1st Post!!

      Did you ever wonder what kind of skills it takes to be a director? Or how they make movies look so good compared to unprofessional film makers? Well one of the tricks up their sleeves is called mise en scene. Mise en scene is how the director sets a scene to make it appealing to the viewer.  There are five elements of mise en scene, which is the placement of objects or characters, lighting, setting, composition, and human figure.  The placement of objects and characters gives the movie or scene it's own taste.  The director chooses who and what goes where on the set, so he can convey what is happening in that scene.  The lighting can set the mood of the scene.  There are three types of lighting; hard, soft, and natural. Hard lighting casts more shadows and looks more menacing, which can be useful in suspense and horror films.  Soft lighting creates a more angelic glow on a character's skin and/or surroundings. Natural lighting is lighting from the sun and moon, but can also be from inside lighting that is neither hard nor soft. Setting is the place where the shot or scene is taking place.  Composition is a key factor to mise en scene.  It is the balance and symmetry of the shots being taken.  People refer to this as the rule of thirds.  If the shot was divided into a tic-tac-toe board the director could place a character's eyes on the top line because it is more natural and appealing to the viewer, but the director could always purposely place a character against these rules so the viewer would react more uncomfortably.  Human figure is the actors and actresses selected to play the roles on screen because of their abilities to portray the character. For example you can not have Bruce Willis acting as a ten year old in your film.

     In my film studies class, we started to analyze the mise en scene in films, and one of the films we had watched was Moonrise Kingdom, which was directed by Wes Anderson in 2012, who is an outstanding director. Moonrise Kingdom starts by introducing the Bishop family. They are a sort of dysfunctional family that has recently been having trouble with their twelve year old daughter Suzy Bishop. Suzy has secretly been planning a runaway with a Khaki Scout, Sam Shakusky, who met her at a church play. Sam runs away from his scout and meets up with Suzy in a field nearby, where they start their way across the island of New Penzance to a beach location called the Old Chickchaw path, but Sam and Suzy rename it to Moonrise Kingdom. While they escape, Sam's scout and Suzy's parents start a search party to find the two lovers. Though they are eventually caught up to by the party, their adventure does not end here. Sam is found out to be an orphan and the officer of the island, Captain Sharp, takes responsibility for him until Social Security comes to take him to a treacherous orphan facility. The Khaki Scout finds out and feels bad for Sam, so they decide to bail him and his girlfriend out again. The couple decides to escape to where it all started, the church. The search party reassembles with the help of Social Security and finds the scout and the couple at the church. On this night a storm hits the Island, which causes a dangerous situation for the lovers, scouts, and search party, but Captain Sharp developed a change of heart and adopts Sam so Social security does not take him.

     Moonrise Kingdom, along with other fantastic films, made by Wes Anderson, are great examples of how a director uses mise en scene in films.  He strictly follows composition, and the rule of thirds, by making everything symmetrical and balanced, and when Anderson wanted the viewers attention he would make them feel a little discomfort by placing the narrator at the bottom of the screen. The Bishop families house, the beach, and much more places in the film showed symmetry, which leads up to how Anderson used the placement of objects in his film. Anderson puts every object on the set for a reason, even though some scenes seem like it is just a clutter of stuff. If the viewer would look deeper
and analyze the shot they would see that the objects fit with the rule of thirds and balance out the shot, so the viewer would have a more calm and pleasing feeling about it. The setting of this film is on the island of New

Penzance, and the setting is built around the plot because it helps show how devoted the young lovers are by crossing the small island to where they find a place of peace, Moonrise Kingdom. Characters in this film like the two protagonists, Sam Shakusky, played by Jared Gilman, and Suzy Bishop, played by Kara Hayward, are great examples of human figure. All of the actors fit their roles perfectly just how Anderson had intended. Bill Murray played the perfect older father of Suzy Bishop, and Edward Norton looked completely natural when he was Scout Master Ward. Natural lighting was used all through out the film because Anderson didn't intend for Moonrise Kingdom to be a complete romantic film or a suspenseful horror film, but a comical, dramatic, romantic film.

     Alfred Hitchcock is a legendary director from the early, and mid 1900s. In film studies we recently watched one of his best movie, Strangers on a Train. This suspensful horror film starts with the main protagonist, a pro tennis player named Guy Haines, bumping into a very talkative man, who claims to know a lot about tennis, on a train. He mentions his name is Bruno Antony, and he starts talking about his perfect theory on how to get away with murder. He explains that he would kill someone Guy wanted to get rid of if Guy would kill Bruno's father. Guy thinks of Bruno as a mad man and did not want to be involved with it, but Bruno hears that Guy hates his cheating wife who is only staying with him because of his money, which is stopping Guy from being with his true love, Anne Morton. So discretely Bruno stalks Guy's wife, Miriam Haines, to a fair, where she is flirting with two men, and when he gets the opportunity of being alone with her he strangles her unheard. Bruno then approaches Guy reminding him that he must do his part now, which is to kill his father. When his love hears of this she is broken up that Guy is a suspect and his innocents has not been proven, but there is also no evidence that he is guilty. When Bruno realizes that Guy has not been even planing to attempt to kill Bruno's father, even though Bruno has given him a map, a key to his place, and a gun, he black mails Guy saying he will plant evidence that Guy was the murderer by putting Guy's lighter at the scene of crime. When Bruno does go to the fair to attempt it Guy shows up trying to stop him. It all eventually leads down to a duel of the fates on the carousel.

   Strangers on a train, by Alfred Hitchcock, is a great early film that shows that mise en scene has been around for many years of film making. Hitchcock chose to have hard lighting in the sinister moments and to usually cast it on the character Bruno Antony, played by Robert Walker, because he was the psychopathic antagonist in the film. He also used the soft lighting whenever Anne Morton, played by Ruth Roman, was in a scene because she was the love of Guy Haines, the protagonist, played by Farley Granger, for the scenes were usually romantic. The human figure in this film was portrayed very well. Robert Walker played the perfect psychotic antagonist, Bruno Antony. I thought that every actor was a great fit to character and they must be use to

acting as classy as they did because on the screen it looked natural. From the fair to Danburry, Conneticut the setting was a key factor to the climatic ending of the film. Hitchcock made the fun fair into the fear fair by placing the murder and action at the fair. Hitchcock had also included very well performed composition. He would always place the object or character he wanted the viewer to see most at the focal points of the tic tac toe board from the rule of thirds. Hitchcock used placement of objects and characters in this film mainly for blocking. Blocking is where the director places his backgrounds and props so the camera can get the perfect shots the director imagines while actors and more prepare around them without it being caught in a shot or scene.

Movie Preferences

    Out of the two films, Moonrise Kingdom and Strangers on a Train, it comes down to which one I think is better. Moonrise Kingdom showed off how mise en scene can make a comical drama look like candy to viewers, and I compare it to candy because you can never watch it too much. All of Anderson's films have this same unique style that I believe makes them so great to watch. Moonrise Kingdom is a film that makes you happy until it ends. Strangers on a Train was made by the legendary film maker, Alfred Hitchcock. The film never looses its suspense and horror unlike most other films have in the 1900s. Strangers on a Train was surely one of the legendary films that survived the fight of time and still ranks as one of the top films ever. From my opinion though, I think that Moonrise Kingdom was a better film. It had made my favorite films list and addicted me to Anderson's films. I would rate Moonrise Kingdom 8.5 birds compared to a rating of 7 birds for Strangers on a Train, even though both are very well films that are worthy to be on anybodies repertoire of watched films.