Mise-en-scene project

     For this project we were assigned to create a character that we picked randomly from a hat. Our character was supposed to be a tech savvy middle schooler who was always tinkering with gadgets. Our character was also shy around new people but loyal to her friends. The number one goal for my group was to try our best to represent what our character loves to involve herself in and the things she loves.

    We named our character Alice Rose, but she liked to go by AR. She had a few close friends and her favorite music genre was shoegaze or game soundtracks. Her room was meant to represent her as it was painted her favorite color and covered in things she loves, such as: posters of her favorites bands and games, gadgets she tinkers with, and her computer she makes models and codes on.

    We created a model of Alice's room on canva and then moved it to scratch to code a program to make it interactive. The way her room became interactive was when people clicked on items around her room it would give a short description of why it's placed in her room. We also brought a lego robot that one of our group members had at home to show that Alice enjoys playing around with robots like those and coding them. Another example is the playlist we created for her; we made the playlist with artists that fall under the same music Alice enjoys listening to.

    Most of the representation for Alice was done on the computer, therefore we had 3 computers and the robot we brought in for tactile portion of the project. We made sure the computers were all playing the playlist in the background so people could listen to the type of music she likes. Each computer was put on a different part of our project. One computer would be on the powerpoint, one would be on the scratch project, and the third computer was on her character description.

    To develop Alice we used othering based on her interests and her social life. Alice was meant to not be very popular since she was shy, but nonetheless be very loyal to the friends she did have. We imagined that Alice did not fit in very well since she is a girl tech savvy in a world where boys typically are associated with technological careers and hobbies. Furthermore we tried creating the idea that Alice is a stereotypical "weird" kid.

Our process of creating her was pretty good. We each assigned each other a portion of the project mostly equally, as one of us had to do 2 parts of it because it was an odd number. For the tactile portion we used the robot that one of our members had at home. For the audio portion the scratch project contained stings when you clicked on the objects and I made the playlist for Alice. The character description was also created by me and I just listed her interests and how she acts. We made the room on canva using images from canva or images we found online. The mood board was also made on canva with the same process of finding images as Alice's room. Overall the project was pretty good and put together.

The scratch program: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1232512039

Alice's room: 

Her mood board:

    

Genre Research activity

     What is shonen manga?

    Shonen manga is a genre of japanese comics that is targeted towards adolescent boys and young men.

Shonen is one of, if not the most popular type of manga and anime produced.

    Shonen typically has a main character that has a sad backstory or a sad background that motivates them to become stronger to defeat a greater evil. Many times the main character is the strongest character by the end of the story. Another convention shonen has is the protagonist having to fight a main villain or a group of villains. In mangas such as "My hero academia" there is an antagonist group referred to as "the league of villains." While in manga such as "Demon slayer" the main antagonist is one villain and goes by "Muzan Kibutsuji." In addition, shonen has the main protagonist do a considerable amount of training either alone or taught by a mentor in order to defeat the antagonist group/individual.

    Shonen typically builds lots of tension by putting protagonist against overwhelming odds. They do this to make victories against foes feel earned. Shonen manga typically has a strong supporting cast of characters. Each main character usually gets a moment to shine to keep the plot of the manga engaging with the viewers. On top of these features, almost all shonen manga have a unique and distinct power system to organize how strong characters are and the odds of winning against other characters in the manga. These power systems create specific rules for the characters, creating unique and exciting moves. One power system I personally enjoy is "Hunter x Hunter" this manga uses a life energy type power system called "nen" and the characters each have a unique way of using this life energy to create exciting individual moves to fight with, the power of the moves usually depend on how much "nen" or life force a character contains.

    Shonen is typically marketed using targeted content, weekly magazines, and reader feedback. Many popular manga contains cross-media franchising by having adaptations of the manga to create animated versions, video game versions, or merchandise such as shirts or figurines. Large events are sometimes held to market shonen manga, one example being "Jump festa" held by the publisher Shueisha, events like this one introduce new anime, manga, and games to over 100,000 attendees. Services such as Crunchyroll offer an extensive amount of shonen manga and anime to subscribers.

