Mise en Scene

The literal meaning of Mise en Scene is everything in placed within the scene. So this literally refers to everything that is purposefully placed on screen wehn the camera is rolling. It tells the audience numerous things and is made up of various components that are used in the frame. This include:

• Lighting and Colour
• Dialogue
• Costume
• Setting
• Positioning and Body Language
• Sound

Lighting
Lighting is often a very subtle component of mise en scene, influencing the audiences impressions of characters or certain situations. It is often decided before had whether the light for the scene needs to be natural or un-natural, dark or bright, coloured or bland etc. Techniques that can be used include:

- High key and low key lighting. These both contrast to one another in the sense that low lighting focuses on illuminating only certain parts of the frame whilst high key lighting allows for the whole frame to be lit by multip[le (although not always bright) lights.
- Coloured lighting, which gives a scene a particular feel. For example, warm, golden yellows make the frame appear safe and sometimes calm or romantic, whereas adding a blue filter instantly adds a snese of coldness, either in temperature or in temprement. Different colours can also make the frame appear artificial, which is why this technique is often used in sci-fi films.
- Digetic lighting comes directly from the scene itself, such as a torch or lamp, but can often be used to produce similar effects as non-digetic light sources.

Along with these key points, the light source and its position is also crucial to the look and feel of a scene; techniques such as up lighting can be used to create shadows that can be effective, or overhead lighting can act as a kind of spotlight on key characters or narrative points.

Dialogue
Dialogue is admittedly a far less visual part of mise en scene, although this does not mean it is anyless important. The words that the onscreen cast speak are key to giving the audience a good representation of the characters and the environment that they live in. Often, many of the other techniques amplify this initial view created through the dialogue.

Costume
Also including hair and make-up, costume indicates the time period of the entire film, whilst also developing a sense of what class, status or type of person a character is. In costume, colour is also important, with certain colours connoting to feelings or what a charcter may stand for. For example, the colour white can often symbolise purity or innocence and this view is then transfered to the character.

Setting
The setting of the action is often indicative right away of the type of characters and narrative that is found within the scene and therefore, it makes up another important part of mise en scene. The setting in the scene is often comprised of:
- Props, as these create the feel of the place the characters are in and are often then used by them.
- Lighting, which works in unison with the setting the either complement or contrast to it.
- Set Dressing, including all of the props, colours and other various decorative embellishments that are decided by the film makers.

Positioning and Body Language
Crucial to the dialogue spoken to the characters, their positions in relation to other roles and body language towards them inform the audience of characters personalities and often intentions or relationships between them.

Sound
In my view, sound is one of the most important components of film itself, always subtly incresing the effect of what the audience see's on screen. Music often helps to confirm feelings and emotions seen on screen (matching sound with image- Parallel sound), or alternatively, completely contrast to what is in the frame (contrapuntal sound). Similar to this, other sounds, such as small sound effects, enhance to overall experience of watching a scene and make the filmic world all that more beliveable. There are 4 different types of sound, including:

- Non-diegetic and diegetic sound. Non-degetic sound simply refers to any sounds that are not part of the scne that the audience is being shown, such as the films score. Contrastingly, diegetic sound includes noise that comes from the filmic world, which may mean something like music coming from a car stereo.
- On Screen and Off Screen sound, which are similar to those above, apart from they are both dioegetic sounds as they come from the film world. However, off screen sound includes things that cannot be seen in the frame, such as a car horn heard from inside a house.

Mostly, mise en scene is what creates all of the effects and feelings seen on screen, all combining togther to influence and aid each part.