Portfolio post:Analysis of 3 film openings

     For the blog I am going to analyze 3 film openings of the sports-drama genre. This is to get an idea of what my film openings could look like compared to other sports-drama films. The 3 movies I will be analyzing are Rocky, Creed, and The blind side

    Rocky: 

    The film opens with the titles rolling across the screen in bold all caps. Then the screen shows a portrait of Jesus as it zooms out into a fight. The juxtaposition of this is that Jesus is a pacifist and he hangs above a ring of boxers beating each other to the point of blood. It establishes the main characters Rocky as someone who is particularly strong as he is able to punch the other guy into a knockout. Establishes that Rocky clearly lives in a poorer area of the city he lives in. The film opening has a particular focus on Rocky being alone in a small apartment with 2 turtles and a fish. The opening builds up that Rocky is someone that is alone and fights for money so he can make it by. The opening establishes that he obviously misses when he was younger as he looks at a picture of himself as a kid and goes silent and just stares at himself in the mirror.

    Creed:

        The film opens with introducing the setting as a juvinal detention center. camera is handheld and it really fast goes into the fighting concept of the film as we get taken into the children fighting in the cafeteria. We learn that the main character is one of the kids that was part of the fight. We leaen the main character is an orphan whos parents died. The last shot of the scene is him letting his fist go and calming down to ask what his fathers name was. This is all used to help set the tone of the film that clearly our charcter is prone to fights but not always angry.

   The Bline Side:

    The film opens with a black screen and then cuts into a football game while a women voices over the game. She is giving us context to the game and what is happening. It then goes into etablishing our main character. This is used to already tell us how the story will end but gives us a gateway into what we are going to see in the film to allow the story to get to that point.

kinobscura. (2018). The Blind Side (2009) – Opening Scene [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii-emBlOUM8

movie clips. (2021). Creed – First 10 minutes [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE9NU26NGvs

ROCKY BALBOA. (2018). Rocky 1976 Opening Scene [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhs9jl3W9P8

Portfolio post:Representing a message

     In many sports dramas you follow a hard on the outside guy that is as manly as they come and all they want to do is win. Films like rocky, creed, coach carter, and F1, all follow this formula. It got me thinking about how these films truly represent these characters as that is just like a quick view into how these characters really are, if you look at but deeper you can find these characters motivations and aspirations and they usually end up appearing very similar they end up representing something drastically different

    First film we can look at to get an idea is coach carter. This film is about a basketball coach who turned a high school team, who were known for being terrible, and turning them into a record setting wining team. The main character coach carter is represented as a mean, aggressive, stern dude that pushes his team to the very limits while also holding them to extreme standards, at least for them. On the surface his motivations are simple he wants to turn this basketball team into winners and does so by being as rough as possible. But when you look deeper into the film you see that his real goals are to turn these students lives around and allow them opportunities past high school and the way this is represented is through him being tough and holding these players to such high standards feeding into the “manly as they come” idea but truly representing the idea of a future and caring for people on a level so deep that he isn’t a “manly as they come” but a guy that wants to see a future for young people.

    Another film to look at is F1. This is a film about driving in formula one and again it looks like the main characters goal is to win but the true goal of this film is not to win but to do what was considered impossible, they only needed to win once, not a whole season, not multiple races, just once to prove that they could and the main character is definitely represented as a “manly” dude but there is a scene in the film where you see beyond that and you see the true purpose of why he does what he does. And through the film we see him bring this “team” into being a real team. So on the surface it looks like they are just trying to win but in reality what it truly represents is a team coming together to achieve something small in reality but huge for them.

    The final film I want to look at is rocky. This one in particular is perfect for what I am trying to say as this story doesn’t end in him winning technically. The whole plot revolves around the fact the champion boxer challenges someone people consider a nobody and he has no chance against the champion. This nobody is represented as someone who doesn’t care and someone who is just a manly man tough and shows no emotion. But the real message of the film is showed throughout the point of the film isn’t about winning its about pushing yourself to the limits and going all the way even if you loose you still proved to yourself you are more than what everyone says and that right there is the true message of this film.

IMDb. (n.d.). F1: The Movie. In IMDb. Retrieved January 28, 2026, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16311594/

IMDb. (n.d.). Rocky. In IMDb. Retrieved January 28, 2026, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075148/

IMDb. (n.d.). Coach Carter. In IMDb. Retrieved January 28, 2026, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393162/

Portfolio Project Schedule

        One thing we have had to do in previous projects on the class is breakdown and make a timeline for when we do something in the project so here is my gameplan in when I plan on doing what for the project.

