Saturday, 8 October 2011

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene - is what you see in the frame.What you put in the scene.
Visual information in front of the camera.
Communicates essential information to the audience, Setting and props are crucial to the story.
There are 5 elements of Mise-en-scene;
  1. Setting and Props
  2. Costume, Hair and Make-up
  3. Facial Expressions
  4. Lighting and Colour
  5. Positioning within the frame 

Film is a visual medium.
Mise-en-scene is very important in films as it helps tell the story without any dialogue. For example in the film "Alice in Wonderland" the costume, hair and make-up are very important to tell the story of the characters. Also in "Usual Suspects" Kevin Spacey's character's body language and facial expressions are key to his character. If you look at the picture below you can see that Spacey is standing holding his arm and his leg is bent. Emphising his body language.
The aspect of Mise-en-scene, costume, hair and make-up, show the character's personalities and in some films show the character's heirachy. In costume drama's costume is a key part of the film showing which era they are from by what they are wearing. Some hairstyles in films become iconic like Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffanys" hairstyle has become one of the most iconic hairstyles in history.

 Many body movements have conatations associated with them, many people subconciously do things that when shown in a visual medium can be translated into different things such as flipping your hair, people may infer that to mean the woman is flirting with someone.

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