We explored mise-en-scene by being allocated into groups and given  a theme. The themes given out were punk, rap, folk and pop. My group were given rap. I was happy with this genre because it was easy to create the look and rap is something I have great interest in.  In our group we created a mood board of all things that came to mind and linked to the word ‘rap’.  We put all our inspiration and shared our ideas on this so we could create the most realistic look possible. This board included our favourite famous rappers and items of clothing rappers ‘typically’ wear.

We came to the conclusion that when doing our photoshoot we would focus on the baggy clothing, jewellery and little facial expressions.

Next I dressed up as a ‘stereotypical rapper’ and did our photoshoot. Some of the things I wore to enhance my look were:

• Black Baggy T shirt, rappers tend to put little effort into their clothing and more effort into accessories.
• Baggy jeans, to disguise the figure of the model, to give a scruffy and careless look and to match the colour of the hat.
• Black nike shoes, almost every rapper owns a pair of black nike air force 1, so these fit our genre really well.
• Blue and Gold DC cap, The gold of the cap matched all the jewellery and DC is a rappers brand so this was perfect.
• Gold chain, very stereotypical but a statement piece of the outfit as all rappers wear a gold chain.
• Bandana around my face to disguise myself, to portray the ‘gang culture’ effect, disguising my face was key.
• Other Jewellery such as rings and many bracelets, to come across as rich.

This helped me understand the concept of how media communicates meaning because if I didn’t dress like the ‘stereotypical rapper’ my meaning/message wouldn’t be portrayed well; my aim was to look as realistic as possible and this wouldn’t be effective if I couldn’t communicate and pass my meaning on to the audience.

Here are a few pictures of my final outfit, posing like a rapper:

Next, we asked our classmates to write adjectives on post it notes and stick them on each person that dressed up. This is so we can evaluate the looks of the models using words relative to their appearance. Some of the adjectives that were stuck on me included:

• Thug like
• Criminal
• Chav
• Filthy
• Defiant
• Gangster
• Rude
• Offensive
• Independent

Doing this shoot and experimenting with mise-en-scene within my look has really helped me to grasp the concept of everything that pulls a look together. This has helped me develop my skills so when beginning shooting for my music magazine, I now have some knowledge so my shoot will turn out well.