Mise-en-Scene
“putting into the scene”
Setting, Costume, Makeup, Lighting,
Staging and Performance (Acting
and Movement)
HUM 110: Intro to American Film
NSCC, JC Clapp
Content herein taken from the Film Art textbook (by Bordwell & Thompson, 10th
edition) ,and from the Film Analysis website at Yale University
(http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis)
Setting
• Décor: objects contained in and the setting of
the scene. Décor is used to amplify character
emotion and the dominant mood of a film.
Includes furniture, color scheme, props,
• Settings can be authentic or stylized (or some
combination of “real” and constructed”)
• Aspects of setting often become motifs.
• Rear Projection: Inserting (projecting) a
setting, often when characters are in a vehicle.
Notice the aspects of setting in this dinner scene from American Beauty . . .
Costumes and Makeup
• Costumes (the clothes the characters are
wearing), and makeup (either real or digital) add
character traits.
Lighting:
Three-Point
• Back Light: Picks out the
subject from the
background
• Key Light: Bright light that
highlights the object from
the front
• Fill Light: Lights opposite
from Key to remove most
shadows
Lighting: High Key
• A lighting scheme in
which the fill light is
raised to almost the
same level as the key
light. This produces
images with low
contrast and few
shadows on the
principal subjects.
This often bright
image is characteristic
of musicals and
comedies.
Singin’ in the Rain
High-Key Lighting (a type of three-point lighting) here in
Citizen Kane results in little contrast with few shadows.
Lighting: Low-Key
• A lighting scheme that
employs very little fill
light, creating strong
contrasts between the
brightest and darkest
parts of an image and
often creating strong
shadows that obscure
parts of the principal
subjects. This lighting
scheme is often
associated with film noir.
Staging: Movement and Performance
• Actors are a “graphic element” and part of the visual
make-up of the scene
• Acting Style (concepts of “realism” change with time)
• Typage: the use of stereotype in communicating the
essential qualities of a character.
Clint
Eastwood in
The Good,
The Bad, and
The Ugly and
in Unforgiven
– the
cowboy.
Space: Focuses Attention
Representation of space includes depth, proximity, size,
perspective and proportions of places and objects
determine mood and relationships.
• Composition and Screen Space -- we focus on what’s
closest to us and what’s in the middle of the frame
• Color – warm colors (red-orange-yellow) draw attention,
cool colors (blue-purple-green) are less prominent
• Light – bright light draws our attention and dark areas
recede
• Movement – we pay attention to what’s moving
Space: Planes of the Frame
• Deep Space: large distance between planes
• Shallow Space: short distance between planes -- flat
• Frontality: staging of elements, often human
figures, so that they face the camera square-on (an
alternative to oblique staging).
• Off-screen space
Frontality – characters
facing camera head-on in
The Graduate. Also, an
example of shallow space
(flat).
Oblique Staging –
characters
making more of
an oval with the
audience (The
Graduate). Also,
an example of
deep space.
Narrative Functions of Mise-en-Scene
• Mise-en-Scene helps to tell the story. It focuses
attention and communicates narrative details to
the viewer.