Scrolling through Media: Mise-en-Scene Project!

Hey there Cambridge!

I have not been super excited about a project until now. Recently, each group presented their mise-en-scene projects. For this project, each group received a unique prompt describing a persona. Then, the groups had to create a station where other classmates would be able to experience and understand the persona in 7-8 minutes. This project ended up being super cool since everyone put their full dedication and creativity in their work.

My group's prompt was: "Quiet and enigmatic, this character keeps their past hidden and observes from the sidelines. As the story unfolds, their secrets come to light."

Using that prompt, here is the description of our character I wrote for the presentation: Violet Smith, a shy 17 year old girl, just transferred to her new school in Alabama from her small hometown back in Florida. Secretly, Violet is a masked singer named Scarlet, who is most popular in Florida. As Scarlet’s popularity continues to grow, Violet fears her secret identity will come out. Once her schoolmates dressed up as Scarlet (as fans), Violet realizes she must move away before someone finds out her secret identity. Now, Violet is a mysterious high school senior in Fairhope, Alabama, hiding her secret past to avoid attention, stalkers, and threats. To the other students, Violet is just a secretive, new girl who shies away from the rest of the world.

To illustrate our character Violet, we created a mood board. Since they were living a pop star and normal life, we made two mood boards representing each life. One side was bright and colorful with singer elements (like a stage), while the other side had dark elements symbolizing mystery and our character's timid behavior. Multiple items, or Violet's belongings, were left at the station (also known as Violet's bedroom): a microphone, since of course a pop star has one; a mask, since it is a part of Scarlet's signature look; and Harry Potter books, since people who seem shy are stereotyped to be people that read in their own quiet place. The most important item at the station was Violet's diary and newspapers (images for both below) written about her. We created a guide (images below) that will aid our classmates in navigating through our station. It took them through the diary and newspapers, so they can learn of our characters secret past and current life, while sharing Violet's inner thoughts. It also had a video of Violet in her pop star life so that people can see her life when she is not just a school girl.

Developing our character was, of course, the most important step. So how did we do it? First, construction. Violet, a shy/mysterious character, evoked us to use certain colors at our station. The whole table was covered with a dark bedcover to channel the mystery of who Violet is. This is the same reason Violet's diary is black. The mood board also has meticulous color manipulation: the front side of the mood board was filled with colors to represent her fun, bright pop star life, but the back is all dreary, with symbols like the moon, to represent her mystery as an unknown, quiet girl at school. The Stage Life Video had eerie/scary music and black and blue colors to represent Violet's pop star career taking a bad turn (in this case, she had to run away from threats and stalkers). As classmates went through the visual guide, a mysterious sound played. This sound was to make them really feel like there is something suspicious and alluring happening. Next, is selection. Our character's name is Violet because purple is usually linked with emo people. The name was actually inspired by The Incredibles character, Violet, who is very timid and observes from the sidelines. Nowadays, no one reads newspapers, but since newspapers are usually in detective and mystery films, we decided to go with a newspaper to share the spread of information. At the end of the guide, we still choose to reveal Violet's secret past through social media, though, since it is the fastest way information spreads. Thus, it emphasizes the fast spread of information and makes it clear Violet's secret is definitely, for sure, out, and that her mission to run away from popularity and fame is over. Finally, stereotypes: Because the prompt says our persona is "quiet and enigmatic", we had to carefully select what traits of her we would show. By that I mean disregard her awesome personality and follow the stereotypes. She is a girl who does not socialize with other students and reads books... and a lot of them. The only way to really even learn about Violet, since she barely talks to anyone other than her manager Cassandra, is if we could read her thoughts; hence, the diary.

My group did a very well job in bringing creativity and meticulous thinking into this project. Our choice in how to represent Violet was pretty good, through her name, the newspapers, colors, and a diary. Splitting up the parts of our project (creation of the guide/diary, newspapers, mood board, Stage Life Video) was well split, so everyone was able to contribute equally and present their own work. The outcome was really fun and how we got to follow on Violet's journey made it interesting for anyone who visits our station. Next time we do something like this, I would love to incorporate more online activities.

Mise-en-Scene Project Guide: