Introduction to Film Studies
Mise-en-scène
Settings - Studio
• The entire town or city can be constructed in
‘open set’ in a large plot of land in film studios.
The ancient city of Babylon is recreated in the
monumental open sets. D.W. Griffith’s
Intolerance (1916) Grandeur and lavishness.
Settings Studio
• An entire American town was reconstructed in an
open set for F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927). The
sets were enormous but the director needed to
express realistically the moral atmosphere of a
large, modern city. Attempt 31.00
Settings Studio
• Faithful reconstruction of details – surrogate for
reality
• Monte Carlo was reconstructed in Universal
Studios with meticulous attentions to every detail
in Erich Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (1922) 4.52
Open Set
• In older and modern expensive productions, open
sets are constructed in outdoor studio space. In
2002 film, Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese, an
Italian American director, made New York harbour
reconstructed as open sets, in Cinecitta, Rome.
• The Five Points Cinecitta
The film’s period setting is 17th century. Nothing
exists in New York of the period. There are no
houses and buildings from that century which
Scorsese could shoot in. Crusty bitches & Rug
Settings - CG
• Bombed out Warsaw Ghetto was recreated by
means of CG in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist
(2002)
Interiors - Location
• Existing locations can be used for film’s interior
scenes. They frequently give films realist edge.
British ‘kitchen sink’ realism used nothing but
real kitchens, living rooms and bed rooms that
somebody actually used. Karel Reisz, Saturday
Night and Sunday Morning (1960) opening Bedroom
Interiors Location
• The main disadvantage – when there is not enough
space for cameras, lightings, and other equipment,
manoeuvrability of the camera is sacrificed.
Filming in a cramped space was made possible
with the invention of light, small, handheld camera.
Hirokazu Koreeda’s Nobody Knows
Interiors Studios
• Interior set could be crowded with furniture,
decorations, paintings, sculptures, objet d’arts, and
other things. Josef von Sternberg’, Underground.
Any forms of interiors can be created. Jealousy
Interior scenes filmed in the sound stage of a studio:
Maximum space for camera and lighting equipments
Interiors Studio
• When you can no longer find the interiors for
filming like in the case of location, there is no
choice but to construct afresh.
• Takashi Yamazaki’s Always: Sunset on Third Street
whose setting is 1960s.
Scenic Design
• Scenic design – the designing and creation of
scenery in theatre, film and television.
• Production design in filmmaking
• Production designer
• The PD establishes with the director and the
photographer to establish the overall visual and
aesthetic feel of the film.
Scenic Design
• The art director designs scenes, supervises set
designers, model artists, graphic designers,
computer designers, and other designers.
• Visualization can be carried out by set and
storyboard illustrators.
• The staff in the art department create scenes for
the film.
Walter L. Hall’s
drawing for
Intolerance (1916)
Scenic Design
• Stationary scenic elements
• Alexandre Trauner’s drawing for a town square
for Marcel Carné’s Le Jour se lève
Trauner’s drawing for
Canal Saint Martin and
Hotel du Nord, Paris
Magical open set for
Marcel Carné’s Hotêl
du Nord constructed
in studio
Scenic design
• Peter Greenaway, a former art school student,
tend to clutter a frame with lots of things. The
Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover wife
Scenic
design
• Sometimes, scenic design is kept to the minimum.
Karl Theodor Dryer’s Passion of Jean of Arc was
shot with the minimum decoration and in shallow
space (not much depth) inquisition
Jean Luc Goddard shot many scenes in his La Gai
savoir against blackout background and in low-key
lighting. Gai savoir
Scenic design
• Interior sets were artistically designed after
German Expressionist art in Robert Vienne’s
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) Dr. Caligari, 40.00
Ernst Kirchner’s
Expressionist
painting,
Nollendorfplatz
Scenic design
A pop artist, Kiyoshi Awazu, designed Masahiro
Shinoda’s Double Suicide by using enlarged Ukiyoe
prints and calligraphy Sonezaki
Scenic Design
• Moving scenic elements
• ‘Spinner’, a flying car, is conceived and designed
by Syd Mead, who also designed the city
backgrounds for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner
(1982). Syd Mead on Blade Runner
Cluttered
interiors of
Nostromo,
Scott’s Alien
Clear and
minimalistin
terior of
Discovery
in Kubrick’s
2007
Props
• Props – a term borrowed from theatrical mise-enscène and an abbreviation for properties referring
to furniture, fixture, hand-held objects, decoration
and other movable objects. Some props play an
important role in the development of a narrative.
Props
• In Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Kane mumbles
‘Rosebud’ A journalist tries to solve the meaning
of these mysterious words, while reconstructing
the life of the millionaire. Rosebud is the name of
his sleigh.
Props
• The golden ring is the prop that drives the
narrative of Lord of the Rings forward.
Props
• Props become a motif of film action, when they
are given cinematic significance. In
Hitchcock’s Psycho the shower curtain hides a
murderer from our sight and later it is used to
wrap up the dead body.
Props
• The volleyball that a castaway discovers among
the wreckage of a ship becomes his companion.
He is separated from the ball during his raft
voyage from the island. Props become a
‘character’ in the film, Castaway (2000). castaway