Mise-en-Scene

 For this project, I had to represent a character through props, sound, and setting. For this project, I was assigned to portray a middle school girl, who is shy, but loyal to her friends; and very tech-savvy and inventive. Because the presentation was meant to be interactive, I wanted to make it feel like you were looking through the bedroom of this teenage girl character. To do this, I made a website. The bedroom itself was the background for a desk, where my character would spend a lot of her time tinkering with gadgets, reading, or programming and coding. I designed and drew the desk and all of the objects/props around it myself in a digital art app. To further characterize her, I added a function where, when an object was clicked, a short description of it (including a fact about how it relates to the character) would pop up. 

With the required moodboard for the character, I used images that I knew would match the “vibe” of the character: quiet, calm, and soft. So I used desaturated warm shades and colors found generally in nature within the color palette. I included a lot of pictures of clothing items I think the character would wear, most of which were heavy or covering to reflect the shy nature of my character, as if she wanted to hide herself in long sleeves and thick fabric. For audio elements, I made a playlist of song that were of the chill lo-fi genre and sounded more soothing and sweet, again, to match the quiet yet smart personality of my character. I wanted the tangible props I had to use to seem like things that would be found in the bedroom desk setting I had created. So I used a robot to line up with my character’s love of “gadgets,” and wires and computer chips to show her tech-savvy abilities. 

I set up all of these things in a specific order. I put website I made for the setting in the middle, because that was the main interactive experience of my presentation. The objects I used were placed right in front of the computer, to seem like they were apart of my character’s space. I only used two computers because I worked independently, but I wanted to have the screen with the character’s picture and description on the left side (because you typically read from left to right, and so that would be the first thing someone sees), and the moodboard on the right. I also decided that the character should have glasses, which is a very typical convention in media for a smart character. The name I ultimately gave to my character was “Maya Whitlock,” which sounded very nice and elegant but not at all big and flashy.

I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what I should do. My first thought was that I was going to make a full tour of my character’s bedroom, but that ended up being to time consuming and I also struggled to find a suitable app to make a website like that in. In the end, I wish that I had found a solution earlier. I ended up using a website called ThingLink, which worked very well for the website I wanted to make to create the setting. At that point, I had decided to just limit it to my character’s personal work space, but use the items around the desk to convey her personality. It took me along time to draw and design the desk area in a realistic way, but the resulting website looks even better than I had hoped. I also drew the pict of my character, albeit, based on a real picture I found. I ordered most of my objects and props off of Amazon. I am also very happy with the moodboard I made. I wanted it to look a little unprofessional but still organized because I felt that it was a good fit for the character. And I used a lot of warmer shades in it.

Link to website: https://www.thinglink.com/view/scene/2037714147554099686

Link to playlist: https://spotify.link/rs8MPFTAOXb

Genre Research

 Sports:

The sports genre typically revolves around stories that are set within the world of sports,  like professional, amateur, or recreational. and focus on the physical and emotional challenges faced by the individuals or teams. The sporting environment serves both as the setting and as a metaphor for broader human struggles. Some of the most successful sports movies ate often about racing. Ex: “F1:The Movie

Sports productions are usually trying to accurately depict real sports, rules, and gameplay. The costume design may be designed to look like authentic uniforms, real teams or leagues, and accurate choreography of matches or training. This often involves consultation with athletes, coaches, and sports organizations, as they often want to appeal to fans of real sports to grab an audience.

Many sports stories follow an underdog, comeback, or rise-to-success narrative structure. Scriptwriting and production often emphasize motivational storytelling that appeals to wide audiences which is  a proven box office and TV formula.

Casting may feature real athletes or actors undergo extensive physical training to convincingly portray athletes. Production schedules and budgets accommodate athletic training, choreography, and coordination with sports consultants. 

Sports films and shows are marketed as uplifting, motivational stories appealing to broad demographics. Trailers emphasize perseverance, teamwork, and triumph. Marketing often includes tie-ins with real sporting events, endorsements, or merchandise for promotion and sponsorship.

One of the best example of this is Rocky (1976) a movie about boxing. In it, Rocky Balboa, an unknown boxer, gets the chance to fight the world champion, following the underdog convention. A classic training montage showing perseverance and physical struggle. The movie was celebrated for its authentic depiction of boxing and working-class life. The movie has a very inspirational tone and focuses on determination and believing in yourself.

In Rudy, 1993), real-life former football player Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, (played by Sean Astin)  gets to play football for the University of Notre Dame despite his small stature and academic struggles. Rudy is a true underdog:  too small, not athletic enough, and repeatedly told he’ll never make it. Much of the film focuses on Rudy’s relentless effort, which reinforces the inspirational element. Characters like Fortune, the stadium groundskeeper, and Coach Parseghian act as mentor figures. This reflects the coach-mentor convention, seen across many sports films like “The Karate Kid.” The film’s music, pacing, and cinematography heighten the motivational tone, inspiring audiences.

Other examples of sports movies:

Space Jam:

The Sandlot:

Coach Carter:

The Mighty Ducks:

Cool Runnings:

Sound Projects

 During this assignment I learned how sound, in film and tv, add emotion and dimension to a scene and work to advance it. The visuals are often paired with the sound using noises that are associated with what is happening onscreen, but not always. Sometimes the sound conflicts with the visuals for artistic purposes. The sounds can be diegetic or non diegetic (meaning the sound exist alongside and can be heard by the characters or not). Music is a very important part of filmmaking and a soundscape as it can set the tone and create emotional reaction.

For the first sound projects, I had to work with a partner to create a 2 minutes of realistic sounds (no music) that conveyed a story. At least 4 of the sounds had to be foley (meaning we had to record them ourselves). For the second, I was tasked with adding making a soundscape for the previous ONE WORD FILM assignment. 

With the first sound project, we made an attempt to create a big scale story of a knight who fights a dragon. Of course, we had a lot of ideas for sounds to use.  During brainstorming, we worked to come up with the sound effects for different scenes we could have and what the full story would be and how the sound would tell it. The outline was helpful in showing me what kinds of sounds should be there for soundscape to be realistic and what order it should be in. We used the editing software called Clipchamp to put everything together. I was amazed by the final result and am very proud of the work we did. I think the sounds were layered very well and timed perfectly. It clear as to what was happening in the scene without any visuals. I think the uniqueness and complexity of our idea is to our advantage here. I especially love how the sounds built up to a climax. The only thing I think could have been better was blending the sound of the fight between the knight and the dragon a bit better. 

For the One Word Film sound editing, I tried to come up with as many every day sounds as possible for the beginning. I attempted to make the soundscape slowly become less realistic as the short video went on. I used music and stings to better express the word “anxious” and even a few cues. The outline was useful because it separated the diegetic sounds from the nondiegetic sounds. Again, I used Clipchamp to edit the sound in the video. I think I did a good job of utilizing a few different sound editing techniques and  of course, showing the word that the film was supposed to be based off of. Still, the shots in the video itself were not the best and that reflected on the final sound project. Overall, I think that after sound was added, the entire film was enhanced a lot and it is the best part of the whole project.

One Word Film Sound

Sound Project 1