Film: Mise En Scene

Mise en scene means "placing on stage". The mise en scene is basically everything within a particular shot and the arrangement of it. Before creating a film, you have to know what is going to be in each shot and the purpose of it. In my film, the key aspects of the mise en scene I will be focusing on in this post are costume, lighting and acting.

Costume:

Our leading protagonist is going to stand out against her surroundings. From our preliminary filming shots, the red jacket was very successful in making our protagonist stand out. Not only does it help to establish her as the prominent character, but the colour red also signifies a number of things. Red can be seen to represent love, romance and femininity. Woman are often portrayed this way in films as it follows the .."not sure".. code. We want the protagonist to project a feminine gentile facade as it will to highlight her insecurity. Other props we could use to highlight her femininity would be a handbag and lipstick. Another reason for using a red coat is that the red signifies death or blood. This helps to create an element of suspicion within the audience to whether she is in danger. Bright coats can often be linked to childhood. Many children in playschool wear brightly coloured raincoats. This could further connote her innocence and vulnerability. Other readings of the red could be an increased heartrate which would fit with the running scene.  

 This is a image from Schindler's list. Schindler's list is based around the time of the Holocaust. A colour filter was used in this section of the film to highlight her prominence to Schindler. It could have been done to highlight the child's innocence. The colour filter shows the contrast between him and the child and the red could represent the blood of war.

Here is a link to the extract in the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1VL-y9JHuI&feature=related

Lighting:

I got inspiration from the film Jane Eyre (2011). The film was shot rurally and much of the locations reflect where we are shooting. The dark, menacing atmosphere created in many of the shots on the more land, and in the wooded areas were filmed in overcast weather. Therefore both me and my filming partner will be organising film shoots when the weather forecast says that it will be overcast. We are using natural lighting to create a realistic ambiance, helping the audience to get drawn into the film. We will be filming in daylight, but in the afternoon when lighting is slightly dimmed.

Acting:

To reflect the femine clothing, we will be directing our actress to project femininty through her body language. Stepping gently, twidderling her hair and raising her hands slightly are all visually signify femininity. We also want her to look vulnerable when shooting close up shots.