Mise-en-scene #1- Props

⭑  Props  ⭑

In the development of mise-en-scene for my portfolio project, props serve as a crucial role in the establishment of authenticity within my film opening. As my film's plot ends around a suspenseful 'final reveal' approach explaining the reason behind the suspense that has been created, the newspaper reveals that the man that the central character is involved with is in fact a dangerous conman who is deceiving her. The newspaper serves as a major tool for the plot development, but in order to maintain the 1950s setting, this needs to correlate perfectly. In order to begin the creation of the newspaper, I had to properly research documentation of newspapers from the 1950s. I started by examining images of newspapers from the era, focusing on fonts, layout, image size and text content in order to get a good idea of the elements that are included in order to curate an accurately represented version of a 1950s newspaper. 

Here is a sample I reviewed:

⭑ 1950s Toronto newspaper ⭑

Process

I began by utilizing the website Canva because it offers templates for a newspaper, making it available to print. Though the premade templates provided an outline of the newspaper, they took on a more modern approach, so a lot of edits had to be made in order for the newspaper to correctly correlate to the 1950s setting. The first step I took to start the process of curating the newspaper was searching for fonts, I started scrolling through the fonts that are offered within Canva's website, until I found a font called Satisfy, fitting of the name because it was an accurate 1950s style font. In order to make the title of the cover for the newspaper stand out (in order for the audience to recognize this plot point), I searched for a bolder and more attention grabbing font that would ensure that the words would be transmitted to the audience, I ended up using the font League Gothic, a bold font as it serves as the focal point for the paper. As for the layout of the image, I selected a grainy type image to ensure a naturalistic look of the piece. I also made sure that the man correlated to his character type, dangerous looking and mysterious, wearing black and having dark hair, to emphasize his deceptive nature. Through a website called printnewspaper.com, options for print are available, this will be the medium in which I order the newspaper. 

Here is how I designed the front cover:

I will create a post during the production process (next week) to demonstrate the creation of the letter, which is another crucial prop within my film opening. 

Johndougtaylor. (2015, March 23). Toronto’s daily newspapers of the 1950s—Princess Elizabeth, pre-Coronation—Part 1 - Historic Toronto. Historic Toronto. https://tayloronhistory.com/2015/03/23/torontos-daily-newspapers-of-the-1950spart-1/