Mis En Scene

Dexter Season 5 Episode 2

Setting:
This episode of Dexter began with Dexter swimming in a pool as he is speaking in a voice over on him grieving about his dead wife. Dexter is the only person in this scene which suggests to me that these are his thoughts he is sharing.He expresses how he expressed the first stage of grief by killing someone and his thoughts on the first stage of grief as he is floating in the pool all alone and the water had a pinkish tone to it and the sunlight kept flashing in and out in Dexter's point of view as he looked up. After Dexter finishes speaking he gets out of the water and laid down on the ground right next to the water as he is out of breath. This setting suggests that Dexter was swimming also to get his mind off of his wife dying. It also suggests that he does not enjoy sharing his feelings with people because of him swimming alone.



Staging:
The next scene starts as Dexter and the kids walk into their "new home". As Astor and Cody walk into the house their sluggish body language suggests that they are very upset and annoyed with the situation that they are in with their mother dying. Astor takes a few steps around to show that she is trying to "take a look" at their new home but still shows her anger by the look on her face when Dexter's sister says that that is their new home and she snaps back with an attitude and says that it is not. In this scene they all do not move much and this shows that the conversation they are in is intense. The intensity continues to build up until Astor breaks the conversation by turning her back and walking away angrily after Dexter tells her that it may not be a good idea to visit their actual house since their mom was killed there.



Costumes:
The following scene is taken place in the investigation room as Dexter has an investigation with the FBI due to the killing of his wife. He is dressed professionally for this occasion with a button down light blue shirt and a nice watch on. The camera then goes to a double shot of the investigators and they are both dressed formally and professionally showing that they have a very  professional job and that they are dressed for the occasion. The woman investigator is wearing a blazer with a nice white blouse and glasses and the male investigator was dressed in a suit and tie and this suggests that their jobs require a professional formal attire.



Lighting:
Throughout these 3 scenes the lighting changes in each scene. In the beginning scene of Dexter swimming in the pool, it would keep showing Dexter's point of view as he was floating on his back underwater looking up at the sun. The sunlight flashing in his eyes is like he is finally coming back to reality and seeing the light. Then during the next scene, there was not any dramatic lighting. The lighting in the house was on as they just got home and were starting to try and adjust to their new home. Then in the investigation room, the lighting was a bit more dramatic. The light would shine on Dexter as he gave his statement to the investigators. As the camera would be on the investigators, the color tone of the lighting was sort of grey-ish brown and this shows the cold tone coldness of the investigators.

Foley Sound Project

https://youtu.be/rkQ2J5k8Gm4

This sound project was a really fun and creative experience. As the project was introduced, I was not sure how this would be possible creating all these sounds and being able to tell such a story for the classmates to figure out. We quickly came up with an idea but we had trouble figuring out how we were going to create our main sound of the scene. The idea of sucking through a straw was brought up but it wasn’t the exact sound we needed. We then asked one of our friends that we saw in the hallway to help us out and he created the perfect sound with his mouth, for the scene. Sounds like footsteps and background chatter were really easy to record and, one of my favorite parts was the keys and heard footsteps, to give the idea of the dean walking into the bathroom. Just making the footsteps louder and adding keys really changed the effect and made you really be able to tell what was happening in the scene and what characters may have been involved. I think we did a good job at editing everything all together also by layering and fading out the sounds to make the scene sound the most realistic. The hardest sound to make was the handcuffs at the end and we were really stumped on how to make that sound perfect. We tried multiple techniques using the locks and lockers around our school and we finally got the idea to close two locks right after one another. This created a sound of possibly handcuffs that we were hoping for. Overall this project was a fun learning experience and I am better able to understand what foley sounds are and how sounds can be created artificially to make something sound like another.

Types of Camera Angels in a TV Show

Dexter Season 5 Episode 1
   This episode begins with an eye level close up of a crying baby than quickly transitions to Dexter holding the baby and lights and sirens start going off in the background. It then transitions to an establishing shot of the crime scene he was at, which was sadly in his own home.Ths establishing shit was of 3 police cars and sirens going off to show where the TV show is taking place and so you are not confused on where the characters are located. After Dexter is in complete shock as of what happened he can barely hear the police officer that is talking to him. It switches back and fourth between Dexter and the officer as the shots of Dexter with the crying baby are at a tilted angel. This gives the illusion to the audience that Dexter is confused and does not know what is going on, along with the sound how he is hearing things was echoey too. The scene then changes to show the gruesome, bloody crime scene of Dexters bathroom in the house him and his wife Rita live in. This establishing shot shows many angles of the blood all over the floor, and on the side of the tub since the tub was overflowing in the bloody water that Dexters wife, Rita laid in. There was a slow zoomed in close up of Rita’s head as she was laying in this bloody water. This gave the effect of the terror that  was going through Dexters mind trying to figure out who killed Rita. Suddenly the camera flashes back to Dexter holding his son (the baby from the beginning) as the red and blue police lights continue to flash in his face as they sit outside but as he is sitting there the camera zooms into a close up of Dexter confused and in shock as the officer is trying to get Dexter to give him the baby but since Dexter is in such shock the sound is blurred and echoed as the officer spoke to make the audience understand how Dexter felt in that exact moment. Soon enough, Dexters sister Deborah comes to check out the scene since she is a police officer and works at Miami Metro. A shot of Deborah running to the scene then transitions to medium shot of Dexter sitting on the grass holding his son and Deborah trying to speak to Dexter. Dexter then hands the baby to Deborah as the camera is just over Dexters shoulder giving it the perfect over the shoulder shot. A close up of Dexter with just silence which caused anticipation and slowly started to zoom into his face. Dexter then breaks the “silence” of the police sirens still going off in the background and says “Rita’s inside. It was me.” The sirens and police lights continued to go off then a parallelism transition is used as the lights flash the last light that flashes isn’t a police light it is then a camera flash and then transitions the scene to the next morning of the photographer takes photos of Rita’s body in the bathtub. This was a great use of a transition to the next day at the scene with the flashing lights. As the photographer takes photos, Quinn and Masuka examine the scene and the camera goes over Masukas shoulder looking at the bathtub giving you the feeling that you are actually investigating this crime scene with Masuka and Quinn. This episode continues on the search of Dexter figuring out who killed his wife.

