Planning mise-en-scene- Miss Georgiou

Mise-en-scene

Why is mise-en-scene important within a thriller film? 
Mise En Scene is a french word that originates from the theatre. It means to literally put on scene. In film however, it has a broader meaning and refers to almost everything that is in composition of a shot. Mise En Scene is important within a thriller film as it encompasses the most recognisable attributes of a film. This includes, setting&iconography, costume hair& make up, facial expressions & body language, positioning of characters and objects within a frame and the colour and lighting.

What is the mise-en-scene of my thriller and why? 

Setting

Our setting is based on a train. By basing our thriller in such a realistic setting it allows our audience to relate to the victim who undergoes her thriller scare there. This is conventional to the thriller genre as a realistic setting is usually set in order to create comparison and linkage between viewer and the actor in the film. By our audience being able to relate to the character a relationship is created and built meaning, whatever happens to them is more impactable on the audience making it more effective and thus gaining a bigger reaction from them. The setting itself also allows us to create effects such as the sound and the girl going through the dark tunnel. By choosing this setting as part of our mise-en-scene for our thriller we can 

Costume

The costumes of our characters fit in with both the plotline and our target audience. The plot of the story is that the characters are coming home from a party so, their clothing then mirrors this. By making the clothing apart of the plotline, the audience can draw connections of where the characters have been without them physically saying it. The clothing also links in with the teen age group of these young people. As our target audience is 15+ this also means out audience would wear/obtain clothes of a similar nature. By doing this we can create a relationship between the audience and the characters. This is conventional to the thriller genre as it is usual that the clothing in a thriller is relaistic to the audience as it makes them adapt more to the scene as things appear more 'normal' meaning whatever happens is a surprise which, is also conventional to a thriller film. We also choose to use a mask for the villain which hides his/her identity. This too is conventional to a thriller as it is iconography and creates dramatic irony as we can tell what's going to happen when this mask is worn as it is not associated with things of a positive nature. This once again draws lines and makes connections for the audience making our relationship with them stronger.


Facial expressions 

We have chosen to use two shots where facial expressions are shown closely using a close up. This is so we can focal how import at our characters facial expressions are. An example of when we do this is when the girl has first seen the masked man and we see her initial reaction to this. By showing our audience our characters reaction as soon as it happens it alows them to feel like they are witnessing it first off and are invoked within our thriller. This is conventional to a thriller as the audience can feed of from a characters facial expression what has happened, what will happen next and how they are currently feeling. 


The postioning of characters

The postioning of characters within the frame in our thriller opening will always be that the killer looks more powerful than the victims. For example at the beginning of our thriller the killer is standing on a bridge looking down at the victims (this is done by using a high angle shot). This shows that the killer has more authority than the victims and that the victims are inferior to him as he has an appeared higher status. This is conventional to a thriller as the audience will them fear him more and will also feel weak in comparison to him thus, expressing the victims fear more and gaining the audiences sympathy.

Lighting 

At the beginning of the thriller the lighting is high key to create a sense of normality. The light is immediately is associated with happiness and security where as the dark is associated with fear as vison is not as clear. As the thriller deepens we move into this to create a scary atmosphere and to add suspense. This is done to show a contrast between the beginning and the ending of our opening and it makes the ending seem more frightening as they have witnessed a happy scene not long before. Low key lighting is conventional to the thriller genre as it highlights and presents the atmosphere and situation of what is happening and makes it appear a lot more scarier than it would in say high key lighting which is used at the very beginning.

My mise-en-scene in regards of my target audience will create a relationship between them and the characters within the opening scene. For instance; the hey key lighting will alow my audience to get to know the character within in a normal state so that when the events happen to them and the lighting darkens, they will be able to view a contrast. By using mise-en-scene the relationship between audience and the aspects of the thriller film become greater. This is the purpose of why mise-en-scene is used within our clip and why it will be used in every thriller prior and after.