Summary of Activity
This week, we were given a fun little activity called "Multimedia Mise-en-scene." In this project, we were assigned a prompt of a character we had to develop. In groups we had to include:
- Description of character (don’t forget to give your character a name)
- A mood board for the character (must include at least 10 elements)
- A representation of a chosen setting for the character. This setting should directly relate to the character and include elements that further develop the character (think about colors, fabrics, objects, etc.).
- Audio elements that represent the character. This could be a song – or series of songs – background music to create a mood, stings.
- Tactile representations of your character. This should be something visitors to your station can touch and feel.
Within our groups we had to discuss how we would develop this character through their physical representations (appearance, costuming, makeup, etc.), setting, and audio that would be associated with the character.
in our group we were assigned this character description:
"Driven by a thirst for knowledge and adventure this character seeks out new experiences and uncovers hidden truths. Their curiosiy often leads them into unexpected situations though..."
During presentation day, we only had 7-8 minutes to represent our entire character through our station, so we had to get creative!
Our Character
With our description, we decided to go for an adventurous girl, much like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider or a girl version of Indiana Jones. We settled on this description:
Quick brief description:
The representation of the character is a 22 year old woman who’s name is Rhia Wildur. She is in a jungle looking for the legendary golden treasure box. She has a pet monkey named Rufus. He is an emotional support animal and she takes him everywhere. She encountered trouble during her adventure but it ended well for her.
- Appearance: Hair in a bun with strands of hair framing face, tall, built, toned in body, lean, rugged appearance. Brown hair with golden highlights, green eyes, freckles, sun-kissed olive skin tone.
- Costuming: Brown combat boots with dark green khaki shorts, brown belt with satchel, map attached to satchel. Dirty off white button up shirt. Backpack with brown monkey on shoulder. Hand belt on arm with a knife.
- Makeup: Scars on her face and she’s dirty
- Setting: deep jungle setting looking for a mysterious ancient tomb
- Character’s bedroom or most utilized space: tent with maps, books, scholarly papers, lit by a candle, its messy and used for research, where she sleeps and uncovers mystery.
- Audio: Background music of the jungle similar to temple run music. Animals in the background as well. Mysterious music whenever she uncovers a secret about the tomb, whenever she encounters trouble intense music is played.
What We Created
We wanted to create a sort of immersive sound/audio station where the audio would immerse you to AI videos made in the characters point of view, really making you feel like you are the character. These included all of our 3 settings (the tent, the jungle, the temple) with audio pertaining to these settings, same with background music to really sell the fantasy aspect of our character and her world.
Next, we worked on the mood board, grabbing all elements that inspired her, such as Lara croft, Indiana Jones, and even Ellie from "The Last of Us", and threw it all on a board with other elements that represent her, such as her outfit, her hair, the jungle aesthetic that inspired her, and certain objects we think she would have/use regularly.
After that, we created a quick powerpoint to describe her character and setting more deeply, as we felt what we had wasn't enough for the station. It included the inspiration pictures plus colors that would be associated with that particularly setting. Colors that would be used in the scene if she was being filmed in that particular setting.
Lastly, we had to work on the tangible object. We had been brainstorming the tangible object for the entire project but had complications last minute in doing it, so we had to improvise. At first, the idea was to create a treasure chest with treasure inside but, it didn't work out so we decided to create a page of a letter given to her, a scroll, and a map that were all aged and then to make them look adventerous and rugged. We also decided to include a big bag of treasure with precious stones and jewelry inside, making up for the lack of a treasure chest we had.
Development of Character
When brainstorming the development of our character, we had to use our representation of character lecture, developing character with the following elements:
- Construction - When showing the character, in production we would use a lot of low angle shots with the character when showing the temple to show the power and grand mystery that the temple show, but when showing the character the lighting would probably be moodier when uncovering mystery but intense when she gets into trouble due to the mystery. But mostly, the character would be shown in a lot of yellows, beiges, browns, and cool greens, fitting her adventurous lifestyle.
- Selection - we would make sure to include a lot scenes with her surrounded with books, globes, maps and papers to not only show that shes a character of high intelectual, but to show the amount of studying and dedication she's gone through just to uncover this mystery. Compasses would also be shown a lot, same with backpacks since their linked with travel and discovery.
- Stereotypes - She's depicted as a tomboy, not wearing any makeup and always having her face dirty since she's constantly working tirelessly, not caring about her appearance. There would be a lot of stereotypes in the scenery as well, having the temples be inspired off of mexican/aztec culture, maybe de-centering the culture, and using it to contrast the American Explorer character in a foreign backdrop traveling to find treasure.
Final Reflection
Overall, I believe ve considering the complications that we had throughout the project, it was a great first start. Our teacher told us that most likely, we would be doing things like this again, and i'd definitely love to make my project more interactive and interesting for people to experience. Sure, I'm not 100% satisfied with the outcome and I felt like there were many parts we could've expanded the project more, especially after viewing everyone else's take on the project. But failure is redirection and I learned so much regardless!
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