Short essay on importance of Social Media

Facebook. Tumblr. Pinterest. The list goes on and on. Social media has taken over modern life, casting a massive influence not just on the teenager and the young adult, but also the middle-aged individual and the business corporation. What began as a mode of catching up and staying in touch with our peers, mostly for personal purposes, has evolved into a hugely successful mode of keeping in touch with customer bases as well. In essence, social media has managed to achieve its primary goal: increasing communication.

Social media has come under flak since its inception, and with good reason. Many call it distracting, and many condemn its public nature. Yet, despite its many shortcomings, modern life would be very different indeed if social media is taken out of it. Here, let’s take a look at the myriad benefits of this side of the internet.
Renewing long-lost friendships

Remember the early days of Facebook? Many of us opened an account when we were well into our late teens or early twenties, and had by then lost touch with a number of friends- from school, old neighborhoods etc. Facebook gave us a chance to get back in touch with old buddies we had drifted away from, and rekindle dormant relationships.
Meeting new people
Social media is not just for getting back in touch with people we already know, but also for getting to know new people. They are great platforms to get in touch with like-minded people and starting new friendships. Nowadays, it is quite common to see best friends who hit it off on social media on the basis of common interests, or people meeting on such platforms and becoming a steady couple. Of course, there is the chance of coming across and being victimized by predators, but being careful is part of the game.

Keep up with trending topics

Every news outlet worth its salt has an account with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and the likes. Every minute, news is being updated and shared on social media by these outlets, which are in turn followed and re-shared by the netizens, that is, the common public. Through this process, news reaches the farthest corners of the world, making the world a global village in the true sense of the term.
Which brings us to globalization
Social and cultural intermingling is a huge part, and effect, of the phenomenon of globalization. Today, it is possible for a teenager in India to get in touch with and learn about the customs and nuances of the Icelandic culture through social media platforms. There are videos on the internet that deal with every conceivable aspect of every conceivable culture, and it is all there for the entire world to view and learn.
Public platform for expression
Social media websites are a great platform for expressing one’s thoughts and opinions. Every time something momentous occurs, Facebook and Twitter are sent aflutter with comment pouring in from concerned parties. This can have a great impact on political decisions and marketing campaigns. For instance, when Lenskart, the online eyeglass seller started a rather tasteless campaign titled ‘Shake this deal like the earthquake’ right after the Nepal earthquake, all social media platforms erupted in protest, and Lenskart promptly took down the ads. Whether it be expressing your thoughts in support or protest, or a call to action, social media is the perfect platform in modern times.

Gaining viewership
All businesses have a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter handle, and for good reason too. With millions of people already using the sites, and several thousand joining every day, you will be hard put to find another platform ensuring such constant and diverse viewership. These accounts are a great way of letting people know what you have to offer and what exciting plans you have for the future. Advertisements in these social media platforms are more likely to be viewed and clicked upon, and your reach can be global.

Keeps organizations on their toes
Social media is not just for the benefit of the business organizations, but for the customers too. Consumers are free to post queries and opinions on these pages that are right there for the rest of the world to see.
One negative review by a consumer can spell serious consequences for the company, which prompts the organizations to do their best to ensure that no such occasion arises in the first place.
 Net result is better performance by the oganisation and better experience for the customer.

Like it or not, social media is here to stay. Maybe not as we know it today, but it will continue to be a part of the human existence for many years to come. Our best bet would be to filter the good from the bad, and work with its many benefits.

[sample essay... use the points and try to write your own]

What were the kinds of edit cuts defined by Lev Kuleshov and the Moscow School?

Lev Kuleshov’s film workshops were the birthplace of Russian Montage. The Kuleshov students learnt that editing served three primary purposes while building a film. A cut could serve a narrative purpose. A cut could generate an intellectual response. The third kind of cut that the Kuleshov students discovered was a purely emotional one.

Watch this video on the Soviet Theory of Montage

 

The narrative cut allows the director to analyze the action into its most interesting elements and then re-synthesise these elements of an event into a powerful sequential action.

A flash-back or flash-forward is also a type of narrative cut.

The cross-cut is another kind of narrative cut.

 

The metaphorical cut or associational cut is a type of intellectual cut. A shot where workers are falling to the bullets of soldiers, can be followed by oxen being led to the slaughterhouse. Eisenstien uses this imagery in ‘Strike’. The audience  understood that the workers were being compared to dumb cattle being led to their death.

A contrast cut can also produce an intellectual response.

The parallel cut produces a third kind of intellectual response.

 

Emotional response can be generated by the very method of joining the strips of film together. here the method, rather than their content produces a kind of kinetic response that the director can control.

Rhythmic cuts in which a  director uses shorter and shorter lengths of film increases the tension and tempo of the action. The reverse can take place if longer lengths of film are joined together rhythmically.

