How does your media product represent particular social groups through the use of mise en scene?
When looking at mise-en-scene we used props such as cigarettes and a broken lighter, to show his anxiety and need for relief as well as beer bottles and glasses, which adheres to the character we wanted to convey which was an alcoholic man. The representation of this character through gender, shows clearly that he is a man as we can physically see it, as well as him having the traits of a male, as there are beer bottles laying around, which is stereotypically what a man drinks, as well as straight whisky. This also shows his age, as he is obviously over 18 as he is drinking and smoking, and the way in which he handles the cigarettes and drinks, shows he has experience. Another crucial prop is the hammer, throughout the whole sequence there is an element of suspicion however the audience can not assume that the character is bad in any way until we see him pick up the hammer. This gives a direct clue that he is going to do something that might include killing someone or negative. A hammer brings up negative connotations and is a convention of a thriller/horror.
This relates to the facial
expressions part of mise-en-scene where we can see when he drinks
that he is used to that kind of alcohol intake therefore supporting
the idea that he is an alcoholic. We can also see that he may be
already quite intoxicated as he fails to pour the whisky into the
glass correctly, spilling around the glass as well. When lighting the
cigarette there is an obvious facial expression of anger as he is
unable to light the cigarette. Here we can see the male aspect of the
character as he loses his temper easily.
His costume is a black,
dirty suit which is typical of a working man. The fact that the suit
is black is a colour connotation to his dark side, and indicates to
the audience that he has a dark side. In relation to representation
the fact that he is wearing a suit shows the audience that he is at
the age where he still has to work, however he is at a stable boring
desk job. He is represented through his costume as a middle aged man
with an unchallenging job, which may be the cause of his drinking
addiction. However, the audience does not immediately assume that he
may be a killer because of his costume, this then adds on to the
element of surprise in our thriller and makes it more suspenseful and
thrilling.
The lighting in our thriller
is natural light in the first room, which gives the impression that
the character is inside and it is during the day. We were lucky
enough to shoot on a sunny day, that way we did not need to use
specific lights to highlight our actor and were able to effectively
convey to the audience that it is the middle of the day, this makes
the thriller more normal therefore creating the contrast into the
other room greater. The second room is quite dark and has small
lights on the walls to create a darker more intimidating tone. This
is effective as all the tension filled action occurs in this scene.
In relation to character
positioning we decided to have the male character, the protagonist,
in a different room to the girl, this way there is a change in
scenery. We also wanted to create a contrast between the two
characters, as our initial plan was to have shots from the different
rooms to confuse the audience however when it came to editing the
footage we found that it was much more effective to keep the
beginning of our sequence in one room and then introduce the girl in
the next room afterwards. We also chose to use two different rooms to
show a sense of isolation between the characters and build tension
when we then show the audience that they are in the same house, and
that the male character is actually going to kill the girl in the
other room. By putting the girl in a different room we can see the
contrast between the two characters, being age and gender.
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