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:
- Ryan weighing himself on a scale
- Simple enough, my parents have a digital scale that I can move into the room.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
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:
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!
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