Mise-en-Scene (#2)

 The mise-en-scene of the party scene begins with Scarlett walking around in the party. We are going to achieve this effect by throwing a small party with our friends and acquaintances to give the effect of a real party. The house where the party is being thrown has three areas. The pool area opens up from the front door, and the scene begins with her walking outside the front door.

Her costume for this scene is a black cropped shirt and a skirt. This symbolizes that she is mentally aware more than ever that her relationship is toxic and she is grieving the lost love. The skirt symbolizes her pending freedom once she finally leaves the relationship. Ricky is wearing a white shirt and jeans. This signifies that he now believes it’s his time to play the perfect, apologetic, innocent boyfriend. (But if only this was the type of act that lasted, since this version of Ricky was the one Scarlett fell in love with.) 

She walks through the door and the camera follows her. The audience can see a scar from the cut from the bottle, made with prop blood and a fake scar from a halloween store. The lighting in the house party is low, and there are some colorful lights around the house as well. We would get these from any store and scatter them around the house.

There are also many people talking in the background, drinking, dancing, laughing, and overall just having a good time around the house. As Scarlett looks around, she waves to some of her friends and even stops to talk to some of them. She continues walking through another door to the inside of the house and sees people sitting on the couch, dining room, and just gathered around chatting and having a good time. She continues to walk through the house and walks out the back of the room into the garden and looks around. She sees Ricky waving and she grabs her arm, as a sign of distress. She masks her anxiety with a forced smile and figures she should at least talk to him.

The mise-en-scene is really important for this part of the opening. This is because it is where most of the plot is uncovered and the audience can tell there is a change in both of their demeanors. The biggest change is that Scarlett is no longer willing to be by Ricky’s side anymore, after all that she has been put through with him. Ricky, on the other hand, wants to pretend as if nothing happened and wants to have a good time at the party, but it cant happen because Scarlett cannot forget the past.

Well executed mise-en-scene can make or break the scene. I think it is one of the crucial parts of this film especially and it is very important to me and my partner that we get it right.

Mise-en-Scene (#1)

 To develop mise-en-scene, me and my partner have decided to use clothes to express emotions and set the tone for the rest of the film opening. By using different tones, colors, and styles of clothing, one can set different tones and emotions through the screen to the audience.

The mise-en-scene for the first scene, which is the bottle scene, where Ricky throws the empty alcohol bottle at Scarlett, is as follows.

The scene starts off in the living room. There is a couch, a TV, food scattered on the couch where they were sitting and chilling before the argument got heated. the movie on the TV is paused, and the audience can hear a dog barking in the background as the couple is fighting.

Scarlett is wearing a white shirt and shorts. This signifies innocence, purity, and devotion to the audience. This helps develop the personality of the character as it reflects their emotions and feelings at the moment and gives background and provides context for the rest of the film.

Ricky, on the other hand, is wearing a red shirt and sweatpants. This signifies anger and violence, and the sweatpants signify laziness towards their relationship. This outfit gives the audience the sense of his emotions and his true personality throughout the film.

After, Scarlett runs into the backyard of the house, after sensing the argument getting really heated. Since context provided shows she's been in the relationship for a while, the audience can infer she knows when the argument or bickering is getting too intense, so she walks outside for a breath of fresh air. Ricky throws the bottle at her and gets mad that she's walking away from him. The lighting is very bright up until the bottle smashes into the wall right next to Scarlett's head. This signifies she is being stripped from the life she loves. She does truly love him, but she slowly is realizing this isn't the life she wants to be living nor the type of relationship she wants to be in.

The props being used are the fake bottle, the fake blood for a cut on her face, and her phone she holds up to try to protect her face from the bottle. The bottle were going to use is a prop bottle which smashes really easy and doesn't leave shards of glass or anything that can be prone to being injured.

This is one I found from this website.

Character Development

The two main characters in my film, "Turbulence," are called Scarlett, 17 years old, and Ricardo, 17  years old. The two are in a relationship and this is established within the first shots of the opening, when the audience sees them cuddling on the couch. 

