Mise-en-scène is a phrase used to describe the creative aspect of a film production. which basically means “what is in the screen”.
Cindy Sherman was born in January 1954 and is an American photographer who is known for her self-portraits, where she represents herself in many different forms and as various imagined characters.
Cindy Sherman makes all her photographs distinctive despite the fact that they are for the most part self-representations. She does this by utilizing mise en scene; this is the place she changes the foundation, her ensemble, her demeanor or her roll out up to improvement the state of mind. Likewise, all her photographs are arranged.
Her most realized work is a gathering of self-pictures where she changed something before snapping another picture. During this she went from a curator to a whore.
The following is our arrangement and endeavors at utilizing mise en scene in photographs.
The low key lighting directs attention to the centre and is an accurate portrayal of a dingy prison
The costumes of all characters reflect that of the 1930s, when the film is taking place, and the prison officers uniforms are very believable.
The characters are spaced in order of importance, the prisoner is directly in the center so as to get the most focus, with tom hanks and the rest of the guards around and then the people watching the execution almost out of shot as they are not very significant.
Set Design- Harry Potter. This film had to make sure the set always had to make sure the set fit with the context. A lot of inspiration came from 1960s shops and adverts
Costume- The Hunger Games. The costumes in the hunger games were vital as they clearly showed a divide between the rich and poor and later in the series showed character growth.
Space- Saw. Due to a lack of space, the film saw was made using only one room. This shows that films don’t need a big budget to be successful
Lighting- Blade Runner. This film series uses a lot of blue lighting to give sci-fi connotations and also uses a mixture of high and lowkey lightings to create contrast between scenes and set the mood effectively
Composition- King Kong 1933. For its time the composition of King Kong is very significant and would have wowed past audiences
Hair and Makeup- The Darkest Hour. In this film, Gary Oldman completely transforms into Winston Churchill thanks to the help of prosthetics and makeup
although we tend to categorise films into these classes, some films don’t fit to moulds and some are very fluid in their classes. For example, ‘Battleship Potemkin’ was created as soviet propaganda and is thought of as a historically significant because of that however ‘The Breakfast club’ was intended as a mainstream project but over time has become an art/historically significant film.
this chart shows the highest earning films of 2019 so far. All of these films were heavily advertised and can be categorised as ‘mainstream’ and a great deal are follow-up films from franchises that already have a large fanbase such as Marvel. Many fantastic indie, smaller budget films are often overlooked for these movies.
The performance arts. The theater production ‘a view from the bridge’ written by Arthur Miller is an example of performance art as it is a play but makes you feel as if you are inside a film.
The representational arts. An example of representational art is the film ‘1984’ based on the novel by George Orwell. This film tests the boundaries of language and control.
The recording arts. An example of a recording art is the TV show ‘Peaky Blinders’. The show is very realistic and although it is not a film, the production quality is like that of one.
An art piece that blurs the lines between these categories is the film ‘Heathers’ which was originally created as a film but now has a TV show and musical based on the film.
Verisimilitude means believably. In film this means keeping a film as realistic as possible even when the plot is incapable of happening in real life. A film such as ready player one’ uses verisimilitude as its whole basis is unrealistic so it has to use lots of realistic props and CGI to fully immerse the audience.
A well written plot, a decent cast and a knowledgeable director are all starting points for an ok film, however a truly good film needs to have a balance of components to work. Just having a star studded cast and/or a renowned director wont automatically make the film a success. Another question is ‘how do we measure a films success’ The most common way of evaluating this is through the amount of money made at box office during the initial release, on the other hand, the film series ‘Fast and Furious’ is not known for being a set of particularly stimulating films yet has grossed a combined $5 billion at the box office whilst cult classic ‘Fight Club’ was a box office flop when first released. Another way to measure how good a film is by its accolades. This can include awards from the sun-dance film festival, Oscars, or smaller awards from newspaper or magazines. However, often award winning films are very dull and are clearly just made as ‘Oscar bait’. This proves you cannot measure a films quality by its success so how are you meant to measure them? In my opinion a good movie is overall, entertaining. It doesn’t need to have amazing acting or a riveting plot but it needs to make the audience feel something. For example, the movie ‘Toy Story 4’ in my opinion, is cinematic gold. Watching this movie I went through every emotion. I laughed, I cried and I genuinely loved it. Going into a film with minimum expectations but coming out and being shocked by how good it was is amazing and I feel that that’s what really makes a good film; yourself. To enjoy a film you need to go in with an open mind and no prior feelings, else you’re setting yourself up for disappointment, if you hate you hate it but don’t try and dislike it. In conclusion, what makes a good films depends on the person watching. If you only like horrors then rom-coms are probably not the films for you.
