Planning the mise en scene

Planning the mise en scene

The mise en scene of a film has five different sections:

• Setting and iconography
• Facial expressions and body language
• Costume, hair and make up
• Lighting and colour
• Positioning of characters

All of these different areas form the overall scene that the audience sees on screen, and enables the director to create an effective and successful film. 

The first area, setting and location is one if the most important areas of film making, setting the scene for the audience and helping them to understand the plot of the film. 

For our group thriller film, we decided on the isolated location of an empty field as we felt that it would create an appropriately thrilling location for the events to take place, having a scary effect on the audience. 

*** picture of location ***

The second area of mise en scene is facial expressions and body language. This is a key convention which displays to the audience clearly how the characters are feeling in the different situations. The actor is able to show the audience how scared their character is feeling through worried or horrified facial expressions which have a powerful effect on the audience, as they too experience these feelings as empathy. To clearly convey facial expressions we decided to use close up shots on the face of the victim to highlight her fear at her unfortunate situation. 

Costume, hair and make up is the third area of mise en scene creation. This convention allows the director to connote facts about the individual characters to the audience, enabling them to create expectations as to what will take place within the film.
Our attacker will be dressed in dark colours to connote to the audience the evil that controls his mind, and the dark plans that he is forming regarding the female victim.
The victim, however, will be contrastingly dressed in light school uniform to convey her youthful innocence in comparison to the dark and brooding mind of the attacker.

*** picture of attacker's clothing ***

The fourth area of mise en scene creation is lighting and colour. Using different colours within in a scene can create strong connotations and denotations for the audience to recognise. For example the colour red can be used to represent danger and violence, foreshadowing these elements later on in the film.
Lighting can be used to create shadows and effect the atmosphere within a certain scene, emphasising the effect the scene has on the audience, i.e. a scene shot in low key lighting will appear more sinister and threatening to the audience than a scene shot in bright, high key lighting.
As we are filming our thriller film during the day, as the girls are walking home from school it is difficult to use low key lighting to create a sinister atmosphere. However, as we are filming our thriller in November / December, the lighting will naturally be more low key than if we were filming in the middle of summer.
The audience will recognise the darkening streets as a sign of the early nights that come with winter and anticipate the danger associated with the total darkness that will engulf her as she walks through the empty field.

*** picture from one of the scenes using low key lighting ***

The fifth and last area of mise en scene is the positioning of characters within the frame, in order to convey importance or high status. It can also be used to draw the audience's attention towards certain things.
In our thriller, we plan to use close up shots in order to display the female victim's emotions, but also to highlight her importance to the plot line. Before she is attacked, and is still walking with her friends, a close up shot could be used in order to convey her specific importance, out of all of her friends, within the rest of the plot.

*** example of a close up shot ***