Mise-en-scene refers to everything within the frame of a film including setting, props, costumes, lighting, and actor positioning and expressions. It is used to manipulate the audience and convey meaning through denotation and connotation. Settings are carefully chosen or constructed to set expectations and influence mood. Lighting, in particular high-key and low-key techniques, color, and costumes are all employed to further immerse the audience and elicit specific emotional responses. Character relationships and personality are also revealed through mise-en-scene elements like body language and facial expressions.

1. MISE-EN-SCENE
Introduction to Film Language

2. WHAT IS MISE-EN-SCÈNE?
 Mise-en-scène is a french term that means what is put into a
scene or frame.
 It includes setting, props, staging, costume and make-up,
figure expression and movement and off-screen space.

3. The common sense descriptive
level of meaning in an image or
sound.
The secondary level of meaning
by which images and sounds are
interpreted.
DENOTATION & CONNOTATION
DENOTATION
CONNOTATION
Example:
A red flower,
with petals and
a green stem.
Example: Red flowers are associated
with love – handing someone a red
rose can symbolize your love for
them.

4. Setting and locations play an important
part in filmmaking and are not just
‘backgrounds’.
Sets are either built from scratch or a
great deal of time is spent to find a
setting which already exists.
Settings can manipulate an audience by
building certain expectations and then
taking a different turn.
SETTING & PROPS

5. LIGHTING & COLOR

6. HIGH-KEY & LOW-KEY
 Lighting to achieve a certain mood is easy if you work with three basic
elements: key, contrast and color.
 High-key images are basically light-toned with darker accents. This
doesn't mean low contrast; a good high-key lighting design includes a full
range of tones from white to black. Usually, high-key lighting feels warm,
cheerful, expansive and energetic.
 Low-key lighting produces mainly dark images accented by lighter
areas. Film noir classics and dramas like Casablanca use a full gray scale
from black to white, but the darker tones predominate.

7.  There's nothing like color to
influence mood, whether hot reds,
sunny yellows, soothing blues,
living greens or violent purples.
The production design usually sets
the color, but you can enhance it
with colored gels over your lights.
COLOR

8. COSTUME, HAIR & MAKE-UP
 Costume, hair and make-up act as an instant
indicator to us of a character’s personality,
status and job.
 As well it indicates immediately whether the
film is set in the present and what
society/culture it will be centered around.

9. POSITIONING AND SPACE
 Positioning within a frame can draw our attention to an important
character/object.
 A filmmaker can use positioning to indicate relationships between
people.

10. EXPRESSIONS & BODY LANGUAGE
 Facial expressions provide a clear indicator of how someone is feeling.
 Body language can indicate how a character feels towards another
character or may reflect the state of their relationship.

11. SPECIAL EFFECTS
 The illusions or tricks of the eye used in the film, television,
theatre, video game, and simulator industries to simulate the imagined
events in a story or virtual world are traditionally called special
effects (often abbreviated as SFX, SPFX, or simply FX).