The Mise-en-scene

    Following up our second sound project we were tasked to represent a character through Mise-en-scene. We mostly had complete freedom on the how to characterize our subject, other than some requirements that would help us set the stage. My group consisted of 4 people including my self. We were given a firefighter that was retired and loved to go to animal shelter, this was all the information that we had. My group decided to take a route that would create large amounts of backstory and lore for our character. For example, we decided that our character, Bill F. Steel, would receive the Medal of Valor due to his courageous act during the great Sacramento Fire. We also gave him a sad and emotional reason towards why he became a firefighter in order to further exemplify his past. 

    In order for my team to properly illustrate Bill we came to the conclusion that we should show his life through different stations and concepts. At first we created a mood board that would summarize his life in a visual way; then we made a station focused on Bill's character description, which would talk about his journey. For these two station we felt it was necessary to give a detailed description to immerse the audience so there would be a sense of connection. Another way that we created an immersive atmosphere was through making a miniature animal shelter that would focus on our characters love for animals and his willingness to go to the shelters. After this was all set and done, we created an interactive PowerPoint that would act as a little scavenger hunt where you would find an item, click on it, and learn what it meant to Bill.  In this interactive component we added voice recordings that would act as Bill and talk to the audience and give a small story of what the item meant. Then after completing each station we organized the stations 1-4. The character description was #1, the mood board was #2, the items/memories were #3, and the miniature animal shelter was #4. Our reasoning was due to us thinking that establishing and idea of who Bill was and then entering his world would give an engaging experience to the audience. 

    Throughout the creation of our character we used certain stereotypes that would help us build our character. Like making him a straight white male, giving him a dark reason on why he became a firefighter, or putting music from the 1980;s. Although, we gave him some stereotypes it was not as easy as if it were someone with an ethnic background. This lead us to have more of a creative interpretation of who Bill would become. While we created Bill we did not decide to make him someone who was othered as it did not portray what a firefighter was. Later on our characterization of Bill we felt we successfully portrayed him, but personally I felt that we could have done a better job during both his visual representation and the stations. For instance, we did not create a visual image of how he looked like and instead got a man of the internet that would act as "Bill." Then for our stations we should have had a some other component that would further grab the audiences attention so people would feel more involved and connected. Though, I feel this way I thought we had a solid project with minor errors to adjust. 

The Gangster Space in Media

    Crime is one of the most captivating and interesting genres there is but, inside this space is the sub-genre known as Gangster, an area that mostly captures the life of organized crime. 

   
    These type of films issue a type of content that heavily relies on the rise and fall of someone who has made a name for themselves. A great example that perfectly illustrates this is Brian De Palma's Scarface, which follows a story of a young Cuban man that gets corrupted by wealth.  Another important aspect of these films is their constant use of the Mafia like the Godfather Series or Casino. A lot of the reason why the mafia is so apparent in this genre is due to the rise in popularity in the American Mafia during the 1960's-70's through figures in the Gambino family. The use of Mafia in these films is very consistent which is a reason why most of these films are located in places like New England, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. This genre also frequently cast actors like Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci, which mainly show up in the films involving the Mafia. 

  Now, while the Mafia is known to be the face of gangster films, another sub-genre within the sub-genre are stories surrounding African American gangsters. For example, Boyz N The Hood (John Singleton) a story that excels in explaining the struggles of gang culture. Another example would be The Wire which is a TV show by HBO that focuses on a group of detectives that try and investigate different murders and drug dealings.

    Something that lies within all of these different type of gangster movies is their similar style when it comes to color. Most of these films rely on the dark, likely to showcase the wrongdoings of the individuals which the stories focus on. In the Godfather this is extremely reliant especially in the first movie of the trilogy. Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) who is the boss of the crime family is constantly faced with dark tones of orange and black which resemble his strong love for his family and his will to do anything to protect them. Gangster films also try to portray crime as realistic as possible in order to create a more authentic representation and to build up suspense. These films are also very detail heavy as it can create a sense of reality that makes a person believe they are in the films world. 

    While gangster films are exciting and intense, they are marketed towards the older audience rather than the younger one. This creates a smaller margin which can be seen in the film The Irishman by Martin Scorsese as it features Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino whom are legends of the genre going back all the way to the 70's. This genre of film also relies on current events. The movie Goodfellas also by Martin Scorsese, goes through the real life story of Henry Hill, so through pushing the narrative that the story was true it got attention and weighed in on how the movie performed. This can also be said for Casino. 

