Environment - START

------- Just for me as a reference-From the Brief-------

‘It’s possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things – a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power’.

Raymond Carver, Fires

Historically, tableaux vivants refer to elaborate theatrical pageants wherein static performers emulate existing paintings, or embody historical or allegorical scenes.
Participants are posed, wear costumes and utilise props, with lighting used to create a suitably heightened effect. In this way, tableaux vivants combine the conventions of theatre with those of painting and photography.

Tableaux vivant photography denotes a constructed image, the mise-en-scène of which draws knowingly upon the conventions of theatre, painting, or film. Mise-en-scène translates as ‘the settings of a play’, but used critically, the term refers to the art direction of a given scene and encompasses props, lighting, costume, set design, and staging.
Put simply, everything that makes an image is considered meaningful and its narrative or symbolic value carefully considered. Fine art photographers such as Gregory
Crewdson, Sandy Skoglund, Jeff Wall, Anna Gaskell and Deborah Mesa-Pelly manipulate the mise-en-scène of their tableau vivant-style photographs to direct and mis-direct the spectator’s expectations.

Through the development, design and execution of an original tableau vivant-style image, this unit requires you to continue your ongoing investigation of space by considering the various ways in which an environment may derive and communicate its identity through its spatial representation.

You are asked to produce a tableau vivant-style scene that combines a digitally modelled set with a matte painting. Your scene should demonstrate clearly your understanding of the various ways in which environments may derive and communicate their identity through their mise-en-scène.

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Using what I've learnt from the previous unit in terms of perspective/space/etc, I will aim to transfer those skills/ideas/techniques onto this unit and progress further into ways in which one can create a atmosphere within an environment.

Tableu Vivant, a key part of this unit, is "a representation of a scene, painting, sculpture, etc., by a person or group posed silent and motionless." As I've been told adding person(s) within the scene are somewhat discouraged. I am aiming to create a scene that appeals to a human emotion in terms of what the viewer feels looking at the painting.

Considering the film side of the unit seems to be focused on the Dramatic/Horror/Thriller/Mystery genre, it would seem evident that the unit encourages the painting to be... well Dramatic/Horror/Thriller/Mystery-like. Despite not stating in the brief what our final scene's atmosphere should be in the range of.

I would really like to stretch it to appeal to a further range of emotion, such as a graphic dramatic scene like..after someone gets whacked (example the shot up car at the toll-booth the night on the demise of 'Sonny') giving the viewer an emotion of disgust or sadness. Instead of something like an haunted house that gives the viewer an emotion of fear or unease.

This will be primarily due to the use of Mise-en-scène within the piece, another key term in this unit and an expression I am already familiar with, as well as the use of formal visual elements that I may pursue if I will aim to create a specific art style to compliment the scene.

I've spent this entire week researching through Tableu Vivant, as the idea is new and somewhat intriguing to me. In support of this unit, and finding inspiration, I've been looking through or re-watching films in the past which are known for its strong use of exploiting the viewers psyche as well as, to an extent exploited my psyche. Such as the Blair Witch Project, The Prestige, Ju-on, The Grudge, The Ring, The Sixth Sense and Paranormal Activity, (I still need to watch Inception, I heard it's great, but I'm sooooo behind in modern cinema).

To a lesser extent, I may push bounds and look at games which exploit or influence the human psyche, or ways in which it creates immersion. Through elements such as it's spacial presence, or the ways in which it can channel the players senses. Games such as Silent Hill have done this well, in the spacial presence in creating an environment with a sense of unease. or Max Payne- exploiting the human psyche during the player controlling Max in his dream