Planning Mise-en-Scene - Miss Georgiou

Planning Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-Scene is important within a thriller film as it includes key factors such as, setting and iconography, costume, hair and make up, facial expressions and body language, positioning of characters and objects within a frame, colour and lighting. All of these features that are in Mise-en-Scene are important to most films but thriller films as well. Mise-en-Scene is the arrangement of scenery and properties to represent the place where the play or movie is being acted out. 

Setting and Iconography:

Setting and iconography are very important to thriller films as the setting allows the audience to know that there might be something mysterious about to happen to the characters in the movie. The setting of the film can be very key to the making of a film as it shows where certain things might happen to victims in the film. The setting of a movie may then lead to certain expectations for the audience to feel and then it may end up taking a completely different turn of events which may not have been expected by the audience. Iconography is also used in thriller films as they are the props that are used in thriller films, an example of a prop may be something that is used to kill a victim, this could be a knife or a gun etc. Iconography can also be used in a thriller film to focus on a certain object that is used or found in the film it may be something that is needed by the victim to escape the killer, for example a key or even a weapon of their own to kill the murderer. 

Costume, Hair and Make up:

These three things are used in Mise-en-Scene as they are also used to show how or who the murderer and victim may be, for example the murderer may be wearing a costume to hide their identity, they could also change the way they look, for example their hair and make up to also disguise their identity. i believe this part of Mise-en-Scene is used to help the characters show the part that they play in the film, for example a victim may wear light coloured clothes to show their innocence or they might wear normal everyday clothes to relate to the audience that they work and live normal day lives. 

Facial Expressions and Body Language:

Facial expressions and body language are also used in Mise-en-Scene as this can show that the victim is scared or fearful of what is going to happen, this could be shown by the victim crying or trying to protect themselves from the murderer. Crying would be facial expressions and trying to protect themselves would be body language. I believe this is an important part to thriller films as it shows the fear felt by the victim, this can be related back to the audience as they may feel the same for the victim in this scene. 

Positioning of Characters and Objects within a Frame:

Positioning of characters and objects within a thriller film are very important as they can emphasise the importance of an object or a character in the scene, for example hearing a murder taking place without seeing it and then focussing on the weapon that may have been used that has been left behind can emphasise the importance of the weapon as it may have been used to kill the victim and as a result of hearing the murder the audience would automatically think that this may have been used to kill the victim. Positioning objects and characters in many films not only thriller films are very important as they can help to portray how the film is going to go or how the film may change because of and object or character, for example someone seeing a killing take place they may report this happening or go after the killer and confront him about what had just happened.
Colour and Lighting:
Colour and lighting are very key to thriller films as they can both represent danger, for example the colour red is used when thriller films are showing the opening credits and can be used to represent danger, this is used to scare the audience. The use of lighting is also used in thriller films, low key lighting is a key feature of thriller films as it is used to build tension and suspense. Low key lighting also represents danger in a thriller film as it shows something bad is going to happen in an up and coming scene.