Mise En Scene

Mise En Scene is everything that appears on screen and is made up five of five main key elements:

• Settings and Props 
• Costume, Hair, Make-up 
• Facial Expressions and Body Language 
• Lighting and Colour 
• Position of characters and objects in frame 

Props: 

• Is short for property 
• Are artifacts used in a film that can be used in a number of ways. 
• they convey a sense of a time period that the film is set in.
• An audience will have a sense of expectation on props and what should be there for certain genres. For example in a western you’d expect to see certain things such as guns and spurs whereas in a sci-fi you’d expect to see more futuristic technology that you’d definitely not find in a western 

Setting:

• Setting and location plays an important role in film making are not just used for backgrounds 
• Sets are either built from scratch do give a certain feel or image or a great deal of time is spent finding a space which already exists. FOR EXAMPLE: The US Office did both. For the 1st season the show was filmed in an actual Office then from season 2 onwards the show was filmed on an exact replica of the Office where season one was filmed.

• Setting can be used to manipulate an audience by building certain expectations such as in a romantic city like Paris or Milan an audience would expect that type of film to be a Rom-Com 

COSTUME,HAIR AND MAKEUP:

• This is a huge indicator to us of a characters personality, status, job and mental state 
• It tells us immediately when a film is set and what type of society it is 
• For example in The Dark Knight Trilogy, the character of the joker can be defined by the costume he wears, his hair style and his makeup. The joker is man who is a mentally insane and is also truly evil. This is evidently shown as his hair is all greasy and matted which shows he is not bothered about his appearance. His make-up is poorly done and is only done well enough to hide his identity when he commits his crimes. 

Facial Expressions and Body Language:

• Provides a indicator of a characters emotions (are they happy,sad,angry etc)
• If a character is smiling we perceive them to be happy, however we may get different feelings if the scene is played over scary music.

Positioning within a frame:

• The positioning of characters in the frame can draw attention to an important character or object in a scene
• Positioning can also portray a characters relationship and feelings about other characters or objects within the scene. For example in the film The Break-up clearly shows us the relationship of the two characters. This is evident as they are sitting far apart from one and other on opposite sides of the couch. This shows that they have fallen out with each other and they aren't talking.

Lighting and Colour: 

• Can be used to achieve a variety of effects
• Can be used to highlight specific characters in a frame 
• Can be used to create a sense of mystery about certain characters. This can be done with shadow 

Lighting can be used to define a characters status and lifestyle. For example if a characters house is poorly lit this could be used to imply that this character is quite deprived as they live in a poorly lit house