Paula's Blog: Mise-en-scene blog post

Hello everyone! I'm super excited to finally share our group's amazing project for the Multimedia Mise-en-scene project. The goal of this activity was to take a detailed character description and create a fully immersive station where visitors could truly get to know our character through visuals, sound, and touch. It was all about using different media to represent the character's world and personality. Our character was Dahlia Willows, a 17-year-old movie lover who lives in Half Moon Bay, California, writes movie critiques, loves reading, and is very sociable. Our activity goals were to develop a complete physical representation of her, including her appearance, preferred clothing, setting, and audio elements, making the station engaging and descriptive.

To illustrate Dahlia's life, we created several key elements. For her setting, which is where she lives, we designed a visual of the Half Moon Bay coastline. To symbolize her passion for film and future goals, we crafted a movie award trophy. We also included tactile representations that visitors could touch, like CDs (connecting to her job at the record/film store) and two books based on movies (representing her reading hobby). We organized these elements in different spots or "stations" and added old cameras to show her interest in directing. The audio element was an interactive playlist accessible with headphones, featuring local bands and moody tracks that matched her personal taste.

Our chosen setting (Half Moon Bay and the movie theater/record store) directly relates to her. The costuming details in her description (plaid, cardigans, autumn colors) and her unique appearance (heterochromia, nose ring) helped create a visual image. The objects, like the trophy and the books, function as visual symbols that help develop her key traits: movie critic, aspiring director, and avid reader. Every choice we made contributed to a legit representation of her personality and world.

Our group process was a great success. We divided the work so that everyone could focus on different media, from designing the visual of Half Moon Bay to creating the music playlist and bringing in tactile props. The biggest challenge was ensuring that all the different medias felt unified and clearly told Dahlia's story. We worked together to make sure that the arrangement of our elements in the station was logical and easily accessible. The outcome was a strong character station that immediately immersed visitors in Dahlia's world, making her feel like a real person. We were proud that we successfully transformed a detailed character description into an engaging, multi-sensory experience.