    One example of a shonen manga that encompasses shonen very well is Jujutsu Kaisen. Jujutsu Kaisen was adapted into an anime fairly recently. Jujutsu kaisen is one of the most popular shonen manga today. Jujutsu kaisen encompasses shonen very well as it contains a main character with a fairly sad backstory that has to train to fight a greater evil called curses. Jujutsu kaisen has a main antagonist called "Ryomen Sukuna" and a supportive cast with characters that each have their moment to "awaken" or shine in the plot. The main character, Yuji Itadori, is usually put into fights against curses with overwhelming odds like many other shonen manga. In addition, Jujutsu Kaisen has its own power system of negative life energy called "cursed energy" that is built up by negative emotions and the more cursed energy a character has typically means they are stronger. Each character is also given a "cursed technique" which is a unique way each character outputs their cursed energy, creating an engaging and exciting moveset for each character.

    another example of a popular shonen manga is Demon Slayer. Demon slayer also has a main character with a tragic backstory. The main character "Tanjiro Kamado" has to fight "demons" and trains to defeat the demon referred to as "Muzan Kibutsuji." Demon slayer also contains a supportive cast with characters that train along side Tanjiro and in addition fight with Tanjiro to defeat demons. Demon slayer has a power system that is built off of "breathing techniques." Most characters use their own breathing techniques which each have forms to use from that technique. Although some characters use the same breathing techniques there are moments where characters create their own forms of the breathing technique or even branches of that technique which makes each character have unique moves to use.

other examples of shonen manga include:

My Hero Academia, Chainsaw man, Gachiakuta, Sakamoto days, Assassination Classroom, Attack On Titan, and One Piece.

Sound projects 1 and 2

 Hello! Recently in class we finished two sounds projects after lessons learning about how sound in used in TV productions. The lessons included sound techniques and how they are used. We learned how productions use sound techniques to develop their story and create feelings for the audience. 

For our first sound project we had to work in pairs to develop a realistic soundscape to tell a story of a character we made up with only the use of sound. For our second sound project we had to create a soundscape for our video project. This assignment was semi-individual since we worked with our partners to create an outline but we made the final soundscape for our video project on our own. 

In sound project #1 me and my partner came up with the idea of a character going to the beach but then getting attacked by a shark after entering the ocean for a swim. During our brainstorming we just thought about the sounds we might hear at the beach and whatever we thought of we would tell each other and write it down onto our soundscape outline. Creating the outline seriously helped up organize our sounds and made the process much easier since it split up all the sounds into individual scenes. To put together our sounds and edit them we stuck with clipchamp since it allowed us to import as many sounds as we wanted and it was easy to use. I think we did pretty good on this project, I liked how we put together our sounds and I think we did pretty good on the timing and the way we used them. I think we could have done better on our shark attack scene but it was pretty hard finding sounds to represent a shark attack. This is the link for our first sound project: ArrecheaErrazuriz_soundscape_per4.m4a 

sound project #2 was a bit harder to complete and think of in my opinion. For this project we had to create a soundscape of our video project, the problem with this is our video project took place in a quiet classroom. Nonetheless we came up with an idea of sounds we can use to develop our story. We thought about how we could use sounds that are typically tuned out by people during a test, such as the clock, or the buzzing light, or even the air conditioner. We created an outline to help break up each scene to help us build out soundscape a bit easier; which the outline helped organize our project tremendously. For this project we once again utilized clipchamp since it was easy and we can import as many sounds as we want, not to mention since it is a microsoft application we could use our onedrives. I think we did well collecting our sounds, I just think I could have done better implementing them and using them correctly. This is the link to my second project: OWFsound_Arrechea.mp4