Research
on Mise En Scene within thrillers:
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Within a thriller, it is common for shots of low key lighting to be
used in order to heighten the sense of climax and suspense which is
being created within the scene. This low level of lighting is used
(sometimes intentionally) to create shadows. Shadows are effective
because they encompass negative, oppressing and threatening
connotations. They can also be used in order to create fear and
tension. In order to increase the effectiveness of shadows, black and
white colouring can be used to emphasise this. In one scene, we may
attempt to use black and white colouring however, we have developed
too much of an intricate plan to film the whole of our trailer in
black and white.
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Typography of the film title is usually designed with intricate
detail in order to reflect themes within the film. For example,
‘Friday the 13th’ contains a fairly neutral typography
through the use of the colour white and then there is red blood
splattered all over the ‘13th.’ This foreshadows a
potential murder or sense of violence on the 13th date of
the month. This leads onto another point that colour is used to evoke
emotion and demonstrate theme therefore the careful selection of the
colour red is used to epitomise a threat. An example may include how
black can be used to epitomise the idea of death. When designing
typography, we will undoubtedly take this into account and will, at
least, use colour to indicate themes of our trailer.
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Eerie music can be used in order to create suspense. This is also
used to epitomise tension and panic. In a similar sense, the effect
of silence can often be used to maintain suspense. Examples may
include when someone is looking / hiding from a potential threat;
here, silence may be used to heighten tension of the scene and used
to create dramatic suspense. In our teaser trailer, we may explore
the effect of silence because we already have our music selected
throughout the whole trailer.
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Make-up may also be used for effect, for example, when people cut
their face or sustain some kind of injury to their face. Other ways
that make-up can be used include emphasising themes of horror. For
example, zombies who are used in thrillers often have distorted
facial features done by make-up. Make-up will not be a key convention
of thriller explored in our teaser because we do not wish to show too
much of the vampire and it will only be used briefly. Nonetheless, we
will definitely take this into account when using make-up for a short
period of time in our trailer.
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Costume selection is an important feature of mise en scene within
thrillers because costumes are used to alter the way characters are
presented to an audience. Appearances are also a key feature for
character representation and costume and clothing makes up a large
amount of the representation. We plan to use typical urban clothing
(hoodies, baggy trousers, caps) in order to comply to this type of
appearance representation.
