Mise-en-scéne - Lecture notes PDF

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MISE-EN-SCÉNE What makes the difference between two films shot the same year about the same topic, is the mise-en-scéne, the decisions that the filmmakers take. The framing, the lighting… Origin of mise-en-scéne is theatre. But in early times, some acts also had mise-en-scéne. Rites: Religion, Education (survival), Interaction: done by the people / done for the people (recreate, reenact, entertain “birthday party, bridal shower”); Audience – Spectacle (contemplative); Myths and heroes (clearly defined characters and stories). Religious -> Profane Political ostentation (royalty). Delight for courtiers (later, bourgeoisie). Didactic function (educate the masses). Postmodernist theories: - Deadly theatre: repetition and no reinventation, lack of imaginative process, ineffective performance techniques, classic theatre conventional mise-en-scéne. - Holy theatre: audience joins performers in a transformative experience, extinct religious rituals re-enacted. - Marginal theatre: independent, unconventional, microtheatre. Theatre: one shot, one angle. Director works in one “frame”, create space, depth, level in stage. Film and television: - 1899. L’affaire Dreyfus, by George Melies. Eleven scenes. - 1900 Attack on a China mission, by Williamson. 4 scenes. The scene was recorded from an angle, and repeated again being recorded from another angle. When editing, the director put both scenes together, from the beginning. He did not understand how to create continuity and manage time in film. - 1903 Life of an american fireman. Parallel. Cross-cutting. A lot of shots and angles. Editing. Tell a story in different frames In Workers leaving the Lumiere’s factory, there is no mise-en-scène because they are not controlling the acting, the stage, etc. In Waterer Watered, character nearly gets out of frame. George Melies - The Haunted Castle, 1896. He uses imagination to create new images. Attack on a China mission - The scene was recorded from an angle, and repeated again being recorded from another angle. When editing, the director put both scenes together, from the beginning. He did not know how to create continuity and manage time in film. Le voyage dans la lune, by Melies, was an approach to get continuity, film language. Mise-en-scène: Of all-film techniques the most noticed. Involves planning in advance (do not renounce spontaneity). Filmmakers achieve realism: give settings authenticity, naturally performances. Filmmakers create fantasy, imaginary worlds, affected performances. It is the control of areas and elements that make possible to enact what is on filmmakers’ mind. Wes Anderson - Moonrise Kingdom / Steven Spielberg - Saving Private Ryan.

SPACE: L’arouse arousé (The waterer watered). Lumiere, 1895. Basic diagram. Elements: position (front view), Empty zones (expectancy), Depth (dynamism), Scale (human being point of reference). Not just fill it with anything. We do not make good or bad decision, but better or worse. Geographically: Hand-held camera style cause. We think we can put the camera everywhere. Depth interpretation + space comprehension = understand image as three dimensional space. Binocular vision (two eyes) - Monocular vision (camera). To fake: performers’ position, camera position, décors. Screen Space (in the frame): As in art, we work with shades, colors and shapes. To guide attention, emphasize elements… Balance (empty zones - expectancy), Contrast (shade/light, color warm/cool, bright/dark, size), Movement. Canted/Dutch angle - 45º, Inception. Bavarian angle - 90º, Los Otros. Luxemburg angle - 180º, Upside Down. Scene space: Depth cues: elements of the image that create the impression that two-dimensional pictures are presented as three-dimensional areas. It is provided by mise-en-scène aspects, such as setting, lighting, costumes and staging. It suggests that space has volume (solid and threedimensional area shape, shade and movement) and planes (layers of space occupied foreground, middleground and background). Types of depth cues: - Overlapping: warm coloured, brightest, and shapes hiding elements seem to be closer to us. it is very used in cartoons, ex: The Flintstones. - Casting shadows: perspective with different planes. - Movement: provides us references. - Aerial perspective: hazing over more distant planes / lighting + depth focus. Tony Scott uses it as the main depth cue in True Romance, 90% of the shots have it. He knows the technique because he had been working in the advertising and music videos industry. - Size diminution: objects further away = smaller. - Linear perspective: vanishing point - central (one point) or off-center. Bilateral symmetry: the extreme type of balancing. Kubrick is the master of this. Depth cues are monocular - illusion of depth input from one eye (camera). Stereopsis is a binocular depth cue: our two eyes see from different angles, 3D (shot with two lenses), rendered by cinematography rather than mise-en-scène. Composition: - Swallow-space: little depth, closest and most distant places seem only slightly separated. - Deep-space: a significant distance seems to separate planes. Makes foreground plane quite large and background plane quite distant. Space according John Gibbs: Element of mise-en-scène.

