Micro Element - Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene is basically everything you can see on screen visually. This includes location, props, costume, hair, make-up, props, set design and lighting. Mise-en-scene is important to set a scene to make films more believable of where the scene is set, and suit the location. It also has to suit the narrative, or in this case, the lyrics and mood of the song. For example, with a slow and sad song, there would be hardly any colour and dim lighting to make the place look depressing and drained. A happy mood though would be represented with cluttered props, set an maybe a bigger cast, with bright lights and vibrant colours to create a youthful and uplifiting feel. The mise-en-scene can also represent ideas and messages to communicate with the audience, such as the colour red to connote anger, or fancy props such as chandeliers and golden objects to suggest a person has a rich social status.



The video above is a song called 'Emergency' by Paramore. Their videos have very dull colours and a ruined location where the walls are filthy and decaying to represent the artist as broken and falling apart. The costumes are baggy and loose to show they are down and uncaring, and the lack of colour suits the location and the depressing mood of the song. The band members also have scars and scratches made from make-up to represent them as scarred and hurt about the idea of love being abused by others. A red rose is used as a prop to connote love, of which is thrown to Hayley (the main artist) as if it were nothing important. This represents the idea of love being abused and being taken advantage of.



Compared to Paramore's 'Emergency,' this song is fun, excitable and youthful. The video is about a house party, where many young adults and teenagers are used as cast as they are steroeotyped for partying. In the young generation, there are groups such as the popular crowd, the 'emo's' and the 'dorks/nerds.' The narrative is a very basic one where the main artist Katy Perry is dressed up in typical clothes you would associate with a 'nerd,' such as the braces, big glasses and clothing that is quite baggy and covers most of the body. The mise-en-scene is colourful to connote the youthful energy within the party where there is a lot of dancing and drunken behaviour. The props such as plastic cups and streamers help to set the scene of the party. Katy Perry's nerdy character approaches the party in disgust, but get transformed by the host of the party (Rebecca Black) to fit in with the popular crowd: short skirts, tight fighting clothes, make-up and heels. The outfits are quite casual on the cast to suit teenage fashion that may inspire them on their style.

This shows that mise-en-scene is very important to get messages and the character's/artists identity across to the artist. It also introduces many stereotypes which the audience can identity easily to understand a character better.