Genre Conventions Video

  GENRE CONVENTIONS ੈ✩‧₊˚

Here is my video about the conventions. Hope everyone enjoys it!

Script

           

Audience research [Primary & Secondary]

✧PRIMARY RESEARCH✧

         

                   

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                                            SECONDARY RESEARCH ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

         

Distribution timeline

         

Opening title sequence -2

 GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

Genre(s): Drama, Anti-war,  Action, Tragedy

Directed by: Isao Takahata

Produced by: Takanobu Sato and Toru Hara

Distributed by: Toho

Release date: April 16, 1988

Running time: 89 minutes

Box office ¥590 million ($5 million)

Streaming platform(s): Max

1. Synopsis

Based on the semi-autobiographical short story by Akiyuki Nosaka, "Grave of the Fireflies" is a 1988 Japanese animated war film directed by Isao Takahata. Set in the closing months of World War II, the movie centers on Seita and Setsuko, his younger sister, and their struggle for survival after their family and house are destroyed by fire in Kobe, Japan.

The children seek refuge with an aunt after their mother passes away from severe burns, but tensions increase when supplies grow limited. In the end, Seita and Setsuko move out of the aunt's house and into a bomb shelter that has been abandoned. But they suffer more and more if they aren't fed or taken care of. Despite Seita's best efforts to feed her, Setsuko gets weak and malnourished and eventually perishes from malnutrition. 

2. Why did I choose this film?

Besides romance, I am also into the drama genre and considering romance and drama (mainly about family) for my final product. I have seen this film since I was 10 years old. At that time, I felt heartbreaking, and my tears were unstoppable. It was one of my favorite drama films when I was young. Therefore, I would like to analyze it.

3. Analysis

As usual, the distribution and production company's name appears at the beginning of the sequence, and next to the Shinchosha company, the timeline of this film is introduced, which is the year 1988.

The opening starts with a very dark and quiet space. Then, the protagonist faded in with a medium close-up shot and started his dialogue. It fills with a somber and haunting atmosphere. They use low-key lighting to build tension and create a sense of depth in the scene, giving watchers goosebumps. Additionally, right from the moment of appearance, the first line of dialogue is "September 21, 1945. That was the night I died." This alerts the audience that the film will not end happily. The film has set a precise mood for viewers: deeply emotional, tension, and hopelessness.

Following up, an eye-line match edit technique is used when the character turns his head and looks off the screen, then straight cuts to a scene that reveals what the character is looking at. A skinny boy with bones protruding is sitting slumped against a pillar. This can represent the consequence of the war, where people did not have enough provisions to survive and always ran from foreign invaders. As a result, they died from starvation. Everything in the surroundings is dark. Only a spotlight points directly at the boy to draw all the attention to that person.

The camera runs horizontally and vertically to show the boy's situation to the audience. He is malnourished and lacks the strength to be active. It evokes the pity and sympathy that the audience feels for the boy.

Next, a "3 Over 1" rule is utilized. First, a high angle is employed, followed by a long shot to represent the coldness of the people around. No one is trying to reach out to the boy and give him a hand. A close-up shot for the end of the scene exposes the boy's emaciation.

Another close-up shot focuses on the boy's face. This time, a fly landed on his face, but he gave no reaction. Watchers may predict that he has died or he is just too weak to react. 

Immediately after, a long shot captures the entire scene, full of people who resemble the youngster. They've all starved to death. A laborer arrived and kicked the youngster to confirm to the spectators that the boy was dead. He then stated to his colleagues, "Another one," implying that many people have died here and that they have become accustomed to it. Low-key lighting is still used during these scenes to represent the darkness and hopelessness.

 
 

In films, fireflies, one of the film's representations, appear from the dark. Suddenly, the palette changes to a bright and warm one, and a child stands in the middle of the field. This contrast can evoke a contrast between life and death. 

The girl looks at the dead body in the first scene, using an over-the-shoulder camera angle, and then gets patted by a teenage boy. We could assume that that adolescent boy has died, and he is finally reunited with his sister. 