    Week two 1/26-2/1

• 1/27-create 1st blog of the week
• 1/28-2nd blog and start storyboard
• 1/28-develop character and overall story
• 1/30-3rd blog post finish storyboard
• 1/31-begin preparation for filming(getting materials and props)
• 2/1-4th blog post

    Week three 2/2-2/8

• 2/3-1st blog post of the week
• 2/4-2nd blog post
• 2/5-3rd blog post
• 2/7-first day of recording project
• 2/8-second day of recoding project and 4th blog post of the week

    Week four 2/9-2/15

• 2/9- 1st blog post and looking over first 2 days of filming
• 2/10-2nd blog post
• 2/12-3rd blog post
• 2/13-4th blog post
• 2/14-3rd day of filming
• 2/15-4th day of filming

    Week five 2/16-2/22

• 2/17-1st blog post and begin editing
• 2/18- 2nd blog post and creation of company producing project
• 2/19-3rd blog post continue editing
• 2/20-4th blog post and editing
• 2/21- reshoots (if needed)
• 2/22- reshoots (if needed)

    Week six 2/23-3/1

• 2/23-1st blog post and editing
• 2/24-2nd blog post
• 2/25-3rd blog post editing
• 2/27-4th blog post CCR

    Week seven 3/2-3/8

• 3/2-editing and 1st blog post CCR
• 3/3-finish up editing and 2nd blog post CCR
• 3/4-3rd blog post CCR
• 3/6-4th blog post CCR

Week eight 3/9-3/17

• 3/9-1st blog post CCR
• 3/11-2nd blog post CCR
• 3/13-3rd blog post
• 3/15-4th blog post and film opening published

Transition into Portfolio

     For my portfolio project I have decided to do a sports-drama opening. I already have the idea in my mind of the opening I want to do. I have a bit of equitment as my mother use to be a photographer. I want to do a sports opening about a boxer training as we flashback to him losing his final fight. I am very limited by what I have access to so the mise-en-scene has really be used to allow me to make what I envision. I am going to make a storyboard starting next week then after that I am going straight into filming as I want to allow myself to have as much time to edit as possible as that is my weak spot when it comes to making videos. As of now I plan on doing this on my own with very limited if any outside help at all.

Portfolio Project Genre #2

    Another genre I thought of for the portfolio project was comedy. I have always found comedy movies very fun and I enjoy trying to make others laugh.
    A comedy movies target audience depends on the each individual film. some comedy movies are made for kids like Shrek, while other comedy movies are made for adults, like 40 year old virgin. They don't target a specific audence as they attempt to be funny and enjoyable to watch for everyone.

    

    Typical conventions of the comedy genre is focusing on uncomfortable situations, and sometimes lean oppositely of realism. steaks are alwasy personal and any violence in the film is done to make light of the situation and done up for laughs. different types of comedy can be used in these films, Slapstick comedy is one of the most famous tyoes of comedy used.

    Mise-es-scene is very important to comedy. as a typical trope for comed is making the main subject look dumber or funnier to look at than the rest of the characters. A film you see this in is the Hangover, The 3 main characters are all either dirty and look hungover or not at all dressed for the siuation they are in.

    whenever a comedy film is marketed, they tend to lean into the comedy in the marketing. A great example of this is from the 2025 film Naked Gun. All the marketing surronding that movie was leaning into the comedic aspect of the film.

Hellerman, J. (2023, December 6). Mastering the comedy genre in movies and TV. No Film School. https://nofilmschool.com/comedy-genre

Portfolio Project Genre #1

    When the idea of having to choose a genre to make a project around the first genre I thought was a sports drama. I really enjoyed other sports dramas especially the Rocky series and Creed films.

I’ve always found them particularly interesting as they manage to mix sports action into a story that gets you to feel for the characters and get invested into the sport that they are doing.

    The typical audience of a sports drama ranges from a wide variety of people. From ages as young as 13 to ages all the way to 40s. The idea of  a sports drama doesn’t have a specific age target but more targets fans of drama story elements and fans of sports and incorporates them together to get both audiences.

    Typical sports drama conventions are a drama elements incorporated into a sports story. So these films take a mixture of conventions from both sports and drama. Sports conventions tend to be about failure, success, sporting events, sporting athletes, relationships between characters, and resolution. While drama conventions are typically about tenstion and emotion. Sports drama combines the two genres conventions.

    The genre goes heavy on the mise-en-scene as sports knowning what sport is happening in the film is important. In a typical sports drama film you see a few chracter types the main protagonist, the main antagonist, the support and the sponsors or the coach. some of the techniques used are lighting focusing on the athelte and a visual style to make the athlete always look like they are putting in maximum effort. Two filsm that do this are Rocky and Creed.

andrasmediastudies. (n.d.). Genre conventions [PowerPoint slides]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/genre-conventions-129559988/129559988