It has begun.

It is officially the beginning of my portfolio project. After copious amounts of learning and research throughout this class, we have FINALLY started working on our Cambridge portfolio project. The project will be a two minute film opening of any genre and I am so excited to begin. This project will take almost 2 months to complete and I will be spending a LOT of time working on this. But where to begin?

Throughout the past two class periods, we have started to learn about what this project will actually comprise of. Last class we discussed various aspects of a film opening and what we should include and think about including in our opening. Here’s a picture of my notes that I took while my teacher was talking about this content.

We learned that a film opening should establish tone and genre, include credits (such as director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, and major actors) and the title of the film (this is really important!!), develop purpose and engage the audience. We also learned about the various approaches to a film opening. These include developing context, character, tone, establishing setting, and establishing various types of conflict. The two approaches that I’m most interesting in are establishing character or establishing conflict. 

I have no idea what I want to do my film opening about, but focusing on establishing character seems interesting to me. I like the idea of creating a character that my audience can relate to or feel drawn to, yet make it exciting. This approach would allow me to focus more on this specific character, especially through developing their aesthetic through costumes, makeup and setting. This approach would also allow me to delve deeper into my character and have the film focus on their interactions with other characters and their development throughout the rest of the film. Developing character in the opening scenes builds a good basis for the rest of the film, foreshadowing for what is to come in the rest of the film. 

The other type of film opening that interests me is one that establishes conflict. There are many different types of conflict, but the ones that draw my attention are character vs. character or character vs. supernatural. These types of conflicts seem like they would be fun to explore and would bring more action to my film, especially in the opening. Having conflict as the initial scenes to my film would be a lot of fun and I think this is a great option for my film opening. 

Time to brainstorm!