Mise-en-scene blog post

 For our Multimedia Mise-en-Scene project, our goal was to bring a fictional character to life using visual and physical design elements. Our purpose was to convey personality, mood, and backstory through props, digital pieces, and organization within our character station. 

The character description we received was a college student studying environmental science. For this character, we took an unusual approach as we wanted to give it something to make it more interesting. So, we made her a very Elle Woods-style character names Ivy Carrington, wearing all pink and and set in California living a double life as a fashionable genius. We decided to make her stylish and bubbly, yet intelectual and a climate activist. To illustrate this character, we created a mood board highlighting her main interests (activism, shopping, studying, going to the beach, etc.) using Canva and Pinterest, a playlist of songs she would listen to using Spotify, and a rough example of what her room would look like using Planner5D. 

Each group member was assigned a slide in a Canva presentation and a physical element to bring in for the station presentation. For example, I was in charge of the mood board and the activism poster (shown below this section). Another example of props we brought in was a perfume bottle that we made sure was vegan and environmentally safe, because obviously Ivy would never use products that go against what she fights for.

Each element in the station was arranged to communicate Ivy's work-driven yet fun lifestyle. The glittery poster symbolized creative advocacy, showing that anything Ivy does, she does both intelligently and with some creativity and fun, this can also be said for the notebook we brought in (shown below this section), while the notes are focused and neat, they are still decorated in a cute way to show her bubbly side. Through these elements, we represented her as both chic and ambitious; an uncommon archetype when you think of an Ivy League student studying environmental science. 

Our group worked collaboratively, dividing tasks evenly between both design and research. One challenge was making sure each object in the station had a symbolic purpose. We worked together to merge our ideas for the character to keep the presentation clear and balanced. Overall, the project taught us how mise-en-scene can transform simple props and details into powerful storytelling tools.

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