Mise-en-scene

 The goals I wanted to achieve in this project was to really portray the character in the best way and get deep into the character me and my group created. I wanted the people who looked at my groups station to get a good understanding of the character, Ivy we made. The character Ivy is a sophomore in college of attends University of California. She is an activist for the climate and organizes events and campaigns at her college campus. She is very well put together and organized and she lives in an apartment with her best friends. 

What I created to illustrate "Ivy" was my group had a mood board, a 3d representation of her room, description of things in her room, an overall description of who she is and what she stands for, and her playlist. We also created a poster for an example of one of the posters that Ivy would make for one of her climate campaigns. This poster represented her love for the planet and her empowerment to express what she believes in. Another textile item that we used is we made a notebook that is supposed to be Ivys "journal."It contained some of her ideas and agenda. This showed that she is creative and she is very organized. 

The way that we developed Ivy using production design is, for her makeup we wanted it to be very natural but classy. We also wrote that she only uses nontoxic products. For the costume design we wrote that she wears non ripped jeans with a classy white blouse and jute wedged heels. The reason she wears a white blouse is to show that she is very clean and put together and the jute wedged heels are to show that she is casual, yet professional. Jute is also an environmentally safe material which is the reason she wears them. She also has blonde hair that is wavy, she keeps it natural and does not use products or heat on it. My groups process when creating this character was we wanted to create a character that was very powerful. We wanted our character to embody "girl power" and also to be very neatly put together yet creative. With the prompt we got we wanted to break the stereotype. We also were inspired by the character "Elle Woods" from the film "Legally Blonde" who is a strong woman who is in college.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urKF_ikOK1A

https://www.canva.com/design/DAG2DGLUQ9w/taZOQFtEJ6bDawc3TsiHWg/edit?utm_content=DAG2DGLUQ9w&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Genre Research - Comedy

 Comedy: The art of laughter 

Comedies are something to watch after a long day, and you just want to breathe and get a good laugh. Whether it’s classic comedy or satire, comedy is a genre that spans generations. While this genre may seem simple, there’s a lot that goes into getting a laugh out of an audience.  

Content -

Comedy is all about making people laugh. It’s pure entertainment. The stories can range from funny twists on everyday life to crazy situational comedy. Common conventions include: 

Relationships & the world around us: Comedies talk about love, friendship, work and how everyday situations can be funny. 

Misunderstandings: comedies are often centered around chaos which ultimately lead to funny situations that can make audience laugh. 

Funny Characters: Many characters in comedies are quirky. For example, Saturday Night Live.  

Resolution: Majority of comedies end in a positive way. They like to leave the audience feeling good and relieved about the outcome of the movie. 

Production Techniques -

Comedic productions are all about timing, performance, and visuals.  

Timing is very important in comedy. If something is off by even one beat, it can change the whole meaning of the bit and cannot have the comedic relief the writer was looking for.  

Improv is also used a lot in comedies. In films, comedic actors will often improv lines and physical comedy that were not in the script to make the scene funnier than intended. 

Sound and music can really add humor to funny scripts. Whether it’s silence, sound effects or songs that leave you dying of laughter. Sound is a big piece of comedy. 

Marketing Comedy 

A lot of money goes into marketing comedies and to find the right audience to spend money, marketing is super important. 

Actors: Many big budget comedies have Hollywood super stars playing the characters.  

Trailers: In most comedy trailers, they will show some of the movies' biggest punchlines which gets the audience excited about the movie. 

Social media overtime has become a huge way to market comedies. When people see movie clips on social media channels like TikTok or Instagram, it gets them excited and persuades them to buy a movie ticket. 

Some of my personal favorite comedies include: 

There’s Something About Mary 

In the summer of 1998, the movie, “There’s Something about Mary” hit theatres. This movie stars Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz and centers around Ted’s (Ben Stiller) awkward attempt to reconnect with his gorgeous high school crush, Mary (Cameron Diaz). This romantic comedy focuses on relatable embarrassing and crazy situations which are a staple in the genre of comedy. The Farrelly brothers who directed this movie use timing and outrageous visuals to keep the audience laughing on and off throughout the entire movie.  

Blended 

“Blended” is a comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore who are both huge Hollywood stars and came out in 2014.  The movie is about two single parents who go on a blind date and somehow find themselves on a family vacation together on an African safari. This film uses a beautiful location to set the stage for this comedy that puts the families into awkward yet hilarious situations. Some examples are like when Drew’s character, Lauren gets stuck parasailing or when they Adam’s character, Jim rides the ostrich. These scenes among other get a huge laugh out of the audience which is a staple for any comedy. In the end Jim and Lauren fall in love and live happily ever after, which as we know is very common in this genre. 

Some classic comedies that I would recommend to watch are

Sound

 What I learned from the sound lesson and the videos is that sound plays a very important role in videos. It adds a variety of things in a film from emotional stings, helping develop storyline, adds dramatic effect, changes the mood, and more. 

The directions for sound project #1 was to develop a story using only a mix of foley and sounds found online. We were only allowed to have sound and no visuals. 

The directions for sound project #2 were to take the one word project that we previously already did, that project only had visuals and no sound. In sound project #2 we were instructed to add sounds onto the project. We could use things like music, emotional stings, and just the noises that would take place in the project. The approach I did for sound project 1 was too have a party since "party" sounds are very distinct with a lot of noise. 2 people from the party would get into a fight which is represented by punching noises, gasping, glass breaking, and more. During brainstorming I tried to think of every sound that you hear while at a party from the loud music all the way to footsteps of people dancing. My outline helped me organize sounds because every scene was split up which helped me know at what point every sound was going to be used. It also made it easier by showing which sounds I was going to layer on top of each other. The editing resource I used was Clipchamp. What was done well was the execution of the project and I think the sounds I used represented a party very well. Something that I would like to do better next time is try to think of more sounds to layer from the main ones. 

SchweizerEdwards_soundscape_period5 

The approach I did for the project was I wanted to emphasize the fear that the girl felt when she was freaking out and thinking of all the things that could've gone wrong that caused her mom to call her when she was in school. The outline of this project helped me organize my sounds by showing where I wanted to add dramatic music, stings to show emotions. It also helped with which sounds I was going to layer in the classroom scene since there is a lot of noises going on at one. The editing source I utilized was clip champ. What was done well was the ideas to lower the background noise at some points to focus on what is important. What I would like to improve next time is to try and add more stings within the project.

OWFSound_Edwards.mp4