Mise-en-Scene & CinematographyDevelopment, Elements, & Significance

Mise-en-Scene: Definitions

Mise-en-Scene: those elements of a movie scene put into position before filming begins, including everything visible onscreen: actors, aspects of lighting, sets and settings, costumes and makeup (often derives techniques from other visual arts).

Audiences respond not just to the Mise-en-Scene’s literal objects, but to the sensations and cultural connotations associated with them that contribute to how a film makes meaning.

MeS History

Theatrical Origins

1906: Mercury vapor lamps enable studio shooting.

“Tricks” & sets adapted from magicians’ stage shows (George Melies).

Feature-Length Films & Rise of Studio System

1910s: Star System, Costuming, Makeup

MeS History (continued)1930-1960: Studio-Era Production

Soundstages: large soundproofed buildings designed to house the construction and movement of elaborate sets.

Each studio had signature style & genre specialties.

1940-1970: New Cinematic Realism

Location shooting

Post-WWII Italian Neorealism

Associated with Youth & Rebellion in 1960s U.S. context.

1970-Present: Mise-en-Scene and the Blockbuster

International Marketing & Reach

Special Effects: Physical ☞ Computerized Digital Models

The Elements of MeS: Settings & Sets

Setting: A real or fictional place where the action and events of the film occur.

Set: Usually a constructed setting (soundstage), but may combine natural and constructed elements.

Set Designers: Supervise construction of sets and arrangement of props within settings to draw out details, illustrate connections/contrasts for the film.

Realism: A term describing the extent to which a movie creates a truthful picture of a society, person, or other dimension of life.

Scenic Realism: Enables us to recognize sets and settings as accurate representations of real places.

Atmospheric Realism: Realistic filmmaking that creates connotations, such as feelings or meanings associated with elements of the settings.

Rear Window (1954) & Setting

James Stewart, Gracy Kelly & Alfred Hitchcock on set ☝

Miniature model of film set ☞

PropsProp: An object that functions as part of the set or as a tool used by the actors.

Instrumental Props: Those objects displayed and used according to their common function.

Metaphorical Props: Those same objects reinvented or employed for an unexpected purpose.

Cultural Props: Carry meanings associated with their place in a particular society.

Contextualized Props: Acquire a meaning through their changing place in a narrative.

Performance and ActingPerformance: Describes an actor’s use of language, physical expression and gesture to bring a character to life and communicate the character’s significant dimensions to the audience. Two primary elements are (1) Voice, and (2) Bodily Movement.

Stylized Acting: Acting style employing emphatic and highly self-conscious gestures or speech conveying the actors’ acknowledgment that he/she is acting/addressing an audience.

Naturalistic Acting: Requires an actor to embody a role that communicates the character’s essential self (sometimes use method acting).

Leads (primary) & Character Actors (secondary characters, sinister or humorous)

Supporting Actors (secondary characters acting as foils/companions to leads) & Extras

Character Types: Actors are often cast because of their association with particular character types that they seem especially suited to portray due to their physical features, acting style or previous roles.

Stars & Blocking, Costumes, Make-UpStars: Bring the accumulated significance of their past performances, personal lives, and other associations. Stars often acquire a status that transforms their individual physical presence into more abstract or mythical qualities.

Blocking: Arrangement and movement of actors in relation to one another within the physical space of the Mise-en-Scene.

Social Blocking: The arrangements of characters to accentuate relations among them.

Graphic Blocking: Arranges characters or groups according to visual patterns to portray spatial harmony, tension or some other visual atmosphere.

Costumes, Makeup & Prosthetics: Functions

(1) Support Scenic Realism (re/producing a specific time & place)

(2) Function as character highlights to draw out important parts of a character’s personality.

(3) Act as narrative markers, changing to show character & plot development.

LightingMise-en-Scene Lighting: Lighting sources within the scene (diegetic).

Natural Lighting

Set Lighting: Distributes evenly diffused illumination as a lighting base.