The tonal cut is another method of hooking the viewer’s emotions. The use of steadily darker toned visuals can evoke a sense of darkness or heaviness, and the use of brighter visuals can bring a sense of lightness and joy.

Form cuts and directional cuts can also evoke emotional responses in the audience

A short note on Ardeshir Irani

Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Marwan  Irani (5 December 1886 – 14 October 1969). He is remembered for starting the earliest cinema theatres in Bombay. Popularly known as Ardeshir Irani, he was a writer, director, producer, actor, film distributor, film showman and cinematographer in the silent and sound eras of early Indian cinema. He was renowned for making films in Hindi, Telugu, English, German, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu and Tamil. He was a successful tycoon who owned film theatres, a gramophone agency, and a car agency.

 

Ardeshir Irani was born on 5 December 1886 in Poona, Bombay Presidency. In 1905, Irani became the Indian representative of Universal Studios and he ran Alexander Cinema in Bombay with Abdulally Esoofally for over forty years. At Alexander Cinema Ardeshir Irani learnt the rules of  filmmaking.  In 1917, Irani entered the field of film production and produced his first silent feature film, Nala Dayamanti, which released in 1920.

 

At age  forty, Irani was an established filmmaker. Ardeshir Irani became the ‘father’ of the Indian talkie films. He created history with his sound feature film, ‘Alam Ara’ released on 14 March 1931. Ardeshir Irani  is also accredited with making the first Indian English feature film, ‘Noor Jahan’ (1934). He completed his hat-trick of fame when he made Indiia’s  first colour feature film, Kisan Kanya (1937).

 

His contribution is not limited to giving voice to the silent cinema and colour to black-and-white films. He gave a new courageous outlook to filmmaking in India and provided such a wide range of choice for stories in films that till date, there are films being made which have a theme relating to one of the one hundred fifty-eight films made by Irani.

 

Irani made one hundred fifty-eight films in a long and illustrious career of twenty-five years, between the First and Second World Wars. He made his last film, Pujari, in 1945. He introduced a number of new actors to Indian Cinema, including Prithviraj Kapoor and Mehboob Khan.

What is Dada?

'By July 1916, Dada was a Zurich sensation, this while the Battle of the Somme accrued its grisly statistics: roughly 500,000 German casualties, 200,000 French and 420,000 British. The military incompetence and arrogance of those in power escalated to an unfathomable scale. Hans Arp wrote, "We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men's minds."

 

'Gaga for Dada,' The New York Times Style Magazine, Fall 2005

 

The Basics of Dada Movement in Art

 

Dada was an artistic and literary movement that started in Europe when World War I was going on. Because of the war, many artists, intellectuals and writers, especially those from France and Germany, moved to Switzerland, which was a neutral country. Instead of being relieved that they had escaped, the artists, intellectuals and writers were furious with the modern society. So, they decided to show their protest through artistic medium. They decided to create non-art since art in the society anyway had no meaning.

 

Dada was many things, but it was essentially an anti-war movement in Europe and New York from 1915 to 1923. It was an artistic revolt and protest against traditional beliefs of a pro-war society, and also fought against sexism/racism to a lesser degree. The word "dada" was picked at random out of a dictionary, and is actually the French word for "hobbyhorse".

 

The most widely accepted account of the movement's naming concerns a meeting held in 1916 at Hugo Ball's Cabaret (Café) Voltaire in Zürich, during which a paper knife inserted into a French-German dictionary pointed to the word "dada".

 

The European movement was started in 1915 in Zurich by sculptor Hans Arp, film-maker Hans Richter, and poet Tristan Tzara.

 

 

The so-called non-artists turned to creating art that had soft obscenities, scattered humour, visible puns and everyday objects.

The most outrageous painting was created by Marcel Duchamp, when he painted a moustache on a copy of Mona Lisa and scribbled obscenities under it.

He also created his sculpture called Fountain, which was actually a urinal without the plumbing and it had a fake signature.

 

The public were repulsed by the Dada movement. However, the Dadaists found this attitude encouraging. And, slowly the movement spread from Zurich to other parts of Europe and New York City. Just as many mainstream artists were thinking about this movement seriously, the Dada movement dissolved around the early 1920s.

 

By the end of World War I, Dada was very popular in the German cities Berlin, Cologne and Hanover, expressing the view of many Germans at the time that the war was folly. The artists included: Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Otto Dix, and George Grosz (Dix and Grosz later became part of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement). The German artists released the issued Dada publications: Club Dada, Der Dada, Jedermann sein eigner Fussball ("Everyman His Own Football"), and Dada Almanach.

