Mise-en-scene project.

 Our mise-en-scene project was a really fun one, in which we had to develop the identity of a random character, and we had to have a description of our character, a mood board, a representation of the setting and a tactile element which represented them.

This activity was in groups of four, in which we divided the work, and for my part of the project, I had to do the description. Our character, Nina Carter, was a former jazz singer, with a sharp wit and a love for storytelling. She lives in a cozy apartment filled with records and memories, often sharing life lessons with younger neighbors. My goal was to be able to make our viewer know who she was, using photos, short descriptions, and colors. 

We created some really cool things, for example, in the description of the setting, in my group we found a website, in which we could create a bedroom, and design it in our way. This ended up being the coolest part of our project, because not only it was really creative and was much more that what we needed to do, but it was also really interactive, because people could move in the room, and interact with it. 

In our station, we organized our elements by having three laptops, each with a different thing (description of the character, representation of the setting, and mood board), and for the tactile element, we had a desk with a record player, which I think matched perfectly our character, since she was a former jazz singer.

(image of the record player)

We developed our character using in our presentation lots of reds. This color represents passion and energy, and like Nina was a former jazz singer, we thought that it matched with her identity. Also, because she was an elegant person, and red is an elegant color. We included two pictures of her, in one she is wearing a very elegant long red dress, and in the other she is wearing a total white outfit with a red shirt. The white in this picture represents purity, this also matches her because she is an old woman, and usually, old people are really good, and also innocent, which this color also represents.

I really liked my group, and I think that we all did a great job on this project, and put many effort into it. Our final outcome was great, because the design and style of all three elements kind of matched, and that gave our character, Nina, a better representation, and I think it made it easier for the people visiting our station to understand and connect with our character because of the styles, and designs. 

Link to our project :)

How does science fiction feels so real?

 Science fiction, or sci-fi is a genre that alters reality, and in which happen things that wouldn’t normally happen. It can have altered realities, happen in another multiverse, or even have characters with supernatural abilities. This genre is usually directed to young adults, and teens, who want to watch something with spectacle, suspense, and that includes technology. A strong example of this would be the film Back to the Future, that has the altered reality of being able of going back to the past, and to the future, which is imposible.

These sci-fi films usually have really advanced technology, that the main character use as a gun to fight the bad guy, or uses it to achieve one big goal. This films are many times happening in other times of history, and even in other planets or universes. They also usually have a alternate future, or worlds in which science and technology kind of "shape" the world. 

Some of the production effects that are usually used on science fiction films, in the production design are really futuristic cities or places where there is a really modern and futuristic architecture. Sci-fi also uses a lot of visual effects, like for example making something imposible to feel real. This is why it feels so real, and this imposible things don't seem so imposible anymore. Some examples of science fiction films are Avatar, The Hunger Games, Star Wars, and The Maze Runner.

This Genre is marketred by showing in trailers, and posters futuristic visuals, technology that is really advanced, and risky actions. This attrackts a wide range of people, that can be attracted by their different preferences, and likes. 

My first film example is Star Wars. This is a science fiction film, and its subgenre is space. This features traveling long distances, futuristic architecture, and battles between good and evil using technologic guns. It uses visual and sound effects to make this setting and characters feel real. This creates realistic settings that are fake, and that are really technologic. It was marketed as a grand space adventure, filled with action, special effects, and heroism. 

My second film is The Maze Runner. This is science fiction because it takes place in a place that doesn't exist in real life, which is super dangerous and weird. The maze, and the monsters are all controlled by technology, and there is a lot of action and mystery. 

Some other examples of sci-fi films are The Hunger games, E.T, Dune, Avatar, and Oblivion.

Sound Projects

This pasts weeks in AICE Media Studies have been really fun. In class we've been doing and learning a lot of things, centering on sound. These past weeks, we did 2 sound projects about sound, and we learned sound in the class, and at home. I learned a lot, since I knew anything about this topic, for example, did you know that most of the background sound are made after the film is recorded? Since the microphones only catch the dialogue. These sounds that were not captured during the shooting, are made through a process called "foley". We watched 3 videos about foley, in which I learned that sound is a hard job, and even though it seems so normal to us, and in movies it sounds so natural, there is a big work and a lot of effort behind that. 

After learning about sound, we had to do a project with a partner that our teacher choose. The project was about creating a sound scene, without using any kind of video, or image. We had to include at least 4 foley sounds, and the rest we could take from different sound websites.

For this project, me and my partner choose to do a shark attack scene, in which we could add a lot of sounds, like for example, the environment, background chatter, or the sea waves crashing. For the outline, we divided our original idea in scenes, and we tried for each scene to add all of the sounds that happen on it. I personally think that we did a great job, and that we added pretty much all of the sounds that were present, we realized that it helped us a lot, and that maybe our scene could've been less realistic without it. After the planning, we started our editing. Me and my partner used the app "Clipchamp", and to look for the sounds that we didn't make, we used the website "Pixabay". 

For this project, I think we did a really good job with the environmental sounds, because I think that the volume was perfect for each sound, even though I think we could've improved on connecting the scenes, because, for example, there is a scene in which our main character is getting into the sea, in which there is a weird mix up of sounds, and I think we could improve that. 

Here's a link if you want to see this project :)

For the second sound project we recreated the one word film project, but we added the sound this time. During Brainstorming, we did something really similar to the sound project number one, we did a planning sheet in which we separated our video in scenes, and for each scene, we wrote down the sounds that we were probably going to use and that were probably going to be present. this helped us a lot in organizing our project because there were some scenes in which we didn’t know what else to add, and the planning sheet helped us mix sounds and creating some ideas from different scenes and combine them to form a new idea for the scenes in which we didn’t have like a main sound.

For this project, we used the same editing resources as on the first project. We used “pixabay” for the looking of the sounds and we used the app “clip champ” for the editing of the sounds. I think that for this project, we also did a great job with the environmental sounds for example the chipping of the birds, I think that was great and it sounded really natural, and I think we could improve coordinating the sound of the pen writing on a sheet, that I personally think that it didn’t sound real 

link to my second project