Costume, Mise En Scene and Semiotics

Below is my Prezi demonstrating my research, planning and organisation for the costume and mise en scene (including the semiotic representations which they create) that I'll be using within my documentary and ancillary product photography.


To research in greater detail about semiotics, I used these resources;
http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/semiotics_and_ads/terminology.html



I've also created a concept board for my costumes using Polyvore, which I have based on my Prezi presentation for this area. Polyvore was very helpful for creating this concept board as it links to where the costumes can be purchased, which I'll use for organisation of costumes and to include more detail about them on their original websites. My narrator's costume is to the left of the collage, and my interviewee's is towards the right.

Media Studies Costume by roseycourtney featuring a short sleeve black dress

Next, I'll send these costumes to my cast to organise which similar clothing items they own themselves and which I'll need to arrange in their sizes.

*Update: After casting, I've sent this concept board to Rowan and Emily to arrange their costumes. The ones which they own match perfectly to my envisioned style as set out by my concept board, therefore they will wear these to each shoot, with Rowan varying between jeans and black trousers to create a slightly more interesting range and to differentiate between time during my shoots.*

Lighting

It is conventional of documentaries to use simplistic and natural lighting, as they are often shot on the move  and improvised rather than overly planned in detail, and do not present complexly stylised lighting such a chiaroscuro, silhouettes or bright, coloured lights. Therefore for each location, the lighting I plan to use includes;

• Outdoor narrations: Natural lighting shot in not overly bright/shadowed locations during daytime. According to my initial location research into daylight hours, I will need to shoot between 11:00-2:00.
• The Forum, Marzano and library interviews/narration: Shot during the same hours as the previous location (I will therefore need to spread my shooting over different days to cover everything in time.) These locations all have losts of natural lighting due to the large glass windows, walls and ceilings, as well as the bright white lighting, and white walls which won't project colour (which I found from my location plan filming).
• Starbucks informal interview: This location includes artificial studio lights at the bar seats, however due to the yellow filter formed by the wallpaper and shadows of this location, I will also require natural lighting by holding my interview near the large windows; balancing the colours of the lights.

The images for my newspaper advertisement and double-page magazine spread will be photographed within my locations in order to introuduce them and form strong links tommy documentary. Therefore my lighting for this photography will remain the same as my documentary production lighting.

Animatic

I have produced an animatic from my documentary storyboard following my plans to do so on that post, which allowed me to;

• become familiar with the Final Cut Pro editing software which I'll be using for my editing
• research Final Cut Pro editing techniques such as this one
• practise the timings I'll be using for each clip and to see whether I'll meet my 5 minute duration
• view how my editing transitions and effects will flow together

Documentary Animatic from Courtney O'Donnell on Vimeo.

I noticed from this production that I didn't meet by 5 minute duration by 1:52, therefore I'll be including more shots, particularly artistic cinematography within my documentary, which I will include when writing my shot list and script to add the extra time. As my timings weren't exactly correct, I decided not to add my non-diegetic music as I had previously planned, as my music timings would also be inaccurate.

Documentary Storyboard

I have planned the production of my documentary by creating a storyboard with detailed annotations, as a plan for my:

• locations
• shot types
• mise en scene
• characters
• order of shots
• order of sound
• and some of my editing

I have also presented this storyboard interactively using SlideShare, as embedded below:

My Documentary Production Storyboard from Courtney O'Donnell

To extend this planning, I will need to create an animatic from this storyboard in order to plan my timings and editing transitions, as well as non-diegetic music.

Location Planning

I have presented my initial location planning using Prezi:


Researching from this website has been effective for planning a range of cinematographic shots: empireonline.com/features/film-studies-101-camera-shots-styles