Mise-en-scene refers to everything visible within the frame of a shot, including color, costume, props, location, blocking/performance, and lighting. These elements are used to convey meaning and provide context about characters and their circumstances. For example, costumes can indicate a character's social class, lighting can set mood, and color can symbolize ideas like danger or purity. Together, mise-en-scene aims to immerse viewers in the world of the film through visual authenticity.

1. Mise-en-scene
What does mise-en-scene mean?
It is a French phrase for “placed in the scene”.
Everything that you can see can be seen in one shot.
What are the 6 key areas of mise-en-scene?
Colour, costume, props, set/location, blocking and performance, lighting.
Colour:
How is colour used in the 3 below pictures?
Red could represent blood, danger and love
Black could represent danger and death.
White could represent peace and purity.
Green could represent envy.
Blue could represent cold.
Purple is a royal colour.
Costume:
What can we interpret from these costumes?
Costumes can be considered to include hair and makeup and give the audience a
first impression of the characters in the film. The picture in the left we can tell that the
characters are from the lower class from the way they are dressed whereas the
characters in the right are dressed much smarter and would be considered in the
upper class.

2. Mise-en-scene
Location:
Can be a purpose built set or a real location
Blocking/Performance:
 Blocking refers to the positioning and movement of actors within the frame,
both in relation to each other and in relation to the camera (which represents
us, the audience)
 Performance covers all aspects of the actual acting – gesture, expression,
accent etc.
Lighting:
How is lighting being used to create mood in the following examples?
High key lighting – light across the frame with little or no shadow or dark areas.
Low key lighting – Used for high contrast between light and dark within the frame
with shadow often being used for effect.
Ambient lighting – the scene has been lit using natural light.
Props:
Everything that we can see in the set like tables.
Verisimilitude
This is a useful term which refers to the authenticity of the environment created on
screen.