The Key Elements of Film Form: Mise-en-scene Flashcards
Filmmakers use a range of elements in constructing narrative meaning and generating response.
What are the five Key Elements of Film Form?
MSPEC
- Mise en scene
- Sound
- Performance
- Editing
- Cinematography
What are the 3 Principal Elements of Mise-en-scene?
- Setting, props, costume and makeup
- Staging movement and off screen space
- How cinematography impacts mise-en-scene (in particular through variation of depth of field, focus and framing (this overlaps with cinematography))
List 3 Creative Uses of Mise-en-scene.
- How it can be used naturalistically and expressively
- How it can generate multiple connotations
- How changes contribute to character and narrative development
List 6 ways that Mise-en-scene Conveys Messages and Values.
- The significance of motifs
- How m-e-s –> generates multiple connotations and suggests a range of interpretations
- Why different spectators –> different interpretations of the same m-e-s
- How m-e-s –> used to align spectators and relates to interpretation of narrative
- How m-e-s –> contributes to ideologies of film
What are the 4 common things to think about when analysing how the Key Elements of Film Form (cinematography, mise-en-scene, sound, editing, performance) convey Messages and Values?
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> contributes to narrative development
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> generates multiple connotations and suggests a range of interpretations
- Why different spectators –> different interpretations of the same [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance]
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> used to align spectators and relates to interpretation of narrative
- How [Camera shot / M-e-s / Editing / Sound / Performance] –> contributes to ideologies of film
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What is aesthetic?
The style adopted by an artist or a film movement
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What is production?
The period of actual shooting
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What are auteurs?
Certain directors will have a strong aesthetic
Core Study Areas: Film Form
What is pre-production?
The period prior to filming, where key decisions are made, including securing funding, selecting actors and creative personnel, choosing locations, building sets, designing costumes and determining the film’s aesthetic and planning the production schedule.
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene
What is mise-en-scene in Film? What is it in theatre?
- It refers to everything on the screen in front of the camera
In theatre, it refers to all the elements placed on a stage that contribute to the setting or mood the creative team were working towards
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Colour
List 7 colours, plus black and white and the psychololgical associations with each.
- Red: anger, violence, danger, love, excitement
- Pink: femininity, sweetness, innocence, playfulness
- Orange: warmth, happiness, friendly, exoticness
- Yellow: sickness, madness, idyllic, insecurity
- Green: nature, renewal, hope, darkness, envy, ominous
- Blue: cold, calm, melancholy, cerebral
- Purple: fantasy, mystical, ethereal, ominous
- Black: fear, grief, sophistication
- White: sincerity, purity
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Colour
Model for success. One of the best ways to do well on an exam question is to see an excellent answer and then try to incorporate items of excellence into your own answer.
Describe how colour is used in “We need to talk about Kevin” and what it represents.
- In the screenshot, it shows Eva whose son has carried out a mass school shooting, sitting in a cafe. In it are two primary colours; red and green. Eva is sitting in the green-lit window which alludes to darkness, giving the shot an ominous feel. The window and Eva is framed on all sides by large blocks of red, suggesting that she is surrounded by anger, violence and danger, with no escape
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Colour
Model for success. One of the best ways to do well on an exam question is to see an excellent answer and then try to incorporate items of excellence into your own answer.
Describe how colour is used in “House of Flying Daggers” and what it represents.
- Colour plays a significant part in the aesthetic style with a single colour dominating the mise-en-scene in different sequences. Here the characters and backgrounds are almost all the same shade of green, with the green alluding to nature, renewal and hope
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props
Who is responsible for setting and props in a film?
- Production designer
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Setting
What are the two main parts of setting?
- Location
- Time
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Setting
Where are the 5 main places that a film set is created?
- Exterior
- Interior
- A real place
- Specially built set on a soundstage
- On location
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Setting
Describe the 4 times that form setting.
- Dawn
- Daylight
- Dusk
- The dead of night
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Props
What are setting props?
- All the items used in both interior and exterior locations
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Props
List 4 things in an external scene in a historical drama that a production designer would have to consider when designing props.
- Vehicles
- Street lighting
- Shop facades
- Background extras
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Props
List 3 things in an internal scene in a historical drama that a production designer would have to consider when designing props.
- Pictures on the wall
- Books on the shelf
- Items on a table
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Props
True or False: The absence of props that would be expected to be in a setting (e.g. a football pitch without anyone playing football) are indicators to character and story.
- True
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Props
What two decisions about props can carry additional narrative emotional or symbolic weight?
- Where props are placed and how they are used
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and Props: Props
What is a costume prop? Give 4 examples.
