mise-en-scene:
mise-en-scene is used in every movie that you have watched throughout your whole life, it is a french term which translates to "in the scene or frame" and means is basically anything which the viewer can see in that particular scene of the movie.
mise-en-scene has a lot of different elements to it and is not just one thing, it is a collection of different things and themes for example mise-en-scene is normally referring to 5 very specific things which you can see within a movie these five things are as follows:
- setting and props
- costume, hair and make-up
- facial expressions and bodily language
- lighting and color
- positioning of characters and objects within the frame
These are the main five things which we discuss when we are talking about mise-en-scene however when we are talking about these we also like to include two other aspects or ideas and which we talk about these are denotation and connotation.
- Denotation is the literal description of an idea,concept or an object for example if a movie has a scene where a person is injured then it fades to white and a scene where he is not present the denotation of that would simply be that it became lighter and bright all of a sudden.
- Connotation however is what we associate with a particular idea, concept or object so if we again talk about a scene where a man is injured, it fades to white and then he is not present our connotation of that would be that either he is in hospital or more than likely has passed away, this is because we frequently associate the bright white with heaven/afterlife
When it comes to both connotation and denotation color can play a very big and important role within these two as color often creates moods within the sub-conscious mind.
So in short when we are talking about mise-en-scene we are not talking about editing necessarily or what we can hear/dialogue we are just simply talking about what can be seen in that frame.
