Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene

    For this Mise-en-scene project my personal goal was to create something people would find engaging, and would be able to click on or something where the viewers weren't just going through a boring presentation. With this plan in mind, I originally tried to look for games I could create. However, I found that most platforms were not free and/or would take me an immense amount of time to complete. So, I changed my ideas and created my character's Instagram account, mood board, and an interactive quiz about her at the end of all the activities. 

    The character that my group and I got was a young college girl majoring in environmental science, who loves to participate in rallies, and spends her free time organizing campus events. She was described as social, driven, and passionate about climate activism. My group and I decided to make her more personalized by adding in little details throughout our presentation such as how she enjoys matcha, studying, reading, owns a dog, bird watches, is an influencer and more.

    For instance, I came up with the idea to make an Instagram account for her since she is in college and most students actively use social media so I thought it was relevant. I made her page include everything she loves, even if it wasn't mentioned on the paper, like hiking, and doing nature activities like picnics.

  Examples of what I created to illustrate our character:

1. Picture of her mood board.

2. Picture of her Instagram account

3. Picture of the Quiz at the end.

Link: https://www.opinionstage.com/page/6c3f874c-8ac3-445d-8adc-f83bdfa6eea8

    In order to show all the elements we created, we decided on having different google tabs open with each tab going in order of developing our character. Each computer was set up exactly the same, with each tab in the same order. It started off with a playlist the viewers could listen to as they continues through the tabs. Then we had the main description of our character and an AI generated image of her, so people could get a glimpse of our character.

    Every decision in creating our character was mediated. When coming up with our character we used the common trope of a studious girl who wears glasses to show how she is smart and a good student. Other ways we represented our character was making her dorm room and what kind of music she listens to. This doesn't necessarily mean that we are talking about truth, we decided on choices based on our own perception of how this character would essentially act if she was real. 

    At first, I didn't think my group and I would finish but then we were given more time in class to work on it which really allowed us to communicate our opinions and ideas with each other. When we were together in class we felt more like a group because we would provide our input for each task. When we were at home it was a little more difficult to communicate those things but we still did a good job distributing each task evenly.

Genre Research

Comedy Genre

    The Comedy genre continues to be one of the most popular genres in Hollywood since they are media texts created with the intention of making us viewers laugh to provoke enjoyment. Comedies allow us to take a mental break from the harsh reality and tap into an experience we can all relate and laugh to. Why can we do this? Because comedies often exaggerate the setting, characters, action, or body language in a hilarious way to connect with the audience on a deeper level.

    When it comes to content in comedies the plot usually varies because there are a variety of different types of comedies. However, the characters are almost always regular relatable people whether that be to you or someone you know, to create humor. This is seen in the popular show The Office where the setting takes place in a work office but prioritizes includes jokes, sarcasm, puns, and witty banter and is an example of a mixture of a mockumentary (filmed like a documentary) and a sitcom. Comedy content also includes humorous situations which are everyday problems like awkward interactions or bad luck shown in a funny way.  A movie that portrayed this really well was Mean Girls with the social drama involved.

    Noticeable techniques in making films hilarious are seeing the reactions of the characters when something unexpected is happening in the plot since they tend to over exaggerate. In doing so, comedies use bright lighting so that the characters are visibly seen with their over the top expressions, to add comedic effect. 

    Comedies are marketed to different age groups depending on what type of comedy it is, however adult comedies are tailored to market people around the ages of 18-40 years old. Comedy films are very good at making their trailers very engaging. They tend to use the best parts of the film to exaggerate the most humous parts to grab viewers attention.

    An example of a popular comedy is The Hangover created in 2009 by Todd Phillips about these group of friends who go to Las Vegas for a bachelorette party, with the intention of having a great time. They end up getting drugged and going on outrageous adventures like stealing a cop car, stealing Mike Tyson's tiger, getting married to a stranger with a baby, and leaving their friend stuck on the roof of the hotel they are staying at. The conflict in the storyline is that they don't seem to remember anything they did the next day due to the intake of drugs. This film embodies the genre of Comedy because it includes fast paced actions, jokes, and slapstick which is physical comedy. Slapstick includes crashes, falls, or extreme physical actions to gain laughter from an audience. A great example of this is when they were driving their car normally and then started swerving, screaming, and crashing into a truck next to them because the tiger they had stolen woke up and started acting out aggressively in the back of the car.

Pitch Perfect is one of my personal favorite movies, partly because it is a musical comedy and partly because it is a young adult comedy with relatable themes involved. This film is about college girls looking to start an acapella group after a recent event that ruined the previous groups dynamic. In doing so, they collect a group of non-singers and awkward personalities in hopes of winning against the "Treblemakers," their biggest competition. Pitch Perfect is considered a comedy because it focuses on it's large variety of jokes incorporated that most college students would find entertaining. Every character in this movie is used for humor in some sort. For instance, one of the characters name's is Amy but she is plus sized, and so she refers to herself as Fat Amy to create a light hearted tone. This film contains funny moments, awkward scenes, and even humor through their musical performances. 

• 

    

    

     

    

                

    

Sound Projects 1 & 2

    Sound Project #1

    Before any project was started, during the sound lesson we learned a variety of different sound techniques and watched a video in class on Foley. Foley is the production of making and adding a specific combination of sounds, usually using props, to imitate what was previously filmed. 
    For this first project the class was instructed to create a non-basic 1-2 minute appropriate scene that could convey a well developed plot that would actually occur within a 1-2 minute timeframe in real life. We were also asked to fill out a brainstorming sheet that was given to us during class, to demonstrate our organization and planning process for this project. For the brainstorming portion, we tried our best to come up with an engaging storyline that would essentially give us an opportunity to layer a lot of sounds using Clipchamp as our platform for editing. I used the outline as a reference for where to insert each sound and then from there adjusted the sounds placement, whether it needed to be layered, the volume, and if it should fade in. 

 
    While we were editing, my partner and I created this foley of a dog tearing apart a toy, to fit the context of the plot. In order to make it sound realistic we overlapped sounds such as the dog barking, a dog collar moving around, the squeaking of the toy, and a reaction from the human in the passenger seat. For some of the other sounds we found them a website called "Pixabay," which has thousands of sounds we could choose from, download, and import them into Clipchamp.
    I believe we did a good job in the sound editing process, since we developed a well organized brainstorming sheet with details and discussed how and where we wanted each one to be. By planning thoroughly in the beginning the editing part came easy. I would've wanted to manage my time better with this project, but I can't tell if it is because I am a perfectionist and take my time with assignments. 

 Video Project

Sound Project #2 

    As for the second Sound Project we were then instructed to utilize a production we had already created which was the "One Word Film," originally filmed with zero sounds so that we could then add sound to it for this project. We had to create, find, and add necessary soundscapes to the project we already worked with. The main goal with this was to develop a realistic soundscape that continues to emphasize on the word we were given for the OWF project. Similar to the first sound project my original partner and I asked to fill out a brainstorming sheet that was given to us during class.
    This project was different since we already had a storyline. However, I had more difficulty editing this on Clipchamp since I had to transfer the video over from Adobe Express (what we originally used to edit the video) and edit from there. I believe this is a reason as to why it was extremely glitchy but I managed to push through the challenge. 
    I would say I enjoyed creating the foley sounds, even though finding premade sounds was easier and more accessible. It made the experience feel more personal and the sounds we created were more accurate and fit better into the editing process for this project. 

OWFSound_Garcia.mp4