Hello readers!
Recently, I have been learning about mise-en-scène (staging) in class. I take a French course, so I knew what the word's translation was, but I had no idea what it meant to include mise-en-scène in a film. To obtain this skill, my class was assigned a multimedia project that was all about creating a immersive experience for an audience using mise-en-scène. Before starting, we were divided into groups and given a character to develop. However, the trick was that each had a niche personality; something abnormal they enjoy that you wouldn't necessarily guess according to their stereotype. Our job as the project developers was to utilize visual, audio, and tactile elements to clearly develop the assigned character and make it abundantly clear who they were and what niche thing they liked.
My group was given a particularly interesting character: a high school football player with a love for poetry. As a group, we decided that our ultimate goal was to show our character's manly, football side while developing a soft, sensitive side. This would create a balance between the his two hobbies and make them more apparent individually. Brady Beckham seemed like a fitting name for a high school football player, so we agreed this would be it. He dreams of going to either Yale or Cornell as he admires their football teams and incredible literature programs. In fact, he often finds himself writing poems in his playbook and hiding it from his friends, keeping it a complete secret to everyone but his girlfriend Gia, who is part of the reason he discovered the writing genre. Brady and Gia are very close and love spending time together. In his room, Brady keeps a teddy bear Gia gave him on a date (part of his more delicate side). He also loves listening to music to gather inspiration for his writing as well as before games. For his outfits, we portrayed him as someone who loves comfortable, casual attire such as tee-shirts, jeans, sneakers, and sweatpants.
In order to follow project guidelines, my group included numerous elements to create an engaging presentation. For the visual aspect, we worked to create an intricate mood board, a detailed bedroom design, and a fitting costume design board. The mood board was made as a PowerPoint presentation, so, to make it more interesting, my group animated each of the items shown. Upon clicking each item, a short description would appear, explaining why the item represented a part of Brady's personality.
Next, Brady's bedroom design was made using a Canva presentation. We wanted it to look realistic and fitting to a 18-year old guy's bedroom. To do this, we made it look somewhat messy and random, adding pictures of snacks and posters. We also added some of the elements that were included on the mood board such as his teddy bear, headphones, backpack, and quill to keep them constant throughout the entire project and emphasize their importance to our character's niche.
Last of the visual elements, my group created the character costume board. Although it looks simple, we realized that the costume design process is incredibly detailed and well though out. Because we wanted his exterior to appear like that of a stereotypical high school jock, we made his costume design resemble this. The outfit we picked for Brady looks trendy and comfortable, just like most people his age.
Here are pictures of the mood board, bedroom design, and costume design board, respectively:
For the audio portion of this multimedia project, we decided to gather some songs we believed represent both his personalities (and added them to a Spotify playlist). This way, our audience could listen to music as they swiped through our visual and tactile elements. To help our project flow better, we decided to name the playlists so they appeared to be Brady's inspirational/motivational playlists that he plays for himself. Some songs included in the playlists are "My Shot" (from the Hamilton Musical), "12 to 12" (by Sombr), "We Will Rock You" (by Queen), and many others. If you're interested in listening to the exact playlists, here are their links: ("Friday Night Lights 🏈🏈") & ("📜🪶").
Finally, it was required to have some sort of tactile element for the presentation. Something the audience could touch or interact with. For our project, my group decided to create a copy of Brady's playbook/poetry book so that people who visited our station could get a glimpse into what he writes. Each page was filled with football play scribbles and writing drafts, as well as sticky notes, reminders that Brady left himself for important dates. We also slipped some envelopes containing college "acceptance letters" from Cornell and Yale into the book to tie in his educational goals. Unfortunately, because this is a physical journal, I am not able to link it to this post, but if you picture a leather journal with a quill attached to it, you won't be far off at all. As an extra tactile element, we also brought in a football jersey with Brady's number on it so our station visitors could see.
Our station consisted of four desks, each with a laptop on them. Two of the laptops displayed the mood board PowerPoint presentation while the other two displayed either the bedroom design or costume design board. We turned the laptops to face the center of the table, so screens would face each other and visitors could see all the presentations simultaneously. Also, to listen to Brady's playlists, we connected headphones to each of the laptops. Our tactile objects were placed in the center of our setup as the focal point of our station.
Brady's character development relied heavily on breaking the stereotype of a typical high school jock. Jocks are typically portrayed as tough, serious, and even dumb at times. However, Brady does not exactly follow this description. He has a soft side for his girlfriend and poetry (developed through the poetry book and explained by the mood board) and is very intelligent, especially in subjects such as reading and writing (developed through the poetry book and college letters). Overall, I think we covered a lot regarding his dual personality/niche. Something I wish we would have included was a copy of his report card or some of his notes so that it would be clearer how he was accepted into two ivy-league schools.
As a group we divided the creation of elements between members. For instance, I was the primary creator of the mood board while other members focused on developing the costume design, audio design, bedroom design, and tactile element design. However, even though the work was divided between us, we worked together constantly and provided each other with tips and suggestions on how to make our parts better. This way, we could manage our time more effectively while still giving each other feedback on our parts.
Overall, I believe the outcome of this project was very positive. Those who visited our station found it very engaging and had a lot of positive comments. I believe we achieved our goal for this project and used mise-en-scène to develop Brady Beckham in an in-depth manner.
No comments:
Post a Comment