FILM STOCK – Warm brown/orange filter to show the true colour of the planet and also show how hot the planet is in daylight.
SET DESIGN – Behind the astronaut is a dry desolate place, almost like an alien terrain, emphasises the fact that Mark is by himself on the planet Mars.
COSTUME – As the costume has the NASA logo on his right shoulder and an astronaut helmet, this clearly shows that Mark is wearing a space suit/astronaut suit built for extraterrestrial ground.
A key prop that I feel the film makers of Legally Blonde used very well is the fluffy pink pen the character Elle Woods used on her first day of Harvard at a law course because it really reflects her character, a preppy blonde girl stereotypically considered stupid but yet she managed to get onto a law course. the fluffy pink pen acts as a kind of humour as it isn’t a serious pen you’d expect someone to use, especially when taking law.
A film that makes really good use of its costumes in my own opinion is Black Panther. In Black Panther, the film is mainly set in an African city named “Wakanda” and due to it being African, the costumes have to be related to traditional African clothing but at the same time, futuristic as Wakanda is set as a technologically advanced city. I feel like they really lived up to the costume expectations as they really did look like they were African outfits with a futuristic twist and therefore being perfectly fit for the film.
In the film Edward Scissorhands, the character Edward is not only memorable for his personality, but also for his looks which is why I find this film to have one of the best makeup uses in film. For starters, Edward has a bird-nest like hairdo. The messy look not only reminded the audiences of Edward’s sad, lonely existence, but it was set as an icon and symbol for Burton’s gothic style. Edward’s pasty white look helped audiences to understand that he wasn’t normal. The pale colour of his skin helped to highlight his hair and black clothing, but was also used to emphasise the scars on his face. By directing audience’s attention to the accidentally self-inflicted wounds, the audience in a way feels sorry for Edward, which is a necessity for the story to work.
I feel like the recreation and set design of the famous ship, the Titanic worked really well as it looked exactly like the actual ship (from looking at old pictures of the titanic ship) and really made you feel like you were actually there with rose and jack on the ship. In fact, the recreation of the ship was so realistic that it was only 10% smaller than the real one that had sank in 1912.
Even though most of Lord of The Rings was filmed in New Zealand, I really couldn’t tell that it was filmed in such a tropical place as the set designers and directors really made good use of the place and hid the place well. The rolling hills of Matamata became Hobbiton, the home of Bilbo and Frodo with crops and flowers planted on set an entire year before filming began. The volcanic region of Mt Ruapehu in Tongariro National park was transformed into the setting for “Mordor” and “Mount Doom” where the ring is forged. The Southern Alps and the South Island glaciers became the “Misty Mountains” where Gollum hid away with the ring for 500 years.
A brilliant example of great lighting usage in films is the film The Godfather. The person who actually filmed each scene in the film gave it that dark gangster feel. Gordon Willis directed the lighting to be on top of the heads of the actor’s so that it would make shadows so that you couldn’t see actor’s eyes. His theory was to not see the eyes so you couldn’t see what the character was thinking which not only added to the story, but also the character the actor was trying to portray which I find really smart.
The film ‘Jackie’ (2016) is a biographical drama following the life of Jacqueline Kennedy during her days in the White House before and after the assassination of President Kennedy. I feel like the type of film stock the cameraman chose to shoot the film with (KODAK Super 16mm film) worked really well to help combine the live-action footage with old footage from the early 1960s used in the film.
A film the utilises space in a specific scene is My Neighbour Totoro. In the specific scene, catbus is seen to be behind the two little girls. Miyazaki fills the entire background with a lamp-eyed, grinning catbus. As catbus cannot speak, Miyazaki uses the technique of shallow space to create a form of ambiguity: is catbus going to eat the sisters or is he happy that they’re finally reunited?
By: Abby, Andrew, Oliver and Catalina.
The work of Cindy Sherman:
American photographer Cindy Sherman is known for her elaborately “disguised” self-portraits that focus on social role-playing and sexual stereotypes. She uses the different aspects of Mise En Scene to create different characters or settings. She is very talented and can make some really excellent transformations as seen in the photos bellow, as she goes form what looks like a librarian to a trashy trailer park woman. the series of pictures show the transformation she went through using makeup, props and costumes.
Mise En Scene – the arrangement of the scenery, props, etc. on the stage of a theatrical production or on the set of a film. It is the visuals of the film so anything that can be seen is part of the mise en scene. What creates a mise en scene is?
This can reveal a lot about the characters mood or life. For example, if the setting is someone’s bedroom and they have gaming posters then they are clearly someone that likes playing video games.
Décor is usually symbolic of something in the story. For example, colour can have deeper meaning about the character so black is usually associated with death or if there is large rugs or polished floors then the owner could be quite rich.
Different lighting usually suggests different genres or the feeling of the scene. If it is dark, then it could be a dramatic or horror film. Bright lighting normally means a lighter hearted film such as a comedy.
This is the distances between objects, people and everything else in the scene as well as how the camera moves, positioned and focused. Larger and clearer things on screen bring the viewers’ attention to them and contrasts them to other things in the scene.
What a character wears, looks like and how they wear it is crucial to portraying that character. Makeup can also bring out facial shapes and details, such as lots of black makeup may mean that there is a lot of darkness within the character.
Bellow are some of the photos we took in our lesson on Mise En Scene, we used different costumes, sets and lighting to get the feel of the pictures right.
– the appearance of being true or real
I feel that the film “Ghost In The Shell” (2016) uses and has the concept of verisimilitude as although it’s meant to be set in the future, the graphics and visual effects used to make these futuristic effects aren’t too much or too full on making it almost believable. Also the use of real people rather than animations as a base for the CGI make the movements in the film a lot more realistic and smooth.