5 transition techniques

1. Simultaneous: 13 Reasons Why, Season 2 Episode 13
    This scene starts off with Clay, Tony, and Justin, outside of their school going to the Winter Formal Dance, then it quickly transitions to a dark toned, suspenseful, quiet scene of Tyler walking over to an unknown, suspicious box that revealed to have guns in it. For the next about 4 minutes, scenes keep switching back and fourth between the dance with loud music playing and lots of color, then back to quiet Tyler organizing his guns. This builds up the tension that Tyler might do something bad since in previous episodes Tyler would have problems with other students and even getting sexually assaulted at school. This scene shows simultaneity because while the group of boys are having a fun time dancing at their school event, at the exact same time, Tyler is setting up this terrible, heinous, act of violence he is planning to do to the school. Simultaneity is when things happen at the exact same time. This can also show contract since it contrasts the tones of a lighthearted, fun time at the dance, and the dark tone of Tyler.


2, Contrast: 13 Reasons Why, Season 1 Episode 13
    Throughout this entire episode of 13 Reasons Why, Contrast is displayed within the transitions of scenes. This scene switches between the past and the present with the past being before Hannah committed suicide and shows her the day before and the day of and then contrasts between what all the other students are doing in the present with listening to her tapes and continuing on with their everyday lives. This is not only displayed in this episode but in all the episodes of this season. It shows when Hannah was alive and you are able to tell that that is the past since the tone is more of a warmer tone and makes everything have more of an orange tint to it, then the present is displayed by a cooler tone on screen with everything looking more blue and pale and sad. This is to show the contrast between before Hannah's death and after Hannah's death. Contrast is to show 2 different sides of something and this perfectly displays contrast since it shows the way the students acted before they knew anything like this was happening to her and after when they realized they could do something about it.


3. Le Motif: iCarly Season 4 Episode 3
    This episode of iCarly is when Spencer decides to pull pranks on Carly and Spencer, Carly, Sam and Freddie, all talk about the pranks that Spencer pulled back in highschool. When it shows him pull the prank it plays a song and shows Spencer dancing to the song meaning he successfully pulled the prank. This song is the le motif. Since it plays each time that Spencer preforms a prank it is constant throughout the show. Also a le motif of this show can be whenever Sam presses her "boo" button on her sound remote. She tends to click this sound when someone says something stupid or that she does not approve of.

4. Symbolism: 13 Reasons Why, Season 1 Episode 13
     This episode begins with Hannah explaining all the people that were on her tapes and why they had a place in her tapes. As she is explaining why she chose each person she continues to paint numbers on tapes with a blue nail polish that she stole from her parents store. This blue nail polish she then begins to paint her nails with once she is done painting the numbers on each tape. This nail polish was used to represent her sadness since it was blue. The blue nail polish represents and symbolizes that she is sad since blue can be seen as a color of sadness. Then at the end of this episode, Hanna's momfinds the bottle of blue nailpolish on her desk after she already died. She sees the bottle and cries in hence that the blue nailpolish could have been seen as her sadness. The blue nailpolish symbolizes Hannah's sadness and depression throughout the show and that is why she uses it to paint the numbers on her tapes and her nails before she dies.

5. Parallelism Dexter season 5 episode 1
     This episode of Dexter is the first episode of the season which opens with a new case. This new case happens to be one too close to home for Dexter. To it being his wife Rita was the one dead this time. The scene starts off with Dexter outside his house which was the crime scene and the police had arrived. The police go inside to then find his wife Rita dead in the bathtub. The camera then switches back to Dexter outside as he is in complete shock. As he is waiting outside with his baby, his sister Deborah shows up and then tries to calm him down. During all of this, police sirens and lights are continually going off. Deborah takes the baby from Dexter and he breaks the silence of the sirens and the flashing lights and goes “Rita’s dead. It was me.” As soon as Dexter says that 3 more red and blue flashing lights go off and then a big white flash happens and transitions to a closeup of Quinn examining the body in the bathtub and the photographer was right over his shoulder taking pictures of the crime scene. That would be an example of parallelism with the transitioning of the red and blue flashes to the big white flash. This is used to connect 2 events with either similar or not similar topics.