Mise-en-Scéne Photography Assignment

Why did the chicken cross the road? I don't know why, but I can tell you how...

Welcome back! The other day, my film class received another assignment. My teacher gave us a list of 12 prompts to choose from, and students had to take photographs relating to/inspired by their chosen prompts. Not only that, but we also had to submit sketches of our ideas by the end of class (which gave everyone just over an hour to brainstorm, sketch, and submit). 

At first, I had no idea what to do. I liked a few of the prompts but was not at all sure what I could do with them. One of my favorites was "Through the glass", in which I wanted to take a picture looking through a glasses lens with some of the image showing outside of that frame. On the outside was going to be a boring landscape, but looking through the lens a beautiful and inviting landscape would be visible. I did not choose this prompt because not only was I unsure of what my inviting landscape would be, but I also wasn't sure if I was allowed to merge two separate images or whether or not I could rely on my editing skills for that. 

A few minutes passed as my friend and I were discussing ideas, and I joked that she could dress up as a chicken and take a picture of her on the road to fit the prompt "To get to the other side". Unfortunately, chicken costumes online were a little (very much) out of the budget, and we also did not have time to order one. Expanding on that idea, we considered using a stuffed or rubber chicken, but we weren't very serious about using that prompt and my friend started coming up with ideas for a different one. 

That's when it hit me: A rotisserie chicken. 

I was being completely unserious at the mention of that idea, and my friend and I thought it was hilarious. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it), I didn't really have any other ideas. I eventually gave in and decided that my photograph would be of a rotisserie chicken “trying to get to the other side.” But how would I convey that this chicken was trying to cross the road? Put it on a skateboard! (This also solved the problem of me not wanting to put my food on the street). 

Thus I began sketching out my plan. Sadly, I am a terrible artist. My sketch is somewhat similar to the idea I had in my mind, but I knew that things would look at least slightly different because I wanted the camera low to the ground and did not know how to get that perspective in my drawing. Either way, a plan is a plan:

My next step was to actually take the picture. In doing this, I kept a few things in mind. For example, I wanted my subject (the chicken) to stand out and be the first thing that a viewer will see, and I wanted the overall image to be visually appealing. To achieve these goals, I had to think about the subject placement and lighting in the shot: I placed the subject in the foreground of the image at a time of day where there was an abundance of natural lighting. I originally planned to add some direct lighting on the subject to make it stand out more, but the sun was bright enough that adding hard lighting was entirely unnecessary (and also difficult to manage with the resources that I have). I also utilized the rule of thirds by placing my subject more towards the left of the image as opposed to directly in the middle to make the shot more visually appealing. Additionally, i left the image reasonably plain and didn't have anything in the foreground other than the subject, and the background is simple and does not draw much attention.

I also did some editing in order to enhance my photo. I slightly adjusted certain aspects of the shot (namely the contrast) in order to make my subject stand out more from the rest of the photo. I ended up having the camera closer to the subject than my sketch shows, so the sidewalk and tree originally sketched ended up out-of-frame, and as previously mentioned, my sketch shows more of a top-down view than my final image. 

The picture you all have been waiting for:

This project didn't take up much of my time, but I had fun setting it up and taking the photo. Once I had come up with the idea, the rest of the process was reasonably easy. Brainstorming was the most daunting part, but fortunately it didn't take too long and I was able to come up with a funny and simple idea to match the prompt. 

To be continued...