Planning mise-en-scene - Miss Miller

Mise-en-scene

Mise en scene is the use of communication of information to the audience by visual effects in front of the camera and how the stuff in a frame is shown and arranged. This is important as it communicates the most recognizable attributes which includes: setting&iconography, costume hair&makeup, facial expressions & body language, positioning of characters and objects within a frame and the colour and lighting. All of these help the audience to establish where the film is set, the main characters their status, and the mood and atmosphere of the film. 

The mise en scene of our thriller includes the setting being in a train station and on a train. We have chosen this as our setting as it is an unusual and unexpected place for a thriller to take place and therefore shock and surprise the audience. Our setting is relate able to our audience as they will be able to put themselves in the characters shoes and therefore feel more involved in what is happening, putting the audience in suspense as they will have built a relationship with the characters.This relates back to the thriller genre as train stations are sometimes known to be quite spooky and mysterious especially when going through a dark tunnel, they create the fear element of surprise and shock through the dramatic and loud sounds trains make on the tracks. 

The costume, hair and makeup used in our clip will be ordinary everyday makeup and casual clothes, this will be so that the audience will be able to relate to the characters more and therefore feel more involved in whats happening and to show the victims status'. This put the audience in suspense as they will be imagining themselves in the characters position making it more tense. The killer will be wearing a scary mask to show to the audience that he is the killer, this will make the audience scared and in shock as it creates the fear of the unknown which relates back to the thriller genre as it creates more of a mystery and hidden meaning.

The facial expressions and body language that we are going to use are at the beginning of the clip the characters are going to look happy and smiling, (this is to show the contrast between moods later on in the scene) this will help the audience in knowing how to feel at certain points of the clip. Later on in the scene the main character will look shocked, scared and frightened when she realizes she is in danger, this is to communicate to the audience how the character is feeling at the time and the mood trying to be portrayed. This relates back to the thriller genre as it highlights the fact that there is a blonde innocent female victim in danger.

The positioning of characters within the frame are at first, the killer is going to be on the bridge that goes over the train station looking down on the victims below him, this is to show that he has more authority and power over them as he is trying to hurt them not the other way around. This will help the audience understand the characters different status's. Throughout the scenes the main blonde victim will be positioned in the middle of her friends to show that she is the main person and that will focus the audience's attention on her more. This is relateable to a thriller as it shows that the killer has more power over his victims as he is looking down on them.

The colour and lighting that were are going to use in our clip are at the beginning its going to be bright and sunny where the characters are going to be happy and smiling, which shows to the audience pathetic fallacy where the weather corresponds to the mood and vise versa. This will show to the audience that the characters aren't in any harm. Later on in the scene when the main character is in danger there is low key lighting which makes the audience feel scared as it makes them think something bad is going to happen. This is conventional to a thriller as low key lighting is used to create an eery atmosphere for something bad to take place, which makes the audience feel uneasy and ready for a shock.

My thriller can help build a relationship with our audience by the fact that our actors are roughly the same age as our target audience, this will make them more interested in what's happening and make the scene more relateable for them and therefore the audience will create a relationship with the characters as they can relate to what is happening more. The audience is going to make a relationship with the characters also by the characters making their emotions and feelings very clear through their facial expressions this will make them feel more attached to the characters and have more emotion in what they are doing throughout the clip, leading them to feel more anxious and increase the suspense. Our location being in a train station and on a train is very relateable to our audience as many teenagers travel on trains and use train stations on a day to day basis, this will therefore make the audience more intrigued in whats happening to the characters and then making a relationship with them as they will be able to put themselves in their shoes.