The document defines six elements of mise-en-scène that communicate essential information to audiences: 1) body language and facial expressions, 2) setting and props, 3) costume/hair/makeup, 4) color and lighting, 5) character positioning, and 6) technical choices. It then provides examples of how each element conveys meaning and influences the audience's understanding of characters, relationships, and the overall film.

2. • French term that refers to a series of elements of film construction that may
be seen within the frame of the individual shot
• Communicates essential information to the audience
• The 6 elements are:
1. Body Language and Facial Expressions
2. Setting and Props
3. Costume, Hair and Make Up
4. Colour and Lighting
5. Positioning of Characters within the Frame
6. Technical Choices

3. • Facial Expressions provide clear indications of how someone is feeling
• If someone is smiling broadly we assume they are happy but we may get a
different feeling if this accompanied by scary music
• Body language may also indicate how a character feels towards another
character or may reflect the state of their relationship

5. • Costume, Hair and Make Up act as an instant indicator to us of a
character’s personality, status and job
• It tells us immediately whether the film is set in the present and what
society/or culture it will centre around
• Certain costumes can signify certain individuals (i.e. Batman in his
Batman suit)

6. • Colour carries certain connotations which may add meaning to a scene
(i.e. Red = Danger/or Love)
• Can give a scene a particular look, feel or mood
• Can be used for dramatic effect
• Can be used to: Highlight important characters or objects within the
frame; to make characters look mysterious by shading sections of the
face and body; to reflect a characters mental state/hidden emotions (i.e.
Bright = happy, dark = disturbed, strobe effect = confused)

7. • Perhaps the audience see James
Bond in black and white because in
the scene it is going back to a
memory, perhaps it suggests he
doesn’t want to remember it
• Heightens the impact of violence in the
film and duality of good and evil, hence
the henchmen being in black and the
worker in a white shirt, represents good
and evil
• The film starts in colour, then shifts to
black and white, this represents past and
present
• Both involve violence, both
showing them in black and white
it takes away the feel and mood of
the scene, meaning you have
focus on the emotions on the
characters faces

8. • Positioning within a frame can draw attention to an important
character or object
• A film-maker can use positioning to indicate relationships between
characters

9. • Camerawork, why are certain camera shots used to gain a certain affect?
• The use of certain angles to represent different things to the audience
watching a movie
• Sound and Editing are also important in gaining an affect in a movie

10. These are the ‘big ideas’ of a media text.
To do with USP but also the morals and
messages the text is supposed to
communicate.

11. • These are all the little decisions that go
into forming the macro viewpoint.
• E.g. The macro decision about how to
represent British teenagers in the
Inbetweeners movie is due to:
• Props, editing, music, action, sound
effects, settings, hair cuts, make up, camera
angles, accents, scripting, casting, lighting
and costume

12. • Argues that media texts serve to reproduce dominant ideologies
• Encoding/Decoding (1980)
• Dominant Ideology is the preferred reading
• ‘Dominant’ readings are produced by those whose social situations
favour the preferred reading;
• ‘Negotiated’ readings are produced by those who alter the preferred
reading to take account of their social position
• ‘Oppositional’ readings are produced by those whose social position
puts them into direct conflict with the preferred reading

13. • Media texts don’t have an inherent meaning
• The creator of the text encodes the meaning they want
• The audience or reader of a text decodes the text – Taking a
meaning that, according to Hall, is dominant, negotiated or
oppositional.

14. • Sign – Describes anything that carries meaning
• Signifier – Physical Sign
• Signified – Meaning carried by sign

15. • Visual pleasure and Narrative cinema’, publish 1975
• “In a world ordered by in sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking
has been split between active/male and passive/female. The
determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female
figure which is styled accordingly”.
• The ‘Male Gaze’ is a hugely influenced theory
•