Mise en scene in the cellar

Mise en scene

When filming our opening seen we wanted a large amount of focus to be put on the mise en scene, especially the props and lighting as we belived this would be the most effecive way to portray the film genre as well as hinting at where the story of the film was going to lead. 

Props

We had previously done a significant amont of research into religous symbolism which benefited us during the process of choosing our props to include in our sequence as it provided us with an idea of what would work. We gathered bibles and many candles as they would portray a clear religious asthetic. 
Within the house of the artists, we discovered several items
which we belived would be perfect for our set and to help produce the eery atmosphere we were aiming to acheive. We found these old books, (shown in the picture beside), which were extremely tattered and had several symbols on them. We thougth they complemented our film genre suitably so we added them to our set. Beneath them is an old wooden box which we also found amongst the items in the house. We thought this also complemented the theme we were going for and I was please with this find.


We placed a candel next to the accumilation of books and the bible which, I belive, transformed the set into soemthing much more eerier and spookier to look at. The candle had a metal holder which had intricate detail surrounding the base giving it an ancient and more effective appearance. The candel also prodcued adequate lighting to light up the area and using this ensured that the lighing would stay consistent throughout. 




In addition, we also found this chair which was clearly rather old due to the several marks and scratches it had attained. However, this gave it a more mysterious and synister look which we belived would work well for our protagonist to sit on. The rope upon it was also added to increase the effect of the mise en scene as it all worked together to produce a rather feared and mysterious appearance.

 We felt it was relevent to include a cross during the opening scene since we were inspired by the large amount of religious symbolism in the film 'Stigmata'. In order to create this we found two planks of wood and created one longer piece and one shorter piece. We then tied them together using string to create the cross formation. After this, we added some fake blood at the ends of the horizontal piece and at the bottom on the vertical piece to replicate the areas that blood would have reached during Jesus' crucifixion.

Once the cross was positioned in place and amongst the candles, we thought that the tattered and broken look about it worked effectively and complemented the tattered style of the books and the old walls. Several, tealights were added around the room which not only produced light but also created a very mysterious and dismal atmosphere.