Today I learnt how mise en scène is vital when producing a film. Not only does it create relevance, it allows the audience to align with pre conceptions of what they already expect from a certain genre or character. When looking at a scene that had muted audio, I was able to get a gist of what the scene was about by decoding what was in the scene.
I also understood the use of Semeiotics (the signs and their meanings) in particular with the way a character is dressed. When looking at Star Wars this is a clear representation of this as it shows good verses evil with evil dressed in black (Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Kylo Ren) and good dressed in white (Princess Leia, Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker, Obi wan Kenobi). This is an example of classic western archetypes as apposed to the matrix which adopts asian archetypes where white symbolises ghosts and spirits and black shows the protagonist. This showed me that I will need to look at the characters costume for my own film using western stereotypes making sure i use white for innocence and good as well as black and red for danger and evil.
We then looked at different elements of mise en scene by watching two very contrasting scene's from the popular tv show Game of Thrones.
In this scene we can already see that this has a setting of somewhere very warm and rich. We can tell this by the colour temperature, the props used which are ornate and expensive looking as well as when the windows are open it looks high up and in the mountains showing a possible exotic location. The costumes that the characters are wearing are also luxurious and very regal hinting at wealth and power. Cersie (female protagonist in the scene) is wearing red which connotes her character as dangerous. The lighting is soft and fills the room with natural bright light creating a positive and uplifting environment that is appealing to the viewers eye.
In the second scene we see the complete opposite of what was shown in the first. The setting is in a dark, dingy underground room that holds a very poor and deprived reflection. The colour temperature is cold and austere elaborating on this. The costume is medieval and army as the room is full of men all wearing metal and armour. This signifies war and masculinity. When looking at the staging Jon snow (seen in the image) is giving a speech and is standing platformed above the other mean. This shows he is a leader and is the main protagonist in this scene.
This has been an important lesson for me as I will make sure I include the conventions of the mise en scène for a drama including:
The Setting - All the locations will be pre determined for the story with relevance to their
Costume - Worn as character specific looking at their social class and the colour meaning.
Lighting - High-key and sharp with warm tones when happy and cold tones when sad.
Staging - All thought out before and with purpose focusing on who's in power.
No comments:
Post a Comment