Setting Up the Study

    In our film opening, I want to indirectly convey Ryan's (the protagonist's) dedication to weightlifting and medical school overall. To capitalize on this "show, don't tell" approach, mise-en-scene elements such as set design are essential. Luckily, my brother is in college, and there is a study room going completely unused. To plan out the changes that need to take place, here are a few of the shots that will take place in this room:

1. Ryan weighing himself on a scale
• Simple enough, my parents have a digital scale that I can move into the room.
2. Light seeping in from the window 
• While this sounds easy, this one might actually be a little bit more tricky. The point of this shot is to establish the time of day, which would be around 9-10 AM. I want to utilize natural lighting for the room, but still keep things darker to reflect Ryan's own mentality: unhappy, alienated, etc. The room's curtains are a translucent beige, which might provide the scene with an unwanted warm tone - a little too 'home-y' for what I'm going for. For a colder setting (and more control over light), I'll change out the curtains for blackouts. 
3. Ryan typing onto his laptop, logging the fluctuations in weight that is expected from his condition
• Again, just put a laptop into the room. Simple.
4. Long shot of the room, revealing diagrams and sketches of the human body
• Easy, but time consuming. To portray Ryan as a 'homemade' researcher, I want all of the images to be done by hand, showing that his studies are completely independent. This one might take a bit.
5. Medium shot of Ryan measuring himself in the mirror, noting changes in size.
• While finding a good spot for the mirror might be a little tedious, this shouldn't be much of a hassle

    Now that we've established the shots, here's the plan. 
I want to remove all colorful objects in the scene, hoping to portray Ryan's life as dull and uninspired (for now). On top of that, I want to remove all musical instruments from the frame (my brother previously used the room as a recording studio), as to not mislead the audience into assuming Ryan's character traits. 

    Hello! Sergio from the future here. I've made substantial progress on the room - just a few more finishing touches left. Here's how it looks:

    As you can see, all the vibrancy in the room has been removed, keeping this beige/white/black color palette. The room should look less warm once the blackout curtains and natural lighting is implemented. This process turned out to be pretty tricky, since there was a lot of clutter prior to my refurbishing.  Behind the camera, a bunch of instruments, boxes, and cabinets are hidden. With minimal storage, a lot the mess is kept barely out of frame - this really showed how only the section being recorded really matters. With clever shots and angles, nobody would even suspect the mess.

    A few steps left: clearing out a few more instruments (& the portrait of Jim Morrison), adding the mirror for the measuring scene, and filling the walls with diagrams and sketches of the human body. 

As for that last part, I plan on documenting the sketching process with another blog post. Stay tuned!