They are in a very toxic, abusive relationship, which affects mainly Scarlett's character development throughout the film opening and would continue to be developed throughout the rest of the film. Their dynamic is also established in the first scene, where Ricky throws an empty bottle at Scarlett, and the audience sees his alcoholic tendencies and the abuse towards her. 

The main development of character is Scarlett. The growth she goes through throughout the opening and film helps the audience's understanding of their toxic relationship. As they see, there is love in the relationship. This is shown through the first scene when Ricky throws the bottle at her. In her body language and facial expressions, the audience can see it isn't the first time something like that has happened. This shows their love, especially Scarlett's, because she stays with him throughout the abuse, due to her love and devotion for and to him. There is a strong connection between the two, but there is heavy miscommunication and violence. This is intertwined in every romantic or loving activity they do.

The audience understands this through her actions because she has a deep desire to stay for the good parts, but also knows she has to leave due to how bad the abuse and mistreatment gets. 

Ricky has less character development throughout the film,  but it is still prominent. In the opening, there are scenes where he is very abusive and mistreats Scarlett, but they are also scenes where it shows his true love and devotion towards her. He also feels the same way she does him, but it is clear to the audience that alcohol turns him into a very different person. He gets mean, rude, frustrated, and most of all, abusive. He knows the alcohol doesn't do him any good, but the addiction gene runs in his family. He is trying to change for Scarlett, and for those around him, but doesn't know how. He wants help and wants to be sober for her, because he truly does love her, but he thinks it is too hard and never fully gets to the point of recovery.

This relationship takes a toll on both of them. Scarlett, because she loves him and doesn't want to leave him, but knows she should due to the abuse. Ricky, because he wants to change so badly and knows he doesn't deserve her love and devotion to him. The toll is seen in the opening with their facial expressions, body language, and particularly how they act around each other. The audience clearly sees how the relationship also takes a mental toll on both of them.

Project Summary

 This post will be solely dedicated to my project idea.

The plot is essentially about a toxic couple, and the boy has a alcohol problem, which is shown in the first scene where the couple is in a fight, and he throws a bottle of alcohol at her, but she dodges it and it hits the wall next to her. (This is a flashback to just give context and establish their relationship before the rest of the opening.) It then cuts to a party scene, where the girl is walking through all the people. He sees her and grabs her arm, and there are a few 5 second flashbacks showing the bad parts of their relationship. This serves as her remembering the things that have happened in their relationship. She then goes up to him and talks to him as to continue the rest of the storyline in continuation of the plot. The plot isn’t fully developed yet, but this is the main idea and how the film opening will probably be organized. There might be a few tweaks and changes, but besides the whole plot needing context, this is basically the solidified idea.

Media Theory

 One important media theory I want to include in my film opening is Stuart Hall’s active audience theory. This theory states that audiences are active in interpreting media messages, rather than passive recipients. I would like to include this theory because I would like if the audience watching the film opening would interpret the message of the film actively, rather than passively.

Research:

Active audiences are when they are engaging, interpreting, and responding to the message being given to the audience through media forms. Passive audiences just accept the message without analyzing or interpreting it, without giving it a further thought. Hall claims the audience dictates whether a message is successful or not. He also found that the audience is able to change the meaning of the message intended to conform to the social context they are it. He concluded from this that the message intended by the creator is not always the message the audience is going to take from the media forms. The encoding/decoding model is also part of this theory, but looks at the relationships of messages and the audience interpreting the message. Below is a picture of it.

I got all my info from this website.

Reflection of Group Meeting

Today, Monday, February 10th, we did a group meeting in class with members from each group in the class randomly selected to be in this group. We were instructed to tell each other our ideas for the project, and the basic structure of our film opening or how we are planning to do it, and give each other feedback on how to either improve their original ideas or give them ideas on how to start in general. I was in a group with Julia, Shira, Veronica, and Gabriel. We all discussed our ideas with each other and gave and were given feedback and inspiration for our film openings.

