Mise En Scene!

The other day, we learnt about Mise en Scene. I learnt about what it is, and what I need to say when talking about it in the exam.

Mise en Scene is what you would see in a frame of a set and why it is there, or why are they wearing that? etc. For example, the colour of walls in the house, the type of clothes a person is wearing, or the pattern on the curtains, what do all of these symbolise or represent? Mise en Scene, literally means "put in the scene". It's french!

Within Mise en Scene, there are other factors that need to be considered when writing about Mise en Scene, like Connotations. Connotations are suggestions that are linked to something, e.g. if a red sports car drove around the corner, the viewers immediate reaction and thoughts would be "rich". Another is Enigma Code, this is a symbol with connotations, so if a key was brought out of a folder or a wallet, this causes mystery and excitement within the programme and the viewer would think, "oo, what does that open?!"

So that lesson we watched an episode of Eastenders. We were asked to write about the Mise en Scene of certain paused steps of the episode. It was interesting at how much there is to write about when it is in front of you, the colour on the wall of the house, the main characters, their hair, their make up, the lighting, the pattern on the teacups, the body language, the facial expressions and even what is on top of the cupboard in the kitchen! This was a good example of Mise en Scene.

Then yesterday, we watched a clip from Yasmin, a TV show set in Bradford, following an Asian woman and her life. We were asked to do a timed essay, so we saw the clip and had to write a lot about what we saw every few seconds! It was challenging but good practice. We then had to put all the notes we had quickly scribbled down into a long essay. The question was how the Mise en Scene contributed to Asian and British culture. Again, there was a lot to say as the culture clash between Asian and British was constantly shown.