    The movie Casino (1995) follows the true story of Sam "Ace" Rothstein. A man who gets to run a casino "legally" in Las Vegas. In this film Ace becomes filled with wealth and along side him a beautiful women. In this Casino he runs money is in a sense stolen from participants which generates a lot of money that is then distributed to many of the Mafia bosses around the nation. Due to the people that are acquaintances to Ace many things begin to go wrong and his long life friend Nicky Santoro tries to keep order and they do for a while, but after Nicky begins to turn crazier by the day Ace's money becomes less and less and his casino empire begins to crumble up. Ace is then placed in a situation where his long life friend Nicky Santoro turns on him and so does his wife. Now although, the movie is constantly inside a Casino with vibrant lights the tone of the lighting has a dark feeling that creates and embodies the genres portrayal of crime. The movie's marketing is very similar to Goodfellas as it is also based on a true story and allows for the audience to feel some sort of connection knowing these were real people. 

    The Godfather Part II one of if not the best Mafia movie ever, is a sequel about Michael Corleone who's the man that took over the family after Don Corleone's death. In this film their is a sudden back and forth between the starting years of the Don's criminal life and the start of Michael's criminal life. In a way it creates a comparison between the similarities and differences between these two incredible characters. This is a film that lives upon the dark colors that illustrate a strong sense of emotion. There are many scenes where Michael has a black shadow and it accurately depicts the change he has gone through since taking reign. The overall feeling and ambience of the film is dark and it also creates a symbolic relationship between both of the Corleone's and their importance when it comes to family but, compared if you compare Don to Michael their is a darker image portrayed in Michael as he does not have the same level of love that Don Corleone does. This film strategically markets itself by the time in which it was released as their was a lot of debate concerning the Gambino family. 

Here Are Some Great Gangster Films:

 

Sound Project

      After learning about editing techniques, we transitioned into the sound department. We learned many techniques and how they are incorporated into the media. For instance, synchronous sound which is when sound is synchronized with what is being viewed; then we compared that to asynchronous sound which is when sound does not match what is on the screen. Moreover, we were taught how to address the audience by the use of language, narration, and breaking the fourth wall. Afterwards we were assigned videos to watch that gave us insight on foley sound and its significance in the film world. 

    Given all this information we were tasked to make two sound projects. One that would purely on just sound, and another where we would have to add sound to our One Word Films. 

    The instructions on the project solely with sound consisted of telling a story with no visual elements just audio. We were put into random pairs and asked to brainstorm and create an outline that would structure the story. On this project we weren't allowed to say more than 7 words of dialogue and had to create four at least foley sounds. Adding onto the fact that we had to do four foley sounds we also had to find sounds across the web that would add to the storytelling.  During the brainstorming both me and my partner struggled choosing between a rocket ship launch or a person running late for their play. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that the play scenario would be more challenging and fun. We then depended on the outline in order to visualize how the story would go. It allowed us to better capture what would be happening and how the audio would play out. The outline was also a great tool when it came to editing as it set the place of where most things would go. In this project specifically, we used Adobe Premiere, and were able to effectively add any amount of sounds, no problem. This project allowed us to pay attention in great detail at what a scene with no visual presentation would be like, and personally I felt that we did a great job in terms of that. Although, I do think that near the end of our project we could have had a little bit more substance to create a more engaging experience. 

    Continuing this theme of sound, we were reunited with our partners from the One Word Film, this time not to make another short story, but instead to add sound to the OWF. For this project the instructions involved reviewing the OWF and analyzing what different types sounds would be made in the real world. Although we were back with our old partners the editing portion of the project was made individually, but the making of sounds could be shared through one another. We also had to incorporate an outline like the previous project; it gave me a very similar result and helped me immensely when editing. My outline was my brainstorming as well in this situation and I analyzed the different components, I stayed focused on details, and wrote them down. Furthermore, I created most of the sounds on my version of the project as we did not share most of our sounds between each other, and even though we did not share most sounds I found it fun and it didn't bother me. Now, compared to the previous project where I didn't do most of the editing, on this one I did and chose to use Clipchamp instead of Adobe Premiere. Then since the editing portion was individual I felt a sense of freedom where I could express my style a bit more  and at the end result I felt that I did a fairly decent job. For next time though, I feel that spacing out the project and giving myself more time would give me a more clean and polished result. 

    Here's an editing outline for both projects: 

 Project #1                                     Project #2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hLoKt1eySyqdWKiBcItv77qY8Ndj9h0f/view?usp=sharing

OWFSound_Hernandez.mp4