Planning - Mrs Quinlan: Mise En scene

Mise en scene

Mise en scene is term that covers lighting, body language, facial expression, setting, costume, hair, makeup and iconography. These are important within film making as these help to show what happen during the film, hows the film is set, what important things the audience should look out for and the where the film take place. As-well as what the character are like including their behavior there facial expressions and what they are wearing. Also the use of lighting is another important aspect of mise en scene since this shows what type of lighting is being used and what the purpose of the lighting. Using Mise en scene can support a film as is it show whats happening and highlights suspense and characters as well help create an atmosphere during the film.

Lighting (Baris)

At the beginning of thriller opening there will be the use of high-key lighting, so therefore the audiences would be able to understand of the setting which is going to be used within the opening, according to the setting which is going to apartment they will feel calm and safe since an apartment is a place which connotes safety. Straight after, it will move over to the kitchen where the victim is preparing snacks and refreshments for himself, here there will be high-key and top lighting used so that the audience are able to view the actions and movements which is presented by the victim, from the actions which is presented by the victim we continue onto feeling calm and safe since he is freely doing what he wants within the kitchen. As the scene progresses, when the victim has finished preparing, he walks towards the living room where the lighting begins to slow dim. Once the victim has started up the film, there is only low-key lighting used since all of the lights are off and the only light source which is coming from the TV screen, the audience will respond to the use of low-key lighting with tension and possibly suspense since something unexpected could happen. As the scene develops, there will be mixture of high (with top lighting) and low key lighting used, the use of the mixture of different levels of lighting will connote and possibly create confusion and suspense since something which isn’t expected could appear or be presented so therefore. At the end the lighting is going to begin from high-key and slowly fade to black to create tension since the antagonist has entered the apartment without the victim knowing about it and there is the possibility of the antagonist harming the victim, we aim to create mystery by the end of the thriller opening since we are not going to reveal the antagonists identity.

Iconography (Shakil)

Iconography is the objects that are used in movies that can indicate meaning to the audience. The importance of this is so that this can foreshadow events that may occur in the later stages of the movie and to give away certain aspects to the audience and help the audience to feel in suspense. Additionally, an example of this would be a rose. This could signify the sense of love and romance in a movie as the use of Red in a thriller can represent passion and romance as well as other possibilities such as danger or death.
In terms of my thriller opening, there is plenty of iconography that will be used within the clip. Such as the mysterious, creepy looking mask that will be worn by the antagonist at the very end to create suspense and terror to the audience. Furthermore, there will be a note that is shown in the passage, which includes writing of a child and with bloody font, the use of red ink could also indicate danger and death.
Weapons such as the knife would be portrayed in the scene as this could conclude danger towards the end and allow the audience to feel suspense as this could also foreshadow danger in the opening as the knife connotes death and violence.

Setting (Elliot)

The opening scene takes place at the beginning off an apartment/Housing block. the apartment block is located in a estate. Nearby are several other housing blocks and other hoses as well. The reason why we chose this housing blocks is because the opening scene takes place in a home setting. this shows security since that living in a house would make the audience think that living in a house would be secure and that was also maybe a familiar place to the audience, however in the opening scene since the antagonist would manage to infiltrate the house and killing the victim. The use off iconography and lightning will help with the feeling of the setting there are also several advantages for using this location one example is that we could able to move furniture so it shows changes to help support with our script and opening scene narration. An example of this would be the windows opening during the opening scene. This shows insecure that houses can be sometimes to the audience which may make the audience anxious because they know it could happens to anybody.

These are the main elements of Mise En Sence in which me and my group highlighted and discussed whats happening and that were are planning to include in the main part of the thriller. We are planning to stick with these ideas since they highlight and shows to the audience whats happening and create suspense at the same time.