- Props that characters make use of
- Spectacles
- A holstered gun
- An umbrella
- A wristwatch
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Colour
Complete the following cloze: There is considerable crossover between _____________ and mise-en-scene , particularly with regards to ________. The position of the ______, part of the mise-en-scene, is also an essential element of a cinematographer’s framing.
- Cinematography
- Lighting
- Actors
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and props
Model for success. One of the best ways to do well on an exam question is to see an excellent answer and then try to incorporate items of excellence into your own answer.
Describe how setting, props and costume are used in “Life is Beautiful” to develop the narrative, provoke emotional response, offer understanding to the characters or serve a symbolic function.
- The setting is clearly a barrack in a concentration camp, with the men wearing the grey and black striped uniform synonymous with the German WW2 concentration camps. The uniforms have a yellow star on them, so we know that these men are Jewish because the Nazis forced all Jews to wear the Star of David.
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Setting and props
Model for success. One of the best ways to do well on an exam question is to see an excellent answer and then try to incorporate items of excellence into your own answer.
Describe how setting, props and costume are used in “We Need to Talk about Kevin” to develop the narrative, provoke emotional response, offer understanding to the characters or serve a symbolic function.
- The setting is a domestic living space, filled with furniture and soft furnishings of golden browns and reds, which alludes to gold, warmth and comfort. The stripped wooden floor and throw rugs indicate an arty-affluence that is reinforced by the vinyl collection. The only primary colours in the room are the children’s toys, suggesting that Kevin has invaded this warm golden space with his solid colourful toys.
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Costume, Make-up and Hair
For what 5 purposes does the costumer designer work with other creative departments/production designer?
- Are put of the wider aesthetic vision
- Develop the character
- Support or contrast other characters’ costumes
- Are suitable for the actor’s performance (physical/restrained)
- Are appropriate to the setting (both time and location)
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Costume, Make-up and Hair
Give an example of an item of clothing that suggests a particular genre.
- Stetson hats in a western
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Costume, Make-up and Hair
What are the 3 main uses of make-up?
- Day to day, which is used for naturalistic performances, or used to enhance an actor’s features.
- Character or transformation make-up would employ specialist make-up alongside facial prosthetics to change a person’s appearance.
- Special effects (FX) make-up also uses prosthetics made of latex, foam or silicone, but these may be entire bodysuits and complete head/facial masks.
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Costume, Make-up and Hair
Model for success. One of the best ways to do well on an exam question is to see an excellent answer and then try to incorporate items of excellence into your own answer.
In “Shaun of the Dead” what are the different functions of the costumes worn by Foree Electric employees?
- It’s an over-the-shoulder shot, with Shaun in the foreground. He and his junior colleagues are all wearing the same costume: black trousers, white shirt and red tire. But the styling for each reflects six different characters. Some shirts are ironed, other wrinkled. Some have the shirt neatly tucked into their trousers while others have them bagged out or half-tucked.
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Staging, Movement and use of off-screen space
Staging: What 3 things can be affected by the way that characters and objects are positioned in a frame?
- Add further meaning to their relationship to one another
- Indicate their importance to the narrative
- Draw attention to a particular character/object
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Staging, Movement and use of off-screen space
In Mise-en-scene, what kind of movement is analysed? Camera or actors?
- Actors are analysed
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Staging, Movement and use of off-screen space
What are the 6 offscreen spaces?
- To the left
- To the right
- Above
- Below
- Behind the set
- In front of the camera
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Staging, Movement and use of off-screen space
Describe 4 subtle ways in which off-screen spaces can be used.
- Walking into frame from the right
- Across the frame and out of the left
- Looking upwards
- One character to point to the action happening off-screen
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Staging, Movement and use of off-screen space
Describe 2 overt ways in which off-screen spaces can be used. What is the intended effect of these on the audience?
- When a character breaks the fourth wall by addressing the audience or looking directly into the camera making the audience complicit in the action
Core Study Areas: Film Form: Mise-en-scene: Staging, Movement and use of off-screen space
Model for success. One of the best ways to do well on an exam question is to see an excellent answer and then try to incorporate items of excellence into your own answer.
In “Shaun of the Dead” what does the staging tell us about the relationship between characters? ( 1. Liz and Shaun in a cafe 2. Shaun and Ed on the sofa)
- In the foreground, Liz and Shaun are sitting opposite each other, across a fairly wide table. They are placed in the lower half of the screen. Ed is in the background standing, so we see more of his body and is standing between them as though his mere presence is pushing them further apart.
- Ed and Shaun are sitting very close together on the sofa, with their arms overlapping. This proximity to one another mirrors their friendship, which seems far closer than that of Shaun of Liz.
