Mise En Scene (Placing On Stage)

1. Mise En Scene (Placing On Stage) By Tom Barrett

2. What is the mise en scene? • Mise-en-scene, a French term meaning “place on stage,” refers to all the visual elements of a theatrical production within the space provided by the stage itself. Film makers have borrowed the term and have extended the meaning to suggest the control the director has over the visual elements within the film image. Four aspects of • Mise-en-scene are setting, costume, lighting and movement of figures. Using these elements, the film director stages the event for the camera to provide his audience with powerful memories. Directors and film scholars alike recognize Mise-en-scene as an essential part of the director’s art.

3. Setting • Setting, as an important visual element of film, includes all that the viewer sees which informs time and place apart from costume. This aspect of mise-en-scene plays an extremely active role in film and periodically may assume as much importance in the total film as the action, or events. • One method of setting control lies in selection of natural or artificial locale. Lush green countryside, barren mountain plain, tropical jungle, rocky seashore or snowy forest suggest a story line as well as conflict that is very different from Gothic cathedral, inner-city ghetto, thatched cottage or sterile institution. The selection process includes, too, the choice of constructing the set rather than using an already existing locale. Control may be extended, then, to determination of historical authenticity or creative blends intended to add to the text’s meaning. The set, in other words, might represent exactly a particular place, or it might be deliberately constructed to include the possible, improbable or even impossible locale. For instance, tilted buildings with minute windows and slanted doors might be constructed ingeniously to orient viewers to a world wherein ideas can be expected to differ from their own. Whether selected or constructed, real or surreal, setting functions variously to orient viewers, to contribute dramatic impact, and to add meaning to the film’s narrative.

4. Props • While many people just think of props as something in the background, they often can take center stage. Characters can be given a prop that provides additional information about the character itself or the action taking place. These additional props can be added to a person's clothing for more detail or simply be put in the person's hand. • And, the location props can also provide some more information about the character and who that character is. Another example would be a room with everything strewn about, a half-eaten pizza sitting on the kitchen counter and the like. The viewer can assume that this person is a slob without any other character making that observation. • So, overall, props need to add something to the scene, and it shouldn't merely just be to fill in empty spaces. Props need to be considered carefully before they are put in a frame.

5. Costume • Costume simply refers to the clothes that characters wear. Using certain colors or designs, costumes in narrative cinema are used to signify characters or to make clear distinctions between characters.

6. Acting • There is enormous historical and cultural variation in performance styles in the cinema. Early melodramatic styles, clearly indebted to the 19th century theater, gave way in Western cinema to a relatively naturalistic style.

7. Lighting • The intensity, direction, and quality of lighting have a profound effect on the way an image is perceived. Light (and shade) can emphasise texture, shape, distance, mood, time of day or night, season, glamour; it affects the way colors are rendered, both in terms of hue and depth, and can focus attention on particular elements of the composition.

8. Set Design • An important element of "putting in the scene" is set design—the setting of a scene and the objects (props) there in. Set design can be used to amplify character emotion or the dominant mood of a film, or to establish aspects of the character. • The location is quite important when trying to control the film itself. If you can get a good location to film, the effect it will have on the audience will be more powerful.

9. Hair and Make up • Tell us immediately whether the film is set in the present and what society/or culture it will centre around. • Act as an instant indicator to the audience of a characters personality, status & job. • Certain costumes can signify certain individuals (e.g. black cloak of a vampire) or groups (e.g. policemen).