Directional Lighting: Dramatically apparent light that defines & shapes objects/people illuminated.

3-Point Lighting: Common lighting style using key, back, and fill lighting.

Key Lighting: The main source of lighting.

Fill Lighting: Balances key lighting by adding emphasis, eliminating shadows.

Highlighting: Emphasizes objects or characters.

Backlighting: Illuminates a person/object from behind, often in silhouette.

Front/Side/Under/Top Lighting: Variously illuminatess from different angles.

Hard/Soft Lighting: Combine with MeS to create texture.

Shading: Use of shadows or shapes to draw attention to certain features or add commentary (Ex. Chiaroscuro Lighting Styles).

The Significance of MeS

Mise-en-Scene Helps to:

(1) Describe the physical conditions and limits of our natural, social, or imaginary worlds.

(2) Measure the ability of individuals and social groups to control and arrange their world in a meaningful way.

MeS as External Condition: Indicates surfaces, objects, and exteriors that define the material possibilities in a place or space.

MeS as Measure of Character: Dramatizes how an individual or a group establishes identity through interaction with (or control of) the surrounding settings and sets.

MeS: Naturalistic v. Theatrical TraditionsNaturalistic MeS: (misleading aspects)

The world and its objects follow the assumed laws of nature and society.

Elements of MeS have a consistently logical or homogenous relation to each other.

MeS and characters mutually define each other, although the MeS may be unresponsive to the needs of the characters.

Historical MeS (creates recognizable historical scene) & Everyday MeS (constructs commonplace backdrops for characters and action).

Theatrical MeS: Creates fantastical environments that display and even celebrate their artificial and constructed nature.

Elements of MeS tend to violate/bend laws of nature or society.

Dramatic inconsistencies appear within one, or between two or more settings.

MeS takes on an independent life that requires confrontations or creative negotiations between props, sets, and characters.

Expressive MeS (MeS asserts elements independent of characters & Constructive MeS (MeS is shaped & altered by characters).

Cinematography: Framing What We See

Cinematography: The filming of images in motion-picture photography.

Apparent Motion: The effect of the human brain processing incremental differences among sequential still images just as we process motion. This means that rapid sequences of images appear to show motion and can simulate perception.

History of the Cinematic ImageEarly Optical Devices: Leonardo DaVinci’s Camera Obscura, Phantasmagoria (18th Century), Zoetrope (1834).

1839 First Still Photograph produced by Louis Daguerre.

Eadweard Muybridge: Chronophotography showed incremental movement in sequences of images. He introduced the first projected moving images with the Zoopraxiscope in 1879.

W.L.K. Dickson: First motion picture camera (Kinetoscope), patented by his employer Edison in 1891.

1895: Lumiere Bros. recorded sequences of images on a flexible, transparent medium that could project in a sequence.

Eastman Kodak: Became primary manufacturer of film stock, with flexible celluloid backing and light-sensitive emulsion. Safety Film: (1952) Replaced flammable nitrate film base.

Standards: By 1909 35mm film stock was standardized film gauge (other formats include 16mm, for hand-held & 70mm for widescreen). The rate at which images were recorded increased from 16 frames per second to 24 in the 1920s, and Panchromatic film stock replaces Orthochromatic.

History of the Cinematic Image 1930s-1960sTechnicolor: (1930s-1950s) 3-strip color replaces hand-tinting processes.

Focal Length: The distance from the center of the lens to the point where the light rays meet in sharp focus (alters the perspective relations of an image).

Depth of Field: The portion of the image that is in focus.

Wide-Angle Lens: Developed in 1930s and 1940s allowing films to explore greater depths of field that could show different visual planes simultaneously.

Hand-Held Cameras: First used during WWII for newsreels, and later enables amateur filmmakers.

Widescreen Process: (1950s-1960s) Changes the size of the image’s aspect ratio to widen the camera’ perspective.

Filters: Transparent sheets of glass or gels placed in front of the lens.

Flares: Direct strong light at the lens for effect.

Telephoto Lenses: Capable of magnifying distant objects.