This scene looks more alive and happy because the crew utilized warmer colors: orange, yellow, and slightly red. Moreover, slight music is also played during this scene. It completely contrasts with the previous scenes, where there is no music, a deadly silent space with the boy's dialogue. 

To further establish that the two characters are siblings, a two-shot camera is positioned to highlight their closeness. 

A close-up shot shows a key item of the film.

Subsequently, the screen transitions to an establishing shot while the title gradually emerges. The television series Grave of the Fireflies is currently being introduced to viewers. 

The film continues by introducing the staff's name on the left and our main characters on the right. 

The following scene is a medium shot of two protagonists. Depending on the gesture, we can predict that this boy may have worked for the military, as he is sitting very upright, like a soldier, with his hand resting on his thighs. Furthermore, when the sister asked for him to help open the candy box, he relaxed from the pose, smiled, and helped her with the box. It represents that he cares about his sister, who has always been his priority.

In contrast, the sister is vivacious and innocent compared to the brother; this can be seen by swinging one's legs while sitting on the chair.

However, she also adores her brother. Although sweets are her favorite thing, she is willing to share them with her brother.

The sequence ends with over-the-shoulder shots when two characters look outside through the train's window. The sky is overflowing with nuclear missiles. The red color connotes a meaning of destruction and death for the region. Then, the scene faded out with high brightness to enter the main story.

4. Conclusion

The sequence can be seen as the disruption stage of the equilibrium theory as it starts with the protagonist dying in the train station. This immediate loss establishes a somber tone and abruptly immerses the audience in the aftermath of war.

Furthermore, this is a tragedy and drama genre. They have used different film tones, which are dark and cool palettes to encode the boy's death, as the current situation of poor people during the war, and warm, bright colors like orange and yellow to represent the happiness when he reunites with his little sister. Moreover, various camerawork is utilized, such as medium shot, two shot, over-the-shoulder, close-ups, and insert shot techniques. 

Opening sequence analysis - 1

 I WANT TO EAT YOUR PANCREAS

Genre: Coming-of-age, Drama

Written by: Yoru Sumino

Directed by: Shinichiro Ushijima

Produced by: Yuma Takahashi and Shinichiro Kashiwada

Distributed by: Aniplex

Release dates: July 24, 2018 (Tokyo)

                          September 1, 2018 (Japan)

Running time: 108 minutes

Box Office: $6.2 million

1. Synopsis

" I want to eat your pancreas." 

This is how Sakura, the main female character, speaks to Haruki, the other protagonist. The story is about two high school students being brought together by a secret. 

Flashback, Haruki and Sakura are classmates. However, when Haruki visits the hospital, he accidentally finds out that his popular classmate is experiencing pancreatic cancer. Later on, they started to get closer and talk more. One day, when arranging books in the library. Sakura tells Haruki about a myth that she believes that if someone eats an organ, it can cure that organ's illness. Haruki did not trust it; he felt it was ridiculous, and they let that story go right after that. Time by time, more memories were made between them, but Sakura was also getting closer to death with each passing day due to her illness. They tried to create a to-do list before Sakura had to leave this beautiful world. Unfortunately, she had to be urgently hospitalized to treat that deadly illness. 

They sneaked out together to see fireworks while Sakura was in hospital. She invited him for lunch when she was officially released from the hospital, but that was the last time they met. After that day, Haruki knew that Sakura passed because of being stabbed by a serial killer. Haruki broke down and did not even dare to attend Sakura's funeral.  The movie continues with numerous details of how Haruki moved on from the death of the girl he likes. At the film's end, Haruki finally overcame the pain and returned to visit Sakura's grave years later. 

2. Why did I choose this movie?

I would like to share another bittersweet romance movie. The stereotype of romance movies is always about perfect love, the perfect partner, and soulmates. However, there are various terrible cases in which their love can not be completed. It can be an unrequited love or the right person at the wrong time trope. Also, I plan to create a sad romance as my final product, so this film could be an option for me to investigate how they develop characters and combine scenes to make it smooth and easy to watch. 

