Research into Mise-en-Scene - Miss Georgiou

Mise-en-scene means everything in the scene. It translates from French to 'placing on stage' and refers to all the characters and objects in a particular frame. It is the costumes, hair, make up, facial expressions and body language of the characters, lightening and colour, setting, iconography used and positioning of characters or objects within the frame.

The Conjuring (2013)

Setting and Iconography

This scene from The Conjuring is set in an old-fashioned house in the 1970s, which gives the film an old-fashioned, creepy, vintage atmosphere. Iconography used in this scene includes a young girls necklace, a haunted doll and a chair. The necklace is hung at the girls bedside as she sleeps and it slowly and gradually starts to swing as if somebody is moving it. This emphasis the films theme of possession and makes the viewer believe and understand that someone else is with the young girl in her bedroom although they cannot see how and it appears she is alone at first.

The girl goes down the stairs and enters a room full of haunted iconography. There she notices that the haunted doll, Annabelle, is missing as she sees the empty chair she used to sit on. The chair is a significant piece of iconography in this scene because it is represntitive of the haunted doll. The first time it appears, the emptiness of it creates dramatic tension as it highlights the fact Annabelle is missing, suggesting a paranormal act has occured and she has moved by herself and raising the question of where she is.

Later the young girl looks back into the room and Annabelle has returned. It seems as if somebody is sitting on the chair, rocking and brushing the dolls hair. The doll disappears again and the chair moves by itself towards the girl and crashes into the wall. This gives the impression that the chair is also possessed and that the demon that possesses it is angry.


Costume, Hair and Make up

The young girl is wearing her pyjamas because she has been asleep. This represents that it is night time and therefore dark. This makes the viewer believe that something bad or unpleasant will occur. The nightwear is also very old fashioned like the setting. It is a long night dress that reaches the floor and is long sleeved. It is white and covered in flowers. This also tells us that the film is set in an older era and adds a creepy feeling, like the setting does.

The figure that you see sitting on the chair and holding the doll is wearing dull, dark, baggy clothing. Together with the persons messy, dirty hair, the clothes imply that she is disturbed and possessed

The doll is wearing a long, elegant white dress with a red ribbon belt and white ballerina-style shoes. Her hair is plaited at both sides and tied with red bows. This creates irony because the dolls outfit denotes that she is innocent and harmless when the viewer knows that she isn't. This is emphasised by the dirt that covers the dress and face of 'Annabelle' the doll. The girl's night gown is patterned with brightly coloured flowers to emphasise and magnify that she is child-like an innocent. This also suggests that she is naive and vulnerable and therefore unaware and not expecting what is about to occur.

Body Language and Facial Expressions
The protagonist walks cautiously and slowly down the stairs, holding on the banister and looking around as she does so. This suggests she is feeling uncertain, uncomfortable and slightly fearful. This mirrors the feelings of the audience who are feeling the same because they are also unsure of what to expect. In another scene, when supernatural activity begins to take place, she becomes frightened of what might happen to her. She portrays this by screaming, covering her ears with her hands while squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to block out everything that is going on around her. Her body language and facial expression changes from relatively relaxed and mildly concerned to terrified and extremely worried. This quick transition alarms the audience and makes them too feel fearful because they understand that something bad will occur soon.

As her fear increases, she begins to scream, bang on the door and pull on the door knob. The audience understands that she cannot escape the room and therefore their panic increases as the girls does. This is conventional of a thriller film because there are usually scenes that show a protagonist struggling to escape the antagonist. The reasons for this are to provoke anxiety, fear and panic in the audience and to raise the question whether they will escape or get caught.
Other characters in this scene include the parents of the young girl and they are first seen with worried facial expressions. Because the parents are familiar with supernatural activity their facial expressions show instant reconisation and understanding of what is happening, making them more worried for their daughter. This is further proved by the body language of them both. They hurry into the house after discovering that something is wrong and the father breaks down the door.This shows how scared they were and how their main prioritie was getting to their daughter and keeping her safe.



Lighting and Colour

Low key lighting sharply contrasts the light and dark areas in this scene. Deep, bold shadows are formed which connote mystery as well as framing the young girls face and highlighting her vulnerability. The distinct shadows emphasise the dramatic tension. The dark tones of the lighting create a mysterious, somber and dramatic mood. This is created by using a single or few point sources of light and directed straight onto a scene, object or person.The hard lights leave sharp shadows that define whatever they are framing.
At the start of the clip as the necklace starts to swing at the girls bedside, the lighting creates a shadow that casts over the girl. This predicts that the girl will be the focus of the upcoming scene and that something bad may happen to her due to the element of possession that the necklace represents.
As the girl walks down the stair way,  flashes of lightening brightens up the house for a split second each time. In between the lightening the scene is completely black so the lightening breaks up this darkness. When a lightening flashes, the viewer can see the girl and the setting more clearly. There is a focus on the girls positioning and facial expressions because the viewer is waiting to see what she will do and what will happen next. Shadows are created by the lighting which create deep silhouettes and in turn provoke dramatic tension and fearful suspension in the viewer.
The carpet on the stairs is a bright red colour. This came be used to predict danger and connote that something bad will happen later in the scene to the girl walking down the red stairs. This is because red is a colour that can be associated with danger and warnings and the red stands out against the other dark colours and overtone of the scene. In several parts of the scene darkness appears to grow and consume the rooms that the girl is in at different times. It usually occurs when the girl is fearful and something is about to happen so the audience feels tense and is expecting something unpleasant to occur.
At the end of this scene the child is locked in a room while her parents and grandparent are outside trying to reach her. A cross-cutting camera effect is used to switch from one room to the other, showing the audience both perspectives. This is done quickly and sharply to contrast the difference between the two rooms. The room that the girl is locked in is dark with low-key lighting and the other room is bright with high-key lighting.


Positioning

The start of the video clip entails a sleeping girl in her bed. The fact that she is not awake provides a vulnerability about her because she does not know what is going on or what will happen next. Once the girl has woken up, she leaves her bedroom and starts to slowly walk along the corridor and down the stairs. She stands at the top and centre of the stairway and looks down it towards the camera. The setting is dark and there are no other main objects or people in that frame. This directs the viewers attention and focus entirely on the girl. This allows them to see her at a closer level and imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes. The viewer starts to share the girls emotions and thoughts, feeling what she ifs feeling and what they would expect to feel in her situation: curiosity, fear and confusion etc.


Altogether, the aspects of mise-en-scene all create a dramatic effect on the audience, provoking shock, surprise and suspense in them. Certain parts of mise-en-scene allow the viewer to understand more about the characters. Using an everyday setting, casual clothes and day to day iconography makes it more likely for the viewer to build a relationship with the characters because they can relate to them and therefore put themselves in their situation. This makes them imagine what it would be like if they was in that situation when unpleasant events begin to occur. This increases their involvement in the film and heightens their emotions when watching. I will refer back to the different characteristics of mise-en-scene when creating my own thriller film because these are five of the most important things that I should consider because they all help to create an effect on and manipulate the mood of the audience.