Planning Mise-en-scene - Miss Georgiou

In this post I will be planning the mise-en-scene which will be included in my opening scene of a thriller film. Mise-en-scene is 'the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play'. Mise-en-scene consists of decor, lighting, costume(hair and make-up), facial expressions and location. All film's include miss-en-scene but In this post I will be discussing why all those elements of mis-en-scene are important within a thriller film.

Lighting - In thrillers lighting plays a big part in the film, low-key lighting is often seen in thrillers. Low-key lighting is lighting that has both bright and dark areas in the frame. This lighting technique has a strong contrast and is used to frighten the audience.

However, in some thrillers there may be high key lighting, but this is often seen in romantic comedies, this is the opposite of low-key lighting by having high contrast. High key lighting is not conventional in the thriller genre.

Lighting is important within a thriller as it creates suspense for the audience and enigma, producing shadows so you can't see the villain, and making the scene alot more tense.

I'm going to include Low-key lighting in the opening scene of my thriller because it gives hints to the audience that something bad is going to take place. It also connects to the villains emotions, and the villians evil intentions; then the audience will feel scared about what is going to soon take place. High key lighting will be when our actor Beau is outside, once Beau starts hearing voices in his head the lighting will be low-key, to show the audience that what he's going through is not normal.

Costume - In thrillers costumes allow us to have an impression on the character, before the character even speaks. So a character wearing a costume has meaning to it. Also in thrillers hair/make-up makes the characters much more realistic to the situation they're going through. For e.g. fake blood, when the character gets stabbed. Fake blood makes it more realistic, and then scares the audience and terrifies them as it looks really real and gory, but It's all just fake.

In my thriller Beau is going to wear pale colours to show he's the victim but wear a black hat to signify that he's going through something, which involves his head. The contrast between these two colours will be obvious to the audience, and make them wonder. The costume our actor Beau will wear will be simple clothing that people wear like jeans and a t-shirt. This is so the audience can relate to Beau by the way he's dressing as the audience will probably be dressed in the same way.

For make-up during the murder scene where our character commits suicide we will then use a make-up artist to make the murder scene more terrifying and realistic to audience.

Facial expressions - In thrillers facial expressions are used for the audience to connect with the character through feelings and emotions, whether sad or happy. Facial expressions allow the audience to connect with the character by either feeling empathy and sadness for the innocent victim when something bad happens; Or feeling terrified when seeing facial expressions from the antagonist.

In my own thriller we don't have any actual victim and villain. Our victim and villain is incorporated into one character. So we have to make sure our actor makes very clear facial expressions to show there split personality.

Location - In a typical thriller film, location sets the scene. It creates an identity for the film. It also impacts the audience before the narrative is introduced, so they then have a feel on what type of narrative is going to be in the film. It also creates tension for the audience as they don't know what is going to happen. They're own imaginations are suspicious about the storyline. They are then excited to find out what the film is about.

In my opening scene/frame you are going to obviously see the location. The location is still undecided between two options a road near school then the victim runs into school. Or a house location where the opening frame of the film is panning into the house with low-key lighting to add enigma and suspense. But either options will be In a suburbian location, desolate/deserted area.

Decor - once the camera pans into the school or house it will have decor which adds mystery an important the objects contained in the frame. Decor sets the scene. Décor can be used to amplify character emotion or the dominant mood of a film. It adds personality to the character.

In my thriller opening I will use futuristic style furniture. An important element of "putting in the scene" is décor, the objects contained in and the setting of a scene. This idea was inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1969) the futuristic furniture and reduced color scheme stress the impersonality of the space station environment. 

To Conclude, The various elements of mise-en-scene will help my group express our film’s vision by displaying a sense of time and space, as well as setting a mood, and suggesting a character’s current state of mind.