New Effects: Zooming (changing the focal length with a telephoto lens), Slow/Fast Motion.

The Red Shoes☝(1948)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)☟Technicolor

History of Cinematography: 1970s to Present

New Hollywood ☞ Blockbusters

Steadicam: Camera stabilization device.

IMAX & Showscan Projection Systems

Digital Cinematography: Lightweight cameras, visual sharpness, manipulation of images. However, digital images lack range of tones illuminated by film emulsion and cannot shoot in outdoor conditions as well as film stock.

The Elements of Cinematography

Shot: The basic unit of cinematography; A continuous point of view (& continuously exposed piece of film) in which the camera may move, but ends with a cut.

Point of View (POV): The position or perspective from which a person, event or object is seen (objective/subjective).

Focus: The specific subject/object highlighted within a POV and the point in the image most clearly defined by camera lens.

Four Attributes of the Shot

Framing

Depth of Field

Color

Movement

FramingFraming: Height, width, depth used to dictate onscreen and offscreen space.

Canted Frame: Framing that appears unbalanced or askew.

Mobile Frame: When the frame moves to follow or show action/objects.

Aspect Ratio: The basic shape and dimensions of the film image (height/width).

Pan-and-Scan: Method converting widescreen to TV by eliminating excess width.

Masks: Attachments to camera that cut off portions of the frame (Iris Shot, In/Out)

Camera Distance: Scale

Close-Up: (extreme, CU, medium)

Medium Shot (medium CU, MS, medium LS)

Long Shot (medium (3/4), extreme)

Camera Angles

Hight & Orientation: High/Low, Overhead Shot, Crane Shot

POV Shot

Iris Shot☞

Camera Distance

XCU ☝CU ☞ MCU☝

MS☝

MLS ☝LS ☞

XLS ☟

Citizen Kane: Angles & Framing, EffectsMatte Shot ☞

☜ Deep Focus

☜ Low Angle

High Angle ☞

Depth of Field, Contrast & Color

Deep Focus: Multiple planes in the image are all in focus.

Shallow Focus: Only a narrow range of the field is focused.

Rack Focus: Technique that quickly shifts the camera’s focus from one object/plane to another.

Tone: Shading, intensification or saturation of colors (B&W, Color).

Color Balance: Characterizes the relationships of colors within a films, ranging from realistic to extreme.

Contrasting/Monochromatic Balances in Color Scheme

Film Gauge & Stock (effects on color)

MovementReframing: The movement of the frame from one position to another within a single continuous shot.

Pan: Camera rotation from side to side (camera placement does not change).

Tilt: Camera rotation up and down (camera placement does not change).

Tracking Shot: Changes the POV position by moving camera forward/backward on tracks.

Handheld Shot/Steadicam Shot

Zooms: Adjustments to the camera lens during filming to magnify portions of the image (camera does not move, but creates illusion of moving in/out).

Animation: Moving images drawn or painted in cels, photographed onto single frames.

Stop Motion: Records separate frames in incrementally changing action(claymation, pixelation, CGI).

Visual Effects: Slow/Fast Motion, Color Filters, Miniature Models, Process Shot, Matte Shot (joins 2 pieces of overlapping film), 3-D Modeling, Motion Capture.

The Significance of the ImageImage as Presence: (Drawn from Recording Impulse)

A close identification with the POV of the image.

A response to the image that is primarily emotional.

An experience of the image as if it were a lived reality.

Phenomenological Image (Filmmaking styles that approximate lived experience); Psychological Image (Creates images that reflect the state of mind of the viewer/scene).

Image as Text: (drawn from Formalism)

Emotional distancing of the viewer from the image.

A reaction to the image that is primarily analytic.

An experience of the image as artifice, constructed like a text or work of art to be interpreted from an intellectual distance.

Focus on How (rather than what) is shown.

Aesthetic Image (appreciated for artistic recreation of world/perspective through texture, line, color, composition); Semiotic Image (presents images as signs to be interpreted).