 

The New York art movement arose almost independently. The movement was centred at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery, "291," and at the studio of the Walter Arensbergs. Its leaders were: Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Francis Picabia. The New York counterpart tended to be more whimsical and less about the violence that was happening overseas.

 

Picabia founded a Dada periodical called "391" in Barcelona and introduced the Dada movement to Paris in 1919. Most notable among the French Dada pamphlets and reviews was 'Littérature' (published 1919-24), which contained writings by André Breton, Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault, and Paul Éluard.  The Paris Dada movement later evolved into Surrealism by 1924

Dada  also influenced the experimental French film-makers in the 1920s. The films of Man Ray are the purest examples of Movie Dada such as 'Return to Reason' (1923).

This art movement was a protest, but at the same time it managed to be enjoyable and amusing. It was sarcastic, colourful, quirky and silly. If a person at that time had not been aware of the logic behind the movement, he or she would have been wondering what the artist was up to creating pieces like the ones that were created. However, the artist who created the Dada art was very serious about his work. The movement did not favour one medium over another. It used everything from glass to plaster to geometric tapestries to wooden reliefs.

 

 In addition, the movement was also responsible for influencing many trends in the field of visual art, the most well-known being Surrealism.

 

 

Right: Hannah Hoch - Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the First Epoch of the Weimar Beer-Belly Culture, 1919.

 

The piece on the right by Hannah Hoch epitomizes the Dada attitude towards war: That it is chaos. That the world has gone mad. That war itself is craziness incarnate destroying humanity.

 

3 Basic reasons for applying make-up

The use of makeup for television [and film] is divided into three categories:

 

Basic - designed to compensate for undesirable changes in appearance introduced by the television process.

Corrective - designed to enhance positive attributes and downplay flaws.

Character - which introduces major changes in appearance.

 

Although people might think that makeup is reserved for people "who just want to look better" on TV or in film, in actual fact, makeup may be required to just retain a subject's normal appearance.

 

This is because the television and film processes to some degree can introduce (or make obvious) undesirable attributes to skin tones and features.

 

Some modern digital cameras have skin enhancing setup options that can reduce, but generally not eliminate, the need for makeup. In particular, they can appreciably smooth out wrinkles and conceal minor blemishes.

 

Video editors may not always want to apply these ‘camera’ effects, since they to some degree degrade optimum video sharpness, colour, and quality.

With the advent of high-definition television, the need for people skilled in the application of effective but subtle makeup has increased. As in most areas of television, makeup is an element that is best when it goes unnoticed.

 

 

Basic Makeup

 

In both film and video work, makeup on the face and possibly even the body is needed — especially for people who will be on camera any length of time.

 

For starters, normal skin contains a certain amount of oil that generally goes unnoticed until viewed in a close-up. This shine can be exaggerated by the heat of studio lights and personal tension. At the very least, subjects should use a face powder that matches their skin tone.

 

After this, we move to so-called basic makeup.

 

For this, the skin should first be cleaned with mild soap or cleansing cream prior to the application of a makeup base or foundation.

 

Both are available in either oil or water base, but water based make-up has the advantage of not requiring face powder and being easier to remove.

 

Before these are applied, it's best to use an astringent to tighten facial pores and prepare the skin.

 

A shade of base or foundation should be selected that matches the normal skin tones, unless the goal is to slightly lighten or darken all skin tones. In this case, it's best not to go beyond two shades lighter or darker than the normal tone.

 

There are about 20 shades available, but if for some reason the proper shade isn't available, shades can be mixed to provide an in-between shade.

 

A foam rubber sponge, which can be moistened slightly, is used to apply the base or foundation to the face, ears, and neck.

 

With deeply tanned Caucasian skin tones it may be necessary to even out skin tones around the eyes or bridge of the nose by mixing the base or foundation with a touch of rouge.

 

Other evidences of uneven tan, such as the halter strap marks over the shoulders of a woman, should be filled in so they blend with adjacent skin.

 

Even right after shaving, dark-haired men will evidence "a five o'clock shadow" that can be reduced or eliminated by blending in the foundation or makeup base.

 

If precautions are not taken, it is possible that makeup applicators can transfer skin bacteria or even a rash from one person to another.

 

To guard against this possibility disposable sponges, cotton balls or quilted cotton squares should be used.

 

Makeup in containers can also be contaminated. To avoid dipping an applicator back into the makeup container many makeup artists use the back of their hands as a palette.

 

Makeup brushes should be cleaned before reuse with hair shampoo or a commercial cleaner.

 

 

Lighting Considerations

 Makeup should always be checked, and if possible even applied, under the lighting that will be used in photographing the subject.

 

Even when video cameras are properly color balanced, sunlight, incandescent, and fluorescent lighting will all affect subject matter in different ways. For this reason, many makeup mirrors have adjustments for each of these types of light.

