Multimedia Mise-en-scene project

For this Project we were tasked to develop a full representation of an assigned character. My teams character was a single father who owned a business as a librarian and he read to children. our goals were to show this character for what they truly are and show what they do for a living as well as creating a setting or even audio within the characters life.

We chose to name our character "Peter Cook." Peter is 41 years old born on August 12 1984. His occupation is a community librarian at the New Kersey Library for children. He enjoys being kind and helpful to people, even those who don't deserve it. He has 3 children, Aurora (the eldest), Amelia (middle), and Oliver (youngest). His wife sadly passed away during Oliver birth, yet Peter still tries his best to put a smile on his kids faces during these hard times. Peter is originally from Birmingham, United Kingdom, and he likes to inspire other kids by reminding them that life is a beautiful thing, as he continues to write more children books, peter stays with this job to see the overjoyed and content look on his students faces during story time, teaching them to  explore their imagination. 

To illustrate our character's avatar, we used the app Ibis-Paint to create Peter and his children's look. Using various tools to blend in their facial  features together and have some similar character traits. Aurora looks more like her mother, Amelia looks like a combination of both her parents, and Oliver looks closer to his father (Peter). We also used their favorite colors in representation with their avatar. As every character would have a color to show case them. Peter's favorite color was green, his photo included his casual wear in a simple green cardigan, Green represents Peter, as it symbolizes a range of positive growth as well as the feeling of calmness and safety. This shows Peter's matureness towards his children since he is now a single father. Aurora's color is purple, it embodies her as the color symbolizes  wisdom and maturity as well as her creativity and imagination. In comparison, Amelia's favorite color is pink, symbolizing playfulness and innocence, as Amelia is 7 years old, pink is often associated with tenderness and compassion. Yet, in contrast with his sisters, Oliver's favorite color is blue. representing happiness, tranquility and peace towards an unknown subject. Even though Oliver never really knew his mom, this color represents that he has made peace with the death of his mother.

Aurora Cook

Amelia Cook

Oliver Cook

We organized our characters elements into a Canva project, setting up a interactive staton we created to have a more playful station. Our tactile representation was our "scavenger hunt," which included fun questions about our characters. Our Canva project included a narration of Peter's favorite things, as well as  his workspace and his children. The project was told form Peter's own perspective throughout the entire presentation with some auditory music in the background to fully engulf the player into our characters world.

For our presentation I liked our execution for our descriptions and activities for our characters. The way we developed our character was highly effective, as each group member added ideas to connect into one character. It showed that working together can be abundantly effective and helpful when working on this project. Yet even though i think it was really good overall, some things i would change or improve are the amount of tactile representation, t could have been more interactive with the audience immersing them more into Peters world. Yet since we only had a voice of our man character narrating the story, i would have like to hear maybe something a little more exciting like specific music that represents our characters life. My group members worked well as we all helped each other collaborating with ideas within our character. My members and I could improve some organization as we would be confused sometimes as to what the other person was doing or working on. Overall the activity was highly encouraging and engaging, allowing many to be create in their representations. 

Links to Our Project-

Folder to see our avatar's descriptions

Our Canva Project

Science Fiction Research

Science Fiction

Most movies are built on adventure and outside of this world topics, what many people don't know is that many of these movies are Science Fiction. 

Science Fiction movies are generally referred to as Sci-fi films. It is a genre that uses scientific or futuristic characteristics to explore the use of various advanced technology, space travel, or even alternate realities. They are sometimes confused with fantasy, yet they differ because Sci-fi relies more on the scientific or technological explanations rather than the supernatural or magical references. The setting in which sci-fi films usually set in are fantastical setting to connect on current societal issues. Some examples of this are privacy, environmental concerns, or even the nature of humanity itself.

CONTENT-

An easy way to spot a Sci-fi movie comes with having the setting of the movie set in space exploration. This element helps create the atmosphere for the setting of the movie. As it seems to be set in the future, people can turn the film into a whole adventure, exploring how human nature would evolve or coexist while in that setting.

-Star Wars is an example of this as it is set in a "galaxy far far away." Throughout the film they show advanced technology of spaceships being used like present daily life cars, in a way showing that people adapted to how things have changed, as well as the different life forms associated into the film. 

As said above, different life forms can be associated into the film, incorporating "alienated" features, mutants, or genetically modified humans. Extraterrestrial and altered life can be featured in Sci-fi movies. Biological alterations can also be shown through scientific manipulation or enhancements like telekinesis or telepathy for humans.

-The film "Alien" highly relies on this feature of extraterrestrial and altered life. 

PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES-

Sci-fi production techniques include; special effects, specific camera techniques (cinematography), and elaborate sets or props that contribute to the continuity of the film. The goal for these techniques is to visually represent the scientific and technological concepts of the story, using this symbols imagery to reinforce the theme of the conflict within the plot.

Special effects-

During Sci-fi movies, special effects is abundantly valued as it is used to create futuristic elements, including advanced technology, alien being, or different environments for the film in general.

Props/sets-

Using props and costumes that represent advanced or futuristic features to show the setting and technology within the story is key to keep the fluidity of the movie.

Cinematography-

Techniques like close-ups on certain scientific elements or even the futuristic elements, deeply emphasize the importance of the item, drawing the audiences attention to them.