3. Analysis

Before the sequence starts, a usual introduction to the distribution company, Aniplex, appears with a flipping horizontal effect. An establishing shot faded in with a dark color. It encodes sadness as heavy rain is outside, and the sky is dim and black. Following that, the narrative of our protagonist, Haruki, also mentions that that day is not a happy day for many people when the funeral of his classmate, Sakura, occurs. Haruki's tone of voice sounds apathetic but still has a sense of sorrow; it combines with the sound of rain, making it feel denser and gloomy. 

The following scene is shot close-up with horizontal panning, focusing on students' hands. Low-key lighting shows bleakness, with light music, but it is small to avoid affecting the narrative. On their hands, each person is holding prayer beads with interlocking fingers. These encode that they are in a formal ceremony connected with the narrative; viewers can easily guess they are at a funeral. 

It then straight-cut into the next scene. In this shot, they used a wide shot angle and horizontal panning to capture the funeral filled with numerous people. Based on their school uniforms, the people who attended the funeral were mainly students. In the surroundings, some people in black suits stand next to the wall; they could be the main character's relatives. 

A medium shot is employed, revealing the character with loud crying as the sound. This brown-haired character's tears encode pain and despair. Another long black hair character leans her head on the brown's shoulder. She looks lifeless and tired. As a result, we can conclude that they are Sakura's best friends, and they are in pain because she has passed away. 

The narrative continues, saying that many people are there and cry for Sakura, which expresses that her life meant something to someone. Suddenly, the dialogue becomes dreary when he says, "I was absent." This raises numerous questions from the followers: Why did he not participate in his classmate's funeral when everyone was there? Some predictions can also be made that she and our male character may have argued significantly before Sakura died. However, it does not stop viewers from thinking that this male protagonist has lousy behavior and could be a person lacking humanity. 

The sequence proceeds with a high-angle camera right after that, exposing the person talking at the film's beginning. This camera angle allows the audience to observe the whole setting and shows Haruki's loneliness. He lies on his side, curled up on the bed, representing a sense of misery. The surroundings are extremely messy, and the room is completely dark, even though it is bright outside. Only a few small rays of light pierce through the curtains. These encode how he suffers from the pain to the point that he is unaffected by the surroundings. The camera constantly uses medium close-ups, zoom-ins, and zoom-outs to capture every last trace of unresolved anguish on Haruki's face. A non-diegetic sound, soft music, is in the background to keep the audience's attention. 

It then faded out and transitioned to a scene in total contrast to the previous scene. We called this parallel editing. While those first scenes create a dismal atmosphere with a cold palette of blue and black, the next scene begins with a close-up shot of a colorful window that lets all the light in, which is more vibrant and cheerful. The setting changes from Haruki's bedroom to Haruki when he stands in front of a bookshelf in the library and arranges books. Then, a girl runs to him and helps him with many books. At this time, watchers should realize that this has turned into a flashback moment. 

The two-shot method is frequently utilized during this time to show the conversation between characters. However, it is also a chance for the audience to understand more about the characters' traits based on their narrative and behavior. For example, in this scene, Haruki sees Sakura sort the wrong books and immediately reminds her to return them to the right place. It encodes that Haruki is a guy who follows guidelines and norms. Furthermore, he is accountable for his duties. 

He also tells Sakura to lower her tone because they are in the library, where people are not allowed to be noisy. It adds to the demonstration of Haruki's seriousness. 

Another two-shots show two characters and how Sakura disturbs Haruki.                                                                             

Close-up shot to express Sakura's annoyance when Haruki makes her memorize the library book code

On the other hand, Sakura has a different personality from Haruki. While Haruki is calm and shows he does not care about anything, Sakura always lives carefree and energetically. This is encoded in the library scene, where Sakura frequently speaks loudly inside the library and follows Haruki everywhere he goes. Two characters represent different traits but are still attracted to each other, which keeps the audience interested. 

