The Importance of Mise-en-scene

 In pre-production of Clara and I's film opening, we wanted to finalize all elements of our introduction to assure everything will run smoothly when we move to production of The Reid Technique. 

Setting

We finalized our setting at the Weston Branch Library. Clara and I agreed that the interior of the library and the conference rooms that were accessible to us perfectly fit the wanted design of a "government funded public building" like a police department. For the interrogation scene, we used the conference room that we were able to sign out. Its bland wall coloring and generic table and chairs fit our vision perfectly. We wanted to room to be very muted, not only to fit the vibe but also to prevent distraction from the dialogue and characters which is our film's main focus. This is what the room looked like: 

The lighting of the room fit perfectly with our intended setting as well so we did not need to use any lighting kits to alter the look. We wanted the lighting to look as natural as possible, once again not distracting from the aspects we want to be payed attention to. 

Costume Design

When it came to costume design there were a couple aspects I would like to focus on. First, hair and makeup. Mia and I played the two officials, Alex and Hallie. In order to properly fit this role, I had Mia and I keep our hair nicely kept in order to keep us looking as professional and put together as possible. We both kept our hair down and straightened to maintain a clean look. When it came to makeup, we also kept it looking very natural looking. The makeup was very light and simple to compliment the hair. For our costuming, we used inspiration from t.v. shows such as Criminal Minds, Brooklyn 99, and Manifest. All of the police officers, detectives, or agents on these shows kept their costuming very business casual. Ironically enough, not many of them wore the stereotypical police uniform most of the time. We went with this aesthetic by wearing black jeans, a nice business shirt or blouse with a blazer over it. For shoes we both wore a short, business, 2-inch heel. To add to the detailing, we ordered fake police badges on amazon to wear. Here was our inspiration:

 Sabrina on the other hand played the criminal. For her hair, we had her also keep her hair down but it was mostly unbrushed and messy. For makeup, we didn't have her wear any to perfectly match what an audience would expect from a criminal. We kept her costuming to be as muted as possible to completely juxtapose the criminals outspoken, comical personality. We had her wear a baggy white t-shirt and baggy jeans. For shoes, we had her wear plain, beat-up sneakers. We didn't really have a source of inspiration for her wardrobe, we just knew how we wanted her costume design to translate onscreen. 

Here is how our costume design turned out: 

I want to leave you with an important article I had read on mise-en-scene. Click here to read it! It gave lots of good descriptions on different aspects of mise-en-scene in addition to some examples. 

(Week 6: 3/14-3/20, post 2)