Planning - Considering Mise-En-Scene For Your Opening

Mise-en-scene is literally the 'what is in the shot' and it is everything that appears on the screen in a single frame. The advantage of this is to help the audience decode what is going on in the specific scene.

The following image is from the film 'The Woman in Black':

The 'Mise-en-scene" in this scene would be the dull, shadowy lighting, the old fashioned children toys in the dark corners in the room, as if they were exiled from the scene and the lack of colour.

When decoded by the audience, they get an impression that the nursery is a lonely room and, judging by the spider webs on the window, has not been occupied in a very long time. This is an excellent scene for a horror film because it brings tension as to the thought of a haunted house, bearing in mind it was locked from the inside.

For our scene we will be using a range of props including some small, workshop tools, a piece of paper with writing on, pictures of the old bullies in his life and a board with the proposed plan of action on it. The tools will give the realisation to members of a middle or even lower-class society that anyone is capable of inflicting danger to others. The plans on the board will show that this was planned and the sheers size and detail will give little doubt to the result of this act of terror.

The costume Billy (the main character) will wear consists of all black, hoodie, gloves, tracksuit bottoms and black trainers. The all black image will give the main character a mysterious and creepy look adding to the suspense the opening brings to the viewers.

The lighting of the film will be in daylight

costume
Craig (Billy) will be wearing these type of clothes. Skinny tracksuit bottoms and a all black hoodie. These clothing are suitable for our film as we don’t want any of the clothing to stand out, we just want to plain so they can focus more on what's going on not what he’s wearing. This also creates a feeling of death. 
 


The props 
In the opening to our film we will use some props such as this note pad to create the effect that Billy is creating a plan and that it makes sense to the audience who watch the clip. We also used a hammer and two petrol cans. They are essential for our opening as we are trying to set a feeling of fear this props will create this feeling.