Mise-en-scene Project

          For our activity goals, we had to create a multimedia station utilizing both audio and physical characteristics to accurately describe our character Bill F. Steel. To be specific, we had to use materials to exemplify a character's qualities, songs to describe their personality, and a represented setting of the character shown through digital or physical means. For our Mise-en-scene project, we were given an empathetic firefighter who was retired and also volunteered at the animal shelter. From this base, we created Bill F. Steel, a 65-year-old retired firefighter in Sacramento who was a firefighter for most of his adult life. He obtained many prestigious medals such as the Service Recognition Medal of Honor and the Medal of Courage from events like the Sacramento Courthouse fire, where he managed to save 7 people. He now lives in a small apartment on Foulesome Boulevard in Sacramento and volunteers at the local pet shelter. 

          Through our station, we had created 4 main points, a station presenting background information on Bill F. Steel, a PowerPoint presentation showing 3 objects that best defined his life, a model of the local pet shelter Bill worked at fully furnished, and a mood board to show who exactly he is. The background information had served as a means for the viewer to understand where Bill is coming from and obtain more information before heavily getting into the details presented further. Then, through our PowerPoint presentation, major moments that defined his personality and life such as the Medal of Valor were able to be shown through his point of view and given with more detail as a result. Furthermore, the local pet shelter model allowed for the viewer to look inside now a core aspect of Bill Steel's life, which also helps to exemplify his humanity and overall persona. Finally, we used a mood board in order to aid in the development of key features and characteristics of Bill's personality.

          In creating our character Bill F. Steel, we used the basis from our prompt in creating the basic information and characteristics for our character such as where he now lives, what he did in his life, and how he acts. We then advanced from that point through creating deeper emotional elements for our character such as why he became a firefighter in the first place and more knowledge from his personal life. We then used these personality traits that were both given and created by us in order to define the information that we would show throughout the project that would best describe our image of the character. Overall, I believe that our project was very good in showing the information about our character, Bill F. Steel, in a fun and entertaining way. We had not only used interactive elements through our PowerPoint presentation but also had a fully furnished model to show what his daily life is like at the pet shelter. Our description of Bill at the beginning also allowed for the audience to understand who exactly he is before diving into his full life story which we represented through 3 major items throughout the course of his adult life. However, I do acknowledge that there may have been aspects that we could have done better. For example, we should have allowed for a more creative and interactive way to show those three major items, like including either stock or our own footage to correlate to what is being described in the audio. Also, we could have included lights and music for our local pet shelter to enhance the user experience there even more.