Mise-en-scene activity 

 This Mise-en-scene activity was meant to challenge us to see if we could represent a character and their aesthetic in the form of a presentation composed of physical representations, setting, and audio.  

My Character

The character assigned to my group was a shy loner who liked to read books. She has a lot of secrets that eventually come to light. My group gave a twist to the description. We gave her a story that revealed she is actually a secret pop star (inspired by Hanna Montana) to contrast her shy personality. She moved from Florida to Alabama to maintain her secret identity as a pop star.  

 

How Did We Represent Her?

To represent this character, my group created a PowerPoint presentation that guided the viewer through her life and her diary. Each slide would instruct the viewer to flip to a page in the physical diary we made for the presentation, while also showing images on the PowerPoint that gave context to the info on the diary. We also created a mood board that represented her two sides: her shy, book reading self and her pop star persona.  

 Diary: Violet’s Diary (Digital Copy).pdf

Newspaper: Newspaper 1 (Digital Copy).png and Newspaper 2 (Digital Copy).jpg

Video of alter ego "scarlet": Stage Life Video.mp4

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What Our Station Looked Like  

We had four laptops with the PowerPoint ready to go at our station. The viewers were meant to follow the PowerPoint and its instructions and read the diary together. The mood board was a physical item that went with the “bedroom theme” that we gave our station. The table was covered with a blanket that had her harry potter books, her mood board, her diary, a microphone, and the mask she uses to keep her “secret identity” when she's in her pop star persona.  

 

Analysis of our Character Development

We developed our character by both following and defying stereotypes. The shy girl is usually shown in media as someone who likes books, likes doing homework, and doesn't have many friends. We showed this with our items like her book and her private diary, but we also showed that just because she's shy- doesn't mean that she is confined to books or school. This is why we leaned into her pop-star persona. Representing that part of “shy girls” that may not be seen too often. The part that is talented and outgoing, even if she is shy. It's obviously exaggerated, but it's meant to point out that the stereotype does not fully represent that population of people, that it simplifies.  

 

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• Brainstorming  

My group had a good brainstorming storming session where we organized ourselves with this document.   

 

Genre Research

 

ROMANCE GENRE RESERACH

Typical target audience of the Romance genre:

Romance genre typically is aimed at straight females between the age ranges of 15-35. The age range could be because that is women are looking for relationships/romance the most in their lives. And although their are queer romance movies, because the group is a minority they don't get as much screen time

Genre conventions 

content techniques:

-Happily ever after

-time skips

-Meet cute 

-Montages 

-3rd act conflict

production techniques:

-Casting a masculine male 

-warm colors throughout the scenes 

Institutional conventions :

-using well known pop songs/actors

-having the main actors flirt with each other in interviews

-releasing around valentines day

Examples:

This checks all the right boxes in order to be considered a classic romance film. It has a meet cute between both characters, warm tones throughout the movie, and a 3rd act conflict. But what makes this movie standout is its ending. It ending is both happy and sad in a way. The main characters do end up together, but in a tragic way. Almost Romeo and Juliet.

This is another classic romance movie. It travels through the seasons of the year and does some time skips after having the two main characters have an interesting "meet cute. The 3rd act conflict perfectly seaways into the resolution/happy ending.  

This is another classic romance movie. It travels through the seasons of the year and does some time skips after having the two main characters have an interesting "meet cute. The 3rd act conflict perfectly seaways into the resolution/happy ending.  

More examples:

Sound Projects

 

What Did I Learn?

While learning about sound, I found that it can add a new dimension to the scene that contributes to the visuals. Some techniques that stuck out to me were sound motifs, stings, and sound bridges. These techniques have always been present in the movies I've watched, but I've never been conscious enough of them to appreciate them. What I was surprised to learn about sound is that when filming a scene, only dialogue is recorded, while the rest is done in post on a foley stage or editing. 

What were my projects?

For my first sound project, I had to make a 1-2 minute story that was told purely with sound editing and foley sounds. 

My second project had me add sound to my One Word Film Project I spoke about in a previous blog. 

Project #1 Elaboration

When planning for my first sound project, my partner and I brainstormed on many different scenarios that were noisy. We landed on a dog walk that ended in a fight with another dog. To organize our thoughts for this scenario we made an outline that looked like this:

Scene: Walking dog 

1. I. Going outside 

• -Dog panting/whining 

• -Leash sounds (jingling, clicking) *foley 

• -Opening & closing/locking door 

• -Keys jingling 

• -Muffled air sounds in background 

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This was a good guide to follow and go back to while editing, reminding of us of the linear story and layering of sounds. The editing software we used- Clipchamp- was very convenient and easy to use for beginners. Reflecting on the project now, I think our foley sounds could have been better as they weren't very clear in the audio and didn't contribute to the story as much as I would've liked. But, I do think we had a good ambiance for our environment as we layered many background noises together to make the outdoors setting sound realistic.

Here is the Project: BurrTadaiyon_Soundscape_per2.m4a 

Project #2 Elaboration

To brainstorm for this project, we rewatched our original One Word Film Project and made another outline based on the visuals. Here's a little part of what that looked like: 

1. I. Walking through the hallway 

• -Sound of feet shuffling in the hallway  

• -Girls laughing and walking  

• -Sound of camera clicking for photo  

• -Notification from phone  

• -Phone clicking on  

• -Phone clicking off  

• -Walking away  

This outline helped us in a different way than it did for the first as now we had to sync up the sound with what was happening visually. So this outline was a clear cut list of each sound that needed to happen based on what was being seen. We once again used Clipchamp but this time it was more challenging that the first because we were working with visual and audio. What could've been done better in this project is the ending. The ending was hard to do as there was talking and we couldn't recreate the dialogue, so we put a song that matched the tone of it instead. We shouldn't have included dialogue in the scene. But what we did do well was building up the end with the dramatic music and making the scene more meaningful with it. So, in a way it worked out.

Here is the project: OWF_Dominguez_Burr 1 (1).mp4 

Thank you for reading my blog!