Extract Essay: Game of Thrones

The director of the Game of Thrones extract that we were given seemed to convey a message of truth and power throughout the scenes we watched. With my prior knowledge of the show I understand that it is based off of kingdoms and characters in a fantasy almost like a mythical world where we learn through the show all about the powers and truth in each character. In the extract I noticed immediately the costumes each character wore. The two sailors that were on the boat sailing to the bank wore tunics and lots of leather from the boots, belts, and gloves. The bankers wore similar outfits and made me feel as if I was watching a show that revolved around the medieval era. After watching the extract I noticed that the scenes we watched showed the disagreement between the the main banker that was sitting in the middle chair and the sailors over the truth. The shot-reverse shot between the sailors and the bankers going back and forth with each other shows the tension between both of them which could be fueled later in future scenes. The overall location and set design of the boat and the meeting room in the bank and all the embroidery and details added to that fantasy theme I was feeling when watching, especially when the aerial shot showed us the large standing statue of the man in armor and all the green landscape and the building felt like a whole different place no one has ever seen.

I love the director’s vision so far even though I never watched the show. I am a huge fan of the medieval era especially in shows and movies and I was able to feel that through the location, set design, costume, and aerial shot. I can see that the director’s vision was to have all these different kingdoms that have different values in ruling over the people and their kingdom. We get to see the power of each of the kingdoms grow or fall and we get to experience how power can lead to prosperity or even corruption.

In the ending of the extract I noticed that the sailors have 32 ships filled with 4,000 loyal men that don’t have food since they don’t have the resources such as barley and wheat to sustain them, which is why the bank couldn’t give them the money knowing sooner or later those 4,000 men will turn against each other and the king for food and a better life. Overall the dialogue shows us this through their conversation when meeting up with the bankers. The two shot of the two sailors on the boat and the camera zooming in on them looking our in the distance creates suspense and shows us that this might be something private between them and the bank. The diegetic sound of the seagulls flying over the boat, the pacing of the footsteps, and the double gold doors opening makes the scene feel more real in contrast to the fantasy the director wanted us to feel in the scene.

The director’s vision for something so broad and generalized can be difficult to pinpoint but I watched a fair amount of shows and movies similar to grasp the idea and concept of kingdoms wanting to go against each other and the fight to figure out the truth and power. The fact that the banker in the extract believes in the story and not the truth said by the supposed “king” which is one of the sailors proves that this scene could be important in future scene. The extract ended with both of the sailors walking away and a close up of one of the other banker that looks guilty or against the fact that the main banker guy that was sitting in the middle chair refused to give them the money. It almost seemed like he wants to help them out and maybe in future scenes he turns against the bank. This goes to how that the two main characters on the boat introduced will be of importance in future scenes or episodes.

CCR

    For my CCR I wanted to do a deep reflection on myself from this project and from the beginning of the year reflecting on my progress for next year when I enter A level Media Studies class. I actually had an easy time recording my CCR even with having a longer time than any of our projects. We had to make sure our CCR was 12 to 15 minutes long and my CCR ended up being 23 minutes since I was so into the questions and I wanted to speak the truth on how I really felt about this journey and the film. After I edited my CCR it came out to be around 16 minutes which is one past the maximum time limit but its okay. I wanted to look back on myself during this quarantine to see if I can improve myself or even learn and teach myself for next year where we will be doing more longer films and projects. I am super proud of myself re-watching the CCR this was exactly how I wanted it to go. Living in an apartment with 3 other family members my mom, dad, and sister and a dog was challenging in trying to get the background sound to be quiet and to film alone. I was able to film this CCR in the morning around 11:30 and be done by 12 in the afternoon. Everything I wanted to say was said in my CCR, I wanted it to be pleasing and make my CCR video seem like I was talking directly to you like a group conversation. Although my eye contact was all over the place I still made sure to look directly at the camera fr eye contact throughout the video.
   When I was planning out my CCR and how I wanted it to be recorded I did not want it to be an interview since I feel like everyone would do that with a sibling or parent. I wanted to make it into a Q&A session because I was going to answer the CCR questions which I split it to come up with 6 questions. At first I was confused on how to film the CCR since I could not meet up with my group member to film. On Canvas my teacher she finally informed us that we could film the CCR individually and on our own time but making sure it was on our blog before the deadline. Today I edited my CCR mainly because I procrastinated and had three essays for AICE U.S history and AP English Comp. Editing my CCR was actually really easy and I was able to make it pleasing and fix the lighting and had title cards to make it seem like your watching a video. Although there was much more I wanted to say about the project I had to remember that I had a time limit. Honestly it was much easier to film my own CCR than to be a part of my sisters group, CCR video since we had to record it multiple times since they weren't reaching the time limit of 12 minutes. I had so much fun during this journey of opening my creativity and letting it show in the projects and I hope you all stay healthy and are staying safe. I hope you enjoy my CCR video presented below through Google Slides.