Vital expressive element: - in frame - organisation of the contents, position of the camera. - with performers (staging): personal space between them, blocking (position of the actors) relationship expressed, patterns created in blocking (letter patterns in blocking A L I ). Device- Dolly: vehicular camera support that allows the ¿camera operator? to be wheeled in different directions. Abilities: - Crab(bing): (left or right). Movement of the camera on a dolly or other vehiucular support, parallel with the performers to pace and mantain image size. Also: trucking. - Track(ing): (in-forward or out-backwards). movement of the camera toward the subject or away from the subject. Also: trucking. - Dolly mounts: - Pedestal: hydraulically operated telescopic dolly with a column type mount for a tv camera. - Boom: a mobile camera mount, usually in a perambulator, that can be moved in all directions and raised above the set or scenary, enabling the camera to photograph from various angles and to overcome obstacles. - Ped: (up or down). Movement of the camera on a hydraulically operated telescopic or boom dolly, parallel with the performers, to pace and maintain image size. Device - Handheld: A shot photographed without a tripod or fixed mount by holding the camera in hand or on shoulder. Ability: Release the camera allowing all kind of movements giving the shot realistic qualities (documentary or amateur look-alike). POV = Point of view effect. Device - Zoom lens: camera lens with a variable focal length. Ability: zoom-in / zoom-out. Wide range of shots from close up to long shot. The gradual changing of the focal length of a lens in a slow or rapid movement, giving the effect of dollying, although the camera remains stationary. Dolly zoom (Vertigo zoom); created by Irmin Roberts in Vertigo (1958). A camera effect that results of the opposite combination of a zoom lens and a dolly. Zoom in+tracking out / Zoom out+tracking in. It keeps the subject in the same size throughout the take and continues perspective distortion. It can have different meanings, like something strange is happening, or is going to change. Device - Steadycam: trade name for a handheld camera support system to ensure steady picture registration. Invented by Garret Brown in 1973. Ability: Allows movement by the operator; walking follow shot, running up and down stairs, panning, tilting. The Protector, restaurant fight scene. Device - Shoulder pod: portable camera support resting on a camera operator’s shoulder to show movement. Ability: mix tripod - handheld camera. Wrongly used as cheap steadycam.

PRODUCTION DESIGN (SETTING): LoBrutto: it is the visual art and craft of cinematic storytelling. Production designer. To render the screenplay in visual metaphors, a colour palette, architectural, and period specifics, locations, designs, and sets. To coordinate costumes, makeup and hairstyles. It researches the world in which the film takes place to establish a sense of authenticity.

It must interpret and transform the story, characters and narrative themes into images that encompass the architecture, décor, physical space, texture and tonality. It uses sketches, illustrations, photographs, models and storyboards. They are heads of the Art Department and manage a creative team that includes art directors, set decorators, property masters, painters, carpenters and speciality crafts people. They use imagination, technique, illusion and reality.; and apply discipline and financial restraint. They are responsible for interpreting the script and the director’s vision, translating it into physical environments in which the actors can develop their characters and present the story. Earliest films did not have production designers; 1 documentary, 2 painted backdrops and simple props, 3 supervising art directors. Production design functions are in service of the story, in the vision and creation of the illusion of verisimilitude and fantasy. Bordwell: setting. He says that the setting plays a more active role in cinema than in theatre. He quotes Bazin “Human being is all-important in theatre; Drama can exist on screen without any actor; Effect of a banging door, plastic bag, a leaf in the wind...” Winchester 73. A western starred by a shotgun (1950). Horror movies about haunted houses. War horse (Steven Spielberg, 2012). Wig in the Simpsons’ episode The treehouse of horror IX. Filmmakers may select existing locale for action (location) or construct the setting (décors). Some flimmakers emphasize authenticity, other have been less committed to accuracy. Setting can overwhelm the actors, and it can be reduced to almost nothing. The overall design of a setting can shape how we understand the story. To build or not to build?: Complete décors, Locations with “prosthetics” (adding some things to locations), Miniatures, Full size sections + paintings (combined photographically), Digital effects. PROPS (Properties): The propmaster is the responsible to arrange and handle props. All movable, physical object used on the set in a film or television show, such as decorations, furnishing, hand props, vases, dishes, and so on. Objects in the setting that have a function within the ongoing action. The ring in Lord of the Rings, The Magnum in Dirty Harry, The telephone booth (Tardis) in Doctor Who. The decors correspond to the doors, walls, etc, which are not movable.  Mere objects are part of the dècor.  Meanings: transfer from reality to allegory. Kitchen knife: cutlery (becomes) menace (becomes) release.  Develop associations (metaphors).  To create a mood: cliches like cigarettes and glass of whisky.  To identify a character: Excalibur.  To identify a genre: lightsaber. COSTUMES Coordinated with setting and cinematography. Great variety of specific functions: - Casual roles (Speed)

