like Deadpool. But one thing remains true. The fact is that the main audience for all of these kinds of films is young males. According to this neat article from Filmsite.org (here), the target audience for action films are 13-35-year-old males. 

Screenshot from the article:

The target audience is explained by the common content of an action film. Almost every action film has at least one of the following: fistfight, car chase, foot chase, shootout, stunts, brutality, and sexual content. All of these components are found to be enjoyed by males aged 13-35. The Fast & Furious Franchise is famous for its car chases, Mission Impossible is known for its stunts, and the James Bond franchise is notorious for its sexualization of women. These are some examples of successful action movie franchises. Notice how I said franchises and not films. Why are they called franchises? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Characteristics of Action Movies

I know I've already talked about characteristics of the action genre but I found a bibliography, right here, that talks about common characteristics of action movies.

It says, "Action films are based around a core set of characteristics: spectacular action; a narrative emphasis on fights, chases, and explosions; and a combination of state-of-the-art special effects and stunt-work." These are all true. But I want to focus on the special effects portion of the quote. For obvious reasons, films use CGI to create images on screen that would be impossible to film like a knight fighting a dragon. It goes without saying that it would be impossible for a film crew to record a real dragon fighting a person. So, VFX artists use CGI to 3D render a dragon into a piece of raw footage. 

The action movie I want to discuss is an action adventure film called Avatar (2009). You may have heard of it as the highest grossing film of all time. Avatar was a groundbreaking film in that it was almost completely CGI. The movie takes place on the alien planet of Pandora. The plot revolves around a disabled U.S soldier who, through complete sci-fi technology, is able to transfer his conscious to the body of one of the native humanoids of Pandora, the Na'vi. The Na'vi are significantly larger than the average human and are blue. Rather than having to find hundreds of 9" to 10" tall people and painting them blue to play Na'vi extras, the film uses CGI to track the body movements of human actors and transfer them to 3D models of Na'vi. Not only are all the Na'vi CGI, Pandora is also 100% CGI. All plants, trees, and creatures on Pandora are fictional and thus, were created and added into the raw footage via CGI.

Obviously, this caliber of VFX takes years to make and would cost thousands to produce. I just wanted to mention that special effects are an essential part of the action genre and that I would like to incorporate them in my project.

Sources

Oxford Bibliography on Action Cinema

Avatar Lifetime Grosses

Avatar's CGI Significance

Avatar BTS Image 1

Avatar BTS Image 2

Mountain Banshee in Avatar

Genre Picking

 So I know I want to do an action movie. Luckily, with the budget I'm working with, $0 USD in 2022 money, this may be easier to accomplish. From my own recollection, most action movies don't start with an action sequence in the first 2 minutes. 

From my own recollection, most action movies begin by setting up the main conflict of the story, whether it be giving the protagonist or antagonist an origin story like a lot of Marvel films, or jumping straight into the action like The Dark Knight (2008) by Christopher Nolan. 

The opening of The Dark Knight (2008) perfectly sets up the film's main antagonist, the Joker played by Heath Ledger. The scene involves a bunch of criminals gathering together to rob a bank while all wearing clown masks. As the robbery takes place, the goons murder each other for the chance of receiving a higher share from the "boss" who ordered the robbery. When only one goon remains, he unmasks to reveal himself as the Joker, the one who ordered the robbery in the first place. The scene establishes the Joker character as someone who seems off-edge but is actually a master of manipulation.

I would like my film opening to set up the conflict in the opening scene. I'm also considering including the "MacGuffin Object" idea I floated in the last blog. It will probably be a briefcase containing sensitive information.

Sources:

The Dark Knight Poster 

The Dark Knight (2008) Wikipedia

Starting the Portfolio Project

 Today, I'm starting the portfolio project for AICE Media Studies AS! This is our last project of the year and we get to make a full 2-minute movie opening. I'm working by myself on this project and I am thinking to make the opening for an action movie. I've always been a fan of action movies. My initial thoughts are on a game of "hot potato" with some sort of "MacGuffin object" or the story of a "crafty thief." Right now, I am still deciding what sub-genre I want to do. Maybe it will be like action/adventure or action/thriller. Overall, I'm very excited to start this project and looking forward to the final cut!

Music Marketing Project Blog Post 2: Post Project

This project was very fun to work on. I had a great time coming up with ideas for the presentation and the music video. 

The research was very quick and painless since there are hundreds of famous country stars to study. The whole group contributed to the research process and I think our case studies came out really good. 

The brainstorming was also very easy because the music video's storyline is essentially written in the lyrics. We just needed the video's plot to match the lyrics, which I think we achieved. For the presentation, Sebastian found a country esq template and we imported it into our Google Slides to make the aesthetic look better.

The production, however, I think was a bit rushed. We filmed everything within the span of 2 and a half hours on the last Sunday before it was due. I think we should have coordinated better so we could have filmed earlier.

Since the production took a while to get made, the post-production was also rushed. Sebastian had to edit the whole music video together in 2 days and I think it showed in the video. We did have a couple of props though and I think they were appropriate for the kind of song we got. 

The presentation I think was a success. Everyone knew what to say and we kept the audience engaged. The only critique is that I think the transitions between slides threw our timing off.

Overall, I think we worked well together as a group and everyone did their fair share. I think what I learned most was to film all your footage early so that you have as much time as possible to make the music video look good.

Music Marketing Project Blog Post #1: Journee Fae

     Hello, this is Diego again. We have been working on our marketing campaign for our upcoming country star, Journee Fae.

During our research, we have found that the young crowd has shied away from country music largely in part with overused melodies, lyrics, and cliches. The majority of country music fans are over the age of 30 according to https://brandongaille.com/46-curious-country-music-demographics/#:~:text=16%25%20of%20the%20listeners%20in,on%20to%20a%20college%20program.

Our goal with Journee Fae is to change that. We want Journee to be widely enjoyed across all age groups in all regions of the country. Therefore, we are announcing Journee's first tour; A Global Journee: USA Tour 2022.

We have had some great ideas for the marketing project. Aneesa came up with the tour name and is spreading the word all over social media. Sebastian drew up a storyboard for Journee's first music video "Need You Now." Joel and I have been working on the project presentation. Our biggest challenge has been deciding what kind of artist Journee would be? Would she be a "traditional" country singer or an artist with a brand new way of country music?

We are currently looking into recent trends in the country music industry and putting forward our new form of country music, Neotraditional Country. We are planning to market Journee Fae towards the young crowd, as well as long-time fans of country music.