MARKETING-

For science fiction films, marketing is used by holding a combination of recognizable conventions and cross-media promotion with direct engagement with the audience.  Most of the strategies used for this cause a balance to establish fan expectations with also attracting new audiences. This is done by highlighting specific elements like the futuristic technology looks, alien encounters, or even some dystopian themes across Sci-fi films.

SAMPLES-

                                    

Blade Runner, a Sci-fi film directed by Ridley Scott, is set in a dystopian setting in Los Angeles in 2019. Genetically engineered humans, (which are called "replicants"), are hunted by special police units known as the blade runners. (Which refers back to the origin of the title for the film) The plot continues, surrounding a character names "Rick Deckard" who is played by actor Harrison Ford. Rick is an experienced blade runner and he is tasked with tracking down and "retire" 4 of the escaped replicants who returned to earth. The film explores the negative side of technological and scientific advancement, incorporating greed into the mix. t goes into exploring the human identity and artificial intelligence of how to be human. Thee replicants are given false memories to create an "emotional cushion," making them highly similar to humans. The line between human and machine becomes a dangerous blur, focusing the audience to re-evaluate and think about the assumptions about consciousness. Different lighting s used to set the tone for the setting, moody, high contrast lighting are used as well as combining futuristic sets and props with the help of technological and visual narrative elements from the film "Blade Runner."

Arrival is a Sci-fi movie directed by Denis Villeneuve in 2016. The film begins when 12 shell-shaped alien spacecraft appear across the glob. The government began to scramble to prepare for contact with this new arrival. One Woman, Linguist Dr. Louise Banks is enlisted by the U.S. military to learn about the aliens. He discovered that the only way too truly contact or connect with them is to learn their language and determine their purpose for their destination on their home planet (Earth). Arrival uses various examples to showcase science fiction as it uses alien subjects to explore the fundamentals of communication and thought throughout the film. While trying to prevent a war, the nation tries to identify what it is the alien subjects want (their message). The film arrival is more deeply involved with redefining the "alien first-contact narrative." In this film, aliens are not shown as invaders, but rather a test for humanity's own crisis; our capacity for empathy. The scenery is set in a present yet futuristic setting, using various lighting and camera angles to emphasize the theme of the story. 

Some other Science fiction movies people can explore-

                                                              INTERSTELLAR (2014)

INCEPTION (2010)

BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985)

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)

AVATAR (2009)

THE HUNGER GAMES (2012)

EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014)

Sound Projects

   Recently we were tasked with making two sound projects. For our first project, the main point was to create the audio using foley, (with a foley "stage"). While our film was visually presented as a black screen, our audio had to help the audience convey the story without the visual representation. The duration of the film was only between 1-2 minutes. We were given the liberty to create our own story and choose our own foley sounds with the help of a various sound effects/resources we could download. We got to work with a partner during this project. The editing platform we used for this project was Adobe Premier Pro, while we were given another option, clip-champ, we used Premier. As for our second sound project tied back to our one word film (OWF). Our assignment was to add the necessary audio/sounds to the film we had created to complete the full film. For booth sound projects we had to create an outline for the audio scenes we would create as well as the sounds itself incorporated in our film.

  By having the freedom to work with another person and using various resources, the result of our video indeed holds a lot of creativity and variety. Yet not only were our resources helpful, the outlines for both projects helped us stay organized as well as bringing our final story to life. It helped us create a baseline of what sounds we would be using as well as matching scenarios of our story. For both project I used Adobe Premier Pro to help with the easy and fluidity of the layering process for the audio. The outline immensely helped when connecting the dots form the audio to the storyline as well as incorporating all the sounds in the right position with the video.

What I would do to improve my project would be to improve my foley sounds that we created. I feel as it was to repetitive at times on the first Sound Project. At the beginning of the story, there s a girl who rushes towards her own theatre show, as she runs towards the building, you can hear the jingling of her keys and her clothes ruffling. The keys sounded a little to repetitive and I also think what added to that fact was how long the clip was. That specific scene went on for a little too long and I think I could have shortened it to make it look more cohesive and nice to the human brain and not bore the audience too much. Yet for the second project  felt really confident n our final foley product as the sound effects and the foley smoothly blended in together as one cohesive audio for the film. I was quite content with the result of the crisp foley sounds as it matched with the action of the storyline. Yet one defect the second project included, we decided to add a musical aspect as the main character is wearing headphones. It was difficult trying to find a song that would match the mood and atmosphere of our short film. Yet overall i think we did a decent job in our project.

During our assigned sound lessons, I learned that foley is a method in whch objects are used to create sounds made by humans. A foley stage is used for this method, they are usually built to be held as a super quiet environment where you can put the picture on the screen and then record using microphones in sync with the picture. In the next phase (post production) they manipulated the sounds to make them sound more real or just to add depth and effect to the sound itself. Foley s usually made for sounds people normally tune out. The movie, "The quiet place" includes lots of foley and post production audio editing, yet the scariest sound in the film is the lack of sound itself. As foley progresses through the years it is truly important as it helps recreate the sounds that were lost for drama or intensity, making it scary for more detail in the film.

Links to my projects-

Sound Project #1-

HernandezGonzalez_Soundscape

Sound Project #2-

OWFSound_GonzalezBaynes.