The next scene is just about the two of them having a small chit-chat about the superstition that Sakura believes in. 

The sequence ends with Sakura's POV when she pushes Haruki against the wall and Haruki's POV when Sakura tells him, "I want to eat your pancreas." This announces the movie's title and lets the audience know that the film starts from here. 

4. Conclusion

Overall, the opening sequence uses juxtaposition to draw the audience's attention. The first scenes set a somber tone, and then, in the middle of the opening, they switch to a more colorful flashback. 

The characters are well-introduced, and the audience can easily see their differences in personalities but still feel the connection. 

Finally, this is a slice-of-life, coming-of-age, and romantic tragedy subject. It is displayed in places like libraries and high school uniforms. Otherwise, when the funeral is shot at the beginning of the film, the disruption stage of equilibrium theory is where the movie begins. 

Editing Practical - Final Product

 This is the final product of my editing practical. 

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Reflection on editing

For this practical, we used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our video. The school provided the app, which we edited directly on their laptop. However, because of limited time and the inconvenience, I downloaded it on my own laptop to be able to edit it on the weekend. For me, this is a whole new experience. I used to edit a lot but never dig deep into these professional applications. Therefore, learning and using tools in Premiere Pro has been the most significant challenge. 

I learned all the features and tricks from YouTube and Google.

1. Import scenes

We started by importing all the scenes we had filmed a week before. As we added scenes, my group realized they could have been more connected as smoothly as we had imagined. We struggled right at the beginning, which delayed us compared to other students. Then, we rearranged the schedule and asked the actors to come and act again so we could film better shots. Fortunately, our actors are all free and agreed to help us with the project again. 

Behind the scenes of the second day

'The cat is watching us, wow so cute,' 😓

2. Color grading

This is the most difficult part of the steps. I had to try different color recipes and apply them to nearly 20 scenes. It is time-wasting, and the original scenes were quite dark from the start, increasing my difficulty in coloring grading. 

I aimed to turn my video into a grey and dark to create a mystery. However, while adjusting the color, I realized that if the color is turned down too much, people will find it hard to see all the details in my video, for example. In the exchange suitcase scene, our suitcase was brown, and the surroundings were black, and if I decreased the contrast or exposure more, it would disappear. Therefore, I changed from grey to blue. I was thinking of warm and bright colors, but I did not like them, and they did not fit my wants. 

After color grading

Formula 

3. Transition

Aside from the dissolve effect, a few transitions in my video move from Spy A's to Spy B's. Otherwise, to lessen visual confusion, I chose straight cuts. 

4. Sound design

This is the most enjoyable part of the process. I found and collected sound from YouTube, a well-known entertainment video platform. Because the original films had too much background noise, I searched keywords such as "Action background music,""cigarettes drop sound," etc., to mix it with a suitable scene. I tried to make it more natural so people could believe there was a diegetic sound, but some still sounded fake. For the dialogue, I asked our actors to record a voiceover for their lines and put it into the video. Besides that, throughout the sequence, there will always be a soundtrack in the background that matches the mood inside the video. For example, the music in picking up the phone scene will be different from the fighting scene. At first, it was just steady music, which I utilized to avoid the boredom. Then, when Spy A pushed Spy B down to the floor and pointed at him, the beats became more frequent and denser, encoding the serious and nervous mood of the scene. 

5. Typography

Given that red is associated with blood, power, and danger—all appropriate given the video's setting—I figured mafias would identify with it. Two spies had to carry out a risky task that was easy for police to discover: a covert deal. To make the audience feel more at ease while watching the video, I highlighted the words with red for the title and yellow for the subtitles.

 

To conclude, I learned a lot from this exercise, such as color grading, adding subtitles, adding sound, etc. Also, I know how to use the Premiere Pro application, which will be helpful for me in the future, especially for my opening sequence.