Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene is the most important part which we had to think in depth about as if we don’t have a realistic set, props, make-up and clothing our thriller wouldn’t look professional. The mise-en-scene sets the scene for the audience, allowing them to connote the messages we want to portray to the audience subconsciously.

Simon, (spy) will be wearing a casual suit; jeans with a shirt, and a long blazer as he will be thinking that he will be going to work that morning.  He will be wearing posh shiny shoes, his hair will be short and black; it will be clean and have a small amount of gel in, to keep it off his face and he will be clean shaven looking very smart. But when he is on camera his hair will be messy and his face will have small bruises on it and some blood, his shirt will be slightly ripped conveying that there had been a struggle also. His clothes will be slightly wet from sweat.     

Saeed, (terrorist) will be dressed the smartest as he is the main terrorist and has the most dialogue.  He will be wearing a full suit, (black suit, trousers, white shirt, black blazer and black shoes.) he will have a beard and maybe be wearing a small gold chain and a few gold rings.  The other terrorist will be dressed slightly more casual wearing black baggy jeans (or dark blue) with a black t-shirt with a big black coat. The two of them will be wearing balaclava’s disguising their identity. 

The wife will be wearing a t-shirt cardigan and jeans, her clothes will also be ripped and will have sweat on them looking slightly wet. The child will wear a pink t-shirt with a print on with either skinny jeans or shorts and tights.

There will not be any artificial lighting as we want the set to be dark. So we will use natural light and maybe a spot light directed at Simons face. This will be harsh on his face and will allow the audience to see clearly his fear and sweat on it.

For make up, we will be using fake blood, which will be applied onto Simons face and shirt: it will also be applied onto the wife and child. This will be used to allow the audience to connote that there has been violence before they were captured. We will use stage make up to give the effect and look of bruising, which will also reflect the struggle. We will use a small amount of black eye liner on Saeed to exaggerate his eyes making him look more sinister and evil.

We will need two fake rifles, which the terrorists will have around their body.  This will allow the audience to connote that they have power over their hostages. Saeed will have a hand gun, which he will have in his hand at all times again being a symbol of power. We will need three chairs, which Simon, his wife and child will be tied to. They will just need to be ordinary wooden chairs with no wheels; we decided this so there is no way they would be able to escape. We will need plastic ties also so we can attach the hostages’ hands together; this will make the hostage situation seem more real and believable. We will also attach their ankles to the chair legs ensuring they won’t be able to move once they are in the chair. We will need a video camera on a tripod situated in front of Simon, which will also be recording but with the camera display up. There will have to be a mobile phone that Saeed will have that he will use a few times when contacting the other terrorists.

We decided to set our thriller in the green room as we will be able to set the background to anything we want. As we will only be shooting in one room we decided it would be easier to just set the green room the way we wanted. We will be able to place Simon in the centre of the room or maybe slightly in the corner. We can make the floor dirty and make it look as if it was in a desolate house in a room secluded from reality.

When deciding what the props will be we watched parts of a few films which people have been tied up by either by burglars, police or just messed up people. From ‘Taken’ we got the idea of sweaty clothes and being tied onto solid objects. From ‘Strangers’ we got the idea of hiding their identity but instead of using masks we have decided to use balaclavas. From ‘Saw’ we decided to use the blood aspect making the hostage situation seem more real. From ‘Hostage’ we decided to use the idea of the hostages being tied onto chairs in an empty room. This was good research on making the mise-en-scene for our thriller as realistic as possible.