Behind the Scenes: Mise-En-Scene

Setting- As previously mentioned we chose to use a garage as our main setting because it fits with the theme of our thriller film, this woman wouldn't have access to elaborate places to hold the couple- especially on such short notice as 15 hours. This also made it easier for us as it allowed the filming process to be a lot simpler as we had constant access in case we needed to re shoot any shots, which we did. The image to the right shows the location we used. Although it is smaller than we originally thought, we made it work to fit in the way we wanted, to get the right aesthetics. We also shot in our school car park, this was to create the ambiance of surprise. We made it as though our mistress, has been surprised on her way to work the next morning after meeting Jack. It had high key lighting as it was during the day, however this also created a problem for us as it was sunny. The sun kept reflecting off of the cars and washing our actress out, this meant we had to wait until the sun went behind the clouds, to keep the location we wanted without ruining the scene by making our actor difficult to see. We also used the hallway of a house, to show how the male got to be where he is, he comes home from work and ambushed by his wife who hits him over the head with a pot. 

Lighting- Our film has low key lighting throughout for a few reasons, firstly, most garages don't have extensive amounts of lighting and we tried to be as true to real life as possible throughout the filming process, as well as this, a common convention of thriller films is low-key lighting that helps to build the suspense and tension throughout the different scenes which is something, I hope we incorporated in our work. We had no natural lighting, and the artificial lighting we had was a little light bulb attached to the ceiling. This again helps with the ambiance and aesthetics were going for in the scene.  However when we filmed outside and in the hallway we used brighter lighting to show the normality in contrast to the scene where they are tied up, as him coming home from work and her going to work is a normal part of a daily routine.


Costume and make-up- Our mistress, named Emily wore a simple, yet nice grey dress, as though she was going on a casual date with Jack, her partner. The husband, Jack was wearing a shirt and trousers and the wife was wearing everyday clothes during the bulk of the scene but she was wearing more professional clothes when she kidnaps the husband and his girlfriend indicating to the audience she may have a normal job. This also shows how her mental illness might be underlying and only comes to show when it is triggered. We chose this because we have this theme throughout to show the normality of the situation, a surprising number of people cheat on their husbands/wives, and showing how this has escalated to the 'sinners' being held captive against their will. 


Space and Staging-

We had limited space and we tried to use it to our advantage in the garage. We placed the chairs where our actors would be sitting in the centre of the space- this was done to show they were the main focus of the film, with a sofa behind for our antagonist to sit on. It was placed here so it would look as though she had the situation 'under control', as she felt she could sit down. This could link to the fact that her mental illness means her mind his always paranoid in every day life, but in this situation she feels under control.

Props-
The props we used included; 2 dining room chairs, an old seat belt to tie them up with, a sofa, and a cricket bat, when we were filming in the garage. In the scene that Emily (the mistress) gets abducted there was a mobile phone, and a tissue that looks as though it has chloroform on it. Finally for the scene where she abducts her husband, we used a wedding ring and a pan that she used to hit him over the head with. Each of these items was accessible to us, meaning it is likely that it would be accessible her. Which again, shows how normal these people are, and how this can change in a matter of hours.