- Narrative progression (social class) - Meanings (metaphors, Miller’s crossing’s) - Graphic qualities (colour, contrast) - Pick the characters out (contrast) uniforms - Authenticity (period movies) - Identify genre CGI costumes (full or just enhances): Green lantern, Batman (Christopher Nolan). MAKE UP, HAIR STYLE Early days: help register faces (film stocks-low film speed). Today: to pass unnoticed, avoid shine and pale faces. Accentuate expressive qualities (eyebrows, rings, wrinkles). Historical. Identify a character. FX make up: Horror movies (monsters), Science fiction movies, To age, To create wound and scars, Impersonations. CGI (digital make up). Absence (realism, sickness). LIGHTING Legibility (even with your cell phones). More than just illumination to see. Light: - Guide our attention. - Stand out the textures. - Create mood. - Describe characters. - Build up drama. - Enhance genre. - Lighting + setting = control scene’s space. Highlights; brightness on a surface. Shadows; shading and cast. A cinematographer is in charge of the lights, s/he needs to be very good and fast in putting them, and have good taste when organizing them. Highlights: brightness on a surface lighting shape objects and showing textures. - Smooth surface: highlights tend to gleam or sparkle. - Rough surface: highlights are diffuse. Shadows: shading and cast. Objects have portions of darkness (shading). Cast their shadows onto something else. Filmmakers (with Cinematographers): Quality, direction, source, color. QUALITY - Intensity: - Hard lighting: clear defined shadows, crips textures, sharp edges. Direct sun, Fresnel lens (Fresnel light fixture). - Soft lighting: wide-spread illumination. Overcast sky, filtered fluorescent light. DIRECTION: Path of light from its source to the object lit.

- Frontal light: source faces to the object, light comes facing the object, flat-looking imag, eliminates shadows. - Side lighting (cross lighting): source is set aside of the object, light comes from left or right, and it sculpts characters or objects. - Backlighting: source is in the back of the object. Light comes from behind alone creates silhouettes. Combined with other sources creates a contour. Edge lighting - rim lighting: objects stand out from the background. - Under lighting: source is under the object. Light comes from below distort features. Creates dramatic effects. Recreate conventions (effects) fire, flashlight... - Top lighting: source is over object. Light comes from above, realism. Dramatic atmosphere. SOURCE: to make a pattern of light to create a specific mood. - Available light (documentaries): sunlight or artificial light (fire, lightbulbs...) sensitivity. - Added Light: light fixtures (luminaire): Fresnel (halogen, quarz, tungsten), HMI (gas-discharge lamps), Spotlights (halogen), LED (Light-Emitting-Diode), PAR (halogen), Fluorescent. Key Light: primary source. The most directional light. Provides brightest illumination. Casts the strongest shadows. (Sometimes) suggested by a light source in the set, may be aimed at the subject any angle. Fill light: Less intense illumination. To fill, to soften (shadows cast by the key light), to eliminate. Since classical Hollywood filmmaking: - Three-point lighting (at least): Key light (from any angle but diagonally), Fill light (softer and dimmer near the camera), Back light (from behind and above) - Key light closer to the object or brighter than the fill light. - When character B is added to the shot, A backlight is B key light. - Light is adjusted for each camera position. Unrealistic, but...does enable filmmakers create strong effects in each shot. High-key lighting: overall lighting design that fill and back lights create low contrast between brighter and darker areas. Soft light quality. Comedies and some dramas. Low key lighting: Lighting is hard and fill light is lessened or eliminated. Stronger contrast, sharper, dark shadows and dark void around the characters. Chiaroscuro. Noir, horror, science fiction and some dramas. Nowadays, cinematographers mix both styles in many movies. COLOUR: Filmmakers use to work with as purely white a light as they can. (white balance – colour temperature). So, they can manipulate colour in such different ways: - Filtering light spots or camera. - Post-production (colour correction): colour timing (photographic process) and colour grading (digital process). Realistic: Elephant, The Godfather (brown – gangster style). Unrealistic: Batman forever (Black light or ultraviolet light)....