5 Essential Elements of Successful Mise en Scène in Film The visual culmination of a filmmaking collaboration. ; LEARN MORE with our online filmmaking course. “Everything in the frame can carry meaning.” The more you study and learn about filmmaking, the more you’ll encounter an elusive and fancy-sounding term: “Mise en scène”. Mise en scène – literally “placing on stage” in French – is a common term in film analysis and criticism circles. To explain it simply, mise en scène refers to what we see onscreen in a film. It’s the film’s visuals; meaning, all of the elements that appear on camera and their arrangement. Of course, many different factors contribute to the visuals – the setting, decor, lighting, depth of space, and costumes and makeup, to name only a few – but together, they comprise the mise en scène. Allow me to indulge a brief detour, here. I’ll bring it back around, I promise! So recently I served as a judge in a Junior Iron Chef competition at my town’s high school. If you’re familiar with the Iron Chef TV show, then you probably know that it’s a cooking competition in which a celebrity chef is challenged to whip up a dish that impresses a panel of celebrity judges. Junior Iron Chef is similar, except that the chefs are teams of high school kids, and they’re trying to impress, well, me and my fellow judges! I was a fish out of water. Most of the other judges were...
Published By: Lights Film School Blog - Tuesday, 27 February, 2018