There are 5 key elements of Mise En Scene that need to be remembered:
- Settings and Props
- Costume, Hair and Make up
- Facial expressions and body language
- Lighting and colour
- Positioning of characters/objects within the frame
The settings and props can have its ways of affecting the audience. It can change their views of a character easily just by looking around at the setting, and even the props that they hold. For example looking at the 'Iron Man Cover' we are given little features that build up. The setting in which they are put in helps specify who the main people are in this film and which are the most powerful. We can see that Iron Man (Tony Stark) is placed as the largest due to being the main character of the story and being the most powerful as such.
Costume, Hair and Make up
This can show the audience the type of class in which some of the characters are in. For example, if the costume of someone was old baggy, ripped cloths and looks all mucky, then the sight in which people will think of him is being a tramp or poor person. In the Iron Man Cover we can see a lot of higher class clothing. The characters that are being shown are in formal wear cloths and looking high authorized. Focusing on the character Corneal. Rose, he is wearing an air force suit. There for gives the image of being a upper class and honored character.
Facial Expressions and Body language
This certain element can give an idea of which characters could be seen as "evil" or "good". If someone was a up standing, straight postured character then he would be seen as the more stronger person. Something very similar to this is in the Iron Man Cover image. Iron Man (Tony Stark) is looking of away from the camera. This can be seen as taking an honorable pose that shows he the higher person and has the most respect. Where as Obadiah who is looking straight at the camera lens can be seen as a more evil character.
With a much stronger frown on his face along with his head being tilted down its gives a feeling that he's trying to look scary and seem like the more powerful one.
Lighting and Colour
The lighting of something can show more depth into what characters will be like. Having light shining from behind someone can show that the character is one of the better people where as is light is looking down barely on them and they are more in the shady parts then they can be seen as being more evil.
Looking at the Iron Man Cover, we can see that Obadiah (Man in the center) has light being particularly covered over half of his face. This can give the imagination that he can be seen as being a good guy, but really on the other side he turns out to be one of the bad guys.
Position of Characters/objects within the frame
The positioning of the characters can passively show to the audience who is the more important character to be focused on. This can happen such as positioning them higher up above the lower characters that are placed below them in the frame. This exact thing happens in the cover photo for Iron Man. Iron man (Tony Stark) is placed at the top half of the cover photo showing that he is the main character of the film and that he is the main focus of the movie in this case.