Here is a picture taken from our group meeting while we were writing notes about each others’ films.

First, Shira shared her idea with us. Her idea was to do something along the lines of a psychological thriller/horror surrounding something paranormal, such as a zombie apocalypse. She wasn't too sure on how to structure her film openings so I gave her some ideas. I suggested using editing techniques to do something cool with a time glitch, such as a timestamp of ex: “November 2023” of a normal city “before” the apocalypse and then a glitch happens and it cuts to the “after” where the city is just pure havoc reading the timestamp of ex: “two months later…”. We also had the idea of having a voiceover when the glitch happens to the “after” of a news reporter in the background to give context to the audience about what happens in the film. I also told her the mise-en-scene is very important for this film because of the detail needed to be put into those acting like the zombies, and shows the audience what is happening so it isn’t a vague opening.

Next, Julia told us about her film, a drama. It is about a girl who is depressed as her school year is ending, and doesnt know whether she wants to continue living (suicide type thing) and there is a plot twist in the end of the opening. Her idea had a very developed plot and a good structed opening in general. The only “issue” that I saw with her opening was that the ending of the opening sort of ended in a “resolution” of the story, kinda making it seem like a short film. I gave her some ideas on how to keep things interesting to insinuate to the audience there was more film after the opening is over.

Veronica’s film genre is a thriller/coming of age film about a girl who is with her friends at the beach partying and drinking. This girl ends up passing out on the beach and her friends are taking pictures of her and making fun of her, and end up leaving her at the beach. She wakes up and it is nighttime and sees a shadow-y figure coming towards her. She’s moving backwards away from it but is still coming towards her. Veronica wasnt sure on how to finish off the opening, so I suggested an ending that has to do with continuing the storyline about the girl going missing and her friends going on a mission to find out what happened to her. I honestly think this was my best idea in the whole group meeting and was really proud of it; I would be interested in watching this if it was a full movie.

Last but not least, Gabriel. He wants to do a film in the thriller genre, but he wasnt too sure about what to do. He talked about whether he should switch genres and just restart the whole brainstorm process, and went between that and some suggestions on what to do in his film, since he didnt really have any ideas he truly liked and wanted to pursue. I suggested some movies in the same/similar genres so he could maybe take some inspiration from on of the movies, or maybe the movies would spark something in his head to create a very cool concept for the opening.

After I shared my idea, I was given ideas on my project on how to develop the full plot of the film so I can figure out how to fully structure the opening and the scenes in it, and specifically how to end off since I was a little lost on how to finish my opening. Hopefully I can take some of their suggestions and incorporate it into the film opening somehow to create a cool opening to keep audiences intrigued and “wanting more.”

Genre Ideas (portfolio project) (blog #2)

So my partner, Clem, and I were brainstorming what genre to do for our film and we are between two. I think we are between romance and psychological drama, so I did some research on both.

Romance:

The most popular romance films include The Notebook (2004), a more recent one, Anyone But You (2023), and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003). The two most important elements that make every romance worth is a central love story and an happy and satisfying ending. The basic plot surrounds two people who fall in loe and sometimes struggle to be in the relationship itself, and writers add plot twists and changes to the storyline to alter it. Usually, the lovers who endure these emotional hardships end up with a happy ending, and make their relationship work. There are also many subgenres of romance such as: contemporary romance, erotic romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, romantic suspense, and more. (I got my information from here.)

Psychological Drama:

The other genre is psychological drama. This was my idea as I watched a movie called Waves (2019), which inspired my idea for this film opening in general. Another popular movie in this drama is Requiem for a Dream (2000). This genre is actually a subgenre of the drama genre in general, except this subgenre includes details of how the human mind works, a lot of emotions and psychological states in these movies. The subgenre focus on more of the characters inner thoughts, perspectives, motivations, and usually include complicated storylines and emotional depths. Psychological dramas usually aim to engage the audience’s emotional intelligence and emotions at the same time. (I honestly didnt find a lot of info for this as its a subgenre, but the site I used is this one.)