Research into Mise-en-scene, Miss Georgiou

Mise-en-Scene

11-09-13

Mise-en-Scene arrives from the French language and means "What is put into a scene or a frame". It is the visual information that is recorded by the camera and it`s role is to show the audience what the information regarding the film is. Mise-en-Scene is split into 5 categories:

1. The first category is called Setting and Iconography.

Setting and Iconography are an important part in film-making just as "background" is. Setting is filmed on a set, that has either been built from scratch or a great deal of time has been spent in order to find it. Another feature of the setting is that it can manipulate the audience, by building certain expectations and then taking a different turn. An example from the film “Unknown” shows us a scene, were staff and patients are getting in and out. This manipulates the audience`s mind to believe that everything is normal.

However, a couple of scenes later, we see something different:

The first sequence of the film is set in a hospital, which is a realistic setting and it is a setting which the audience could recognise. The main character wakes up to find a nurse dead on the floor beside his bed. This then shocks the audience as they would not expect to see a dead nurse. The audience would experience a feeling of confusion. They would feel confused as they would not expect to see a dead nurse next to the patient. This is conventional for a thriller movie, as the audience would be high on suspense and surprised because the situation in which they are put is abnormal and terrifying to watch. They would also want to find out why the nurse has been killed. 

2. The second category is called Costumes and Makeup. In Costumes and Makeup, the Clothes are an instant indicator to us of the personality of the character.  It also shows the personality, status or job. Clothes also indicate whether the film is set in the past, present or the future. From the same film, the scene shows how Liam Neeson remembers his “wife” smiling. In the picture below, the memory of his wife portrays a woman, which is happy (it may mean that she is smiling) and also the clothes she is wearing are white (which is a connotation of peace, beauty, etc.) dress. The audience would relate to the colour and create a positive relationship to the woman as she is portrayed as innocent and beautiful. They would also start to have a positive relationship to Neeson himself as they would like to see him be with his wife again.

Compared to that in the present, the character is presented as sad, distant and mysterious regarding his thoughts. The audience would also recognise these feelings by looking at his clothes. Due to him wearing dark coloured clothing, the audience would co notate the dark colour with death or sadness. The audience would also feel pitiful for him as they are seeing him being sad about loosing his life. In our thriller clip, the clothes of the killer will be dark and his face will be hidden in order to hide his personality and status. This in turn would create an enigma and intrigue our audience to find out who he is.

3. The 3^rd category is called Facial expression and Body language. In this category the audience will experience to see a clear indicator of how someone is feeling.  For example in the picture above, the audience can see that the character feels sad and confused of what has happened previously just by looking at his face. In the picture below, the audience can once again see the feelings of the character. Judging by the body language, the character looks angry and also trying to take something from Liam Neeson. In the film, she becomes angry at him because he finds out her secret. In a thriller movie, the body language and facial expression of the person are very important as they can determine whether he/she are the victim or the villain. This means that when the thriller clip will be shot, the producer and director must make sure to display which person is the victim and who is the killer.

4.  Positioning of the character within a frame. In this section, the shot can draw the audience`s attention to an important character or objective. Positioning is effectively used when the producer wants to show a relationship between two people. In the shot below, the camera has been positioned to show a scrapbook with pictures. This way he is indicating to the audience that this object will cause a conversation or an argument between the characters.

                                     

 In the shot below, we see the camera focusing on the two main characters to indicate to the audience that the two characters are creating a friendly relationship between one-another. When creating a thriller movie, the camera would be positioned on a weapon (knife, croquet mallet, bottle of gin) or on the character`s face when seeing something gruesome. This way the audience can quickly sense the feelings of the character or the weapon used to attack.

5. The last section is called Lighting and colour. In colour, there are 3 important things to remember:

-the certain colour has a denotation which gives a first meaning (black=dark colour)
-the certain colour has a connotation which gives the implied meaning (black=danger, death, mystery)
-it can give a look, feel or mood to a certain scene. For example, here the two characters are in a disco bar so the audiences can see black and blue. Both colours have a denotation of being dark colours, which means that the identity of the two characters is hidden as we cannot see them. Secondly those colours have a connotation of mystery, fear or vigilance. When making a thriller clip, it is advisory to use low key lighting (using only the key and back lights) rather than High key lighting in order to create sharp contrast of light and dark areas.

Those are the five categories used in Mise-en-Scene. With them films can be generated into thrillers, romantic comedies or action films. The film used as an example is called Unknown. It is counted as an Action Thriller. The clip below is the trailer, which shows most of the film in a summary. 
For my own movie, I will use similar camera techniques in order to be able to surprise and create tension for my audience. I will also be using low key lighting in order to create shadows that may scare the audience and use dark colours such as black, grey or dark blue in order to implement to the audience what the killer is going to look like.