Final Movie

    The final movie project was assigned to us two months before everything started closing down even schools due to the virus. For this project I decided to work with Jeannie because we agreed to split all the work since it was a lot because the film had to be an opening sequence of your movie. When we were assigned multiple blogs requiring google slides to be embedded and our 10 page storyboard, my partner and I agreed that I would do the storyboard blog and the blog regarding the location of the film. I was actually happy that everything was going according to plan and that we did not once disagree. The only thing I wish went differently was our communication. During this month of March and April with schools closing she completely lost communication with me and I was at a lost because she told me she was going to edit the film so I trusted her. I'm not going to lie to you about the stress I have been lately in but on April 7th she texted me asking if I could start editing it and I got enraged because she waited and ignored all my other text messages for the last minute. Although I am not happy with that decision, I realized I shouldn't be angry and that things don't always go according to plan. So yesterday I spent all day editing the final movie and CCR. At least I finished editing it and was able to email her the final movie so she can embed it into her blog, along with the commercial.
    Our original structure of the movie I noticed didn't make sense and seemed all over the place so I had to completely start from the beginning rearranging all the scenes in a way for it to make sense. Once I finished trimming and placing everything in order I worked on the background music to level it to make sure scenes with audio can be heard, afterwards I focused on getting our titles in order and making sure that it could be seen. I changed the title design to be a simple white color to represent the innocence and goodness that was lost among one of the sisters. Our movie represent a sick- minded character who is wealthy and has a paranoia believing that her younger sister wants to take over her company and take her wealth away from her. The younger sister who is poor doesn't want any of her sisters money but only wants to fix the relationship that was based on jealousy and false delusions. The younger sister has a son, who ends up seeing his dead mother in the parking lot where she was killed. That is all the opening scene but the rest of the story of the movie follows our pitch in previous blogs. The older sister gains custody of her nephew which she never knew she had, and hides the fact that she murdered her sister by covering up and pretending to still have a sense of goodness. The son grows up wanting revenge on whoever killed his mother until he finds out that his aunt who he spent the majority of life with, killed his mom, killed her own sister. She becomes his next victim and kills her in the same spot to avenge his mothers name and both became blood sisters once again in the after life.

Music Video

    For the music video I was able to work alone, I was super excited to film and edit the music video because this was what I have been waiting to do since  the beginning of this class. I was super excited to film the music video because I had so much fun working with my friends and I was super happy to show it to my Rabbi's and my synagogue since I promised to show them when everything was done. For the music video I did two separate videos, I made a full length music video which is not shown below and a shortened version that falls under the time limit for the project in slide 1. I wanted to show you both of them because I worked so hard on both of them and I want to be able to bring a smile on people's face especially during this hard time. I want to uplift people to be positive and happy and since everything was recorded and saved onto my own SD card, I had a lot of freedom to film. When we first got this project I already told my past group members that I wanted to do this alone, so I can learn by myself how to plan, storyboard, film, edit, re-shoot if needed, and re-edit. When we got this project, it was assigned during the week before we had Thanksgiving break which was perfect because I was able to film and edit everything during my break. I was able to finish both the long and shortened versions of my music video before the actual deadline. When I was editing the music video it honestly was everything I imagined and envisioned it was going to be. My best friend Allison who was in the music video she fell in love with it and even asked to save it on a flash drive. This song and dance will always have a special place in my heart and I hope it will in your as well.
    Although the dancing is not as clean, we are not professionals and I wanted this to be a fun experience even if there were mistakes. My other best friend Rachel worked the camera and she was truly amazing, she kept the camera so stable and clean even when he was moving holding and moving it around on the tripod. Rachel made sure that we were always on screen and that when we moved she followed us so we did not have to spend more time outside re-shooting. She picked out the location and was super professional and I could not have asked for a better director and camera person. I remember spending 3 hours filming outside and once we finished we went inside the apartment and changed back to our regular clothes and played dominoes while eating pizza. I was so happy to have got all the scenes and shots needed because that was the only day where my friend Allison was working and Rachel could hang out with us. My sister Sabrina was also a shining star making sure we were on track and adding in a few details into the dance. All four of us, we were super excited to show our synagogue the final music video, they were super excited since they never knew me and Sabrina were taking a class where we learn about the filming process. In the end they loved it so much that they made me lead the dance and everyone followed in complete unity. I hope you truly enjoy the music video and not look at it with a heavy heart but with a light heart.

Commercial Video

    Due to the inconvenience of the virus and the trouble of filming and finishing our final task, I wanted to reflect on my progress from the beginning of last year up to now with my camera work and editing skills which I believe I have improved on. Our very first commercial for me wasn't up to our standards and I felt like we could have done better looking back on it. My group which consisted of Asia, Jeannie, and I did a Dunkin Donuts commercial. We wanted to show a high-school student life without Dunkin Donuts versus with it. Looking back on it the commercial was rushed and if we would have had more time to edit it we definitely would have made it so much better then how it was. Since this was our very first project in which we had to go through the whole process of filming it and getting it uploaded for our teacher, it was difficult. It was also our first introduction into blogging about our whole process and what we did each day. The project was not as hard as I imagined but the hardest part of this project was getting in complete agreement with my team members since both continuously fought over about the amount of work each was doing. Editing for me was so stressful since I had no idea how to use it even if our teacher went over it. In the end we had little time to edit before we had to turn in our commercial for grading.
    My partners and I were always on each other making sure we all did our blogs and that we all did our fair share of the work so no one had to argue about it. Re-watching our commercial I noticed mistakes in the camera work and obviously editing mistakes. Some of the scenes in the commercial were blurry or very shaky and was not stable when the shot was hand-held. Near the ending of the commercial the video gets cut off in an awkward way but we didn't have time to fix that since we had to turn it. I also thought that we could have had a better story-line for the commercial while keeping the same concept. Looking back we could have made it more interesting and realistic to that of a Dunkin Donuts commercial. However, I am pretty happy with how it turned out especially for our first time making a commercial but, this project also made me very stressed out from my group members which is why I decided for our next project to be alone. During the weeks working on this project I found myself being the leader of the group making sure we got everything done we needed to get a passing grade. I also found myself doing most of the work but for me it wasn't a big problem because the commercial was only supposed to be 30 seconds. Overall, I am grateful or my group members who were a part of this commercial with me.