 

This consideration is particularly important with standard fluorescent light (if you can't avoid that type of lighting) because these lights tend to be low in red light and high in green.

 

Because normal skin tones contain a significant amount of green to start with, you may note obvious green skin tones under standard fluorescent light. The problem may be compounded if the makeup, itself, has green elements.

 

This is just another reason that you should use a high-quality, properly colour-balanced video monitor to check the results.

 

 

 

The Eyes

 

 Eyebrows should be brushed with a clean eyebrow brush and plucked of any stray or unruly hairs. Though bushy eyebrows may be acceptable for men, women should carefully shape their brows into a gentle arch that tapers off at the ends.

 

Making fine delicate strokes, use an eyebrow pencil of an appropriate shade to fill in or reshape the eyebrows.

 

For women, a touch of eye shadow is almost always desirable. The dry powder or cake type of eye shadow is preferred over the cream type, since it both lends itself to easier and more subtle blending and holds up better under hot studio lights.

 

Whether a woman's eye shadow should match her eyes, clothes, or neither, is a fashion opinion, which can vary from season to season. Whatever the colour choice, it should be subtle.

 

A darker shade of the same colour used on the eyelids (or a soft brown shade) can be lightly brushed into the lid crease to add depth and size to the eye.

 

Women with heavy-lidded eyes should avoid this last technique because it will probably emphasize the problem. A dot of ivory or pale yellow eye shadow smoothed under the brow bone will lighten and "open" the eyes.

 

Eyeliner can be applied close to the top lashes either by using a soft, fine brush or a sharp eyebrow pencil.

 

An eyelash curler and a light application of mascara will accent eyelashes. Excess clumps of mascara should be removed with a few upward strokes of a clean brush. False eyelashes can be used, but they should be carefully trimmed to fit the individual's eyes.

 

 

 

The Lips

 

 Another aspect of particular importance to women is the proper selection of lipstick. Some types of lipstick and rouge not designed for television have a latent blue hue, which can take on a decided purple appearance when photographed. A pure red lipstick that will harmonize with the skin coloration and wardrobe is best.

 

At the same time you will not want to chose a bright red lipstick that will dominate the face and create a garish appearance.

 

Before applying lipstick, lips should be outlined by using either a lipstick brush or a lip pencil. If the lips are well proportioned, this accentuates them. But lip outlining can also be used as a corrective technique.

 

People with either overly thin or full lips can improve their lip line by first covering their lips with their base makeup and then drawing or outlining a more desired shape. A lip brush should also be used to give color to the entire lip.

 

After the application of lipstick, you should blot the lips with a tissue to avoid an unnatural shine.

 

Lip gloss is generally undesirable for television. Although lipstick is not generally used on men, it is sometimes appropriate to add a touch of a natural-colored lipstick to smooth out a possible line between the lips and the beginning of the base makeup. A brown shade of lipstick applied with a brush is recommended.

 

 

 

Hands, Ears, and Teeth

 

 If hands are to appear on camera, as when products are demonstrated through close-ups, special care must be taken.

 

Use an appropriate shade of makeup base to ensure that hands match other parts of the body and to minimize wrinkles and colour variations.

 

Nails should be well manicured. Clear or coloured fingernail polish can be used. The appearance of the hands should be carefully checked on a TV monitor prior to a production. Extreme close-ups will often reveal makeup flaws that are not normally visible.

 

Because they are often slightly lighter and redder than adjacent skin tones, ears can be a special problem. Added to this is the fact that back lights will often shine through ears to some degree, further raising their tonal value.

 

To control this and bring ears back to their proper tonal perspective, they should be covered with a base makeup that is two or three shades darker than the face. The makeup base should then be covered with a translucent face powder.

 

Bad teeth can be minimized with an appropriate shade of tooth enamel or dentine fluid. Special coverings are available for this purpose.

 

 

The Body

 

 Since more and more skin seems to be showing up in films and on TV, we need to mention parts of the body other than the face and hands.

 

Elbows, knees, and ankles can look unnaturally dark unless you use makeup to lighten these areas.

 

Using a Q-tip, or the edge of a sponge, stretch marks on the stomach can be "painted in" to some degree with a liquid makeup two to four shades lighter than the base. (See photo.)

 

With dark-haired individuals, areas of the body that have been shaved will need the same treatment.

 

Scars and removed tattoos will take extra amounts of base or foundation. Often, you can use liberal amounts the same shade as adjacent skin.

 

 

Dark-Skinned People

 

 The makeup needs of dark-skinned people are not greatly different from those that have been outlined. Appropriate shades of makeup are available for most of the darker skin tones; however, to arrive at the needed tone, it may be necessary to do more in the way of blending different makeup shades.

 

Generally, makeup for dark-skinned people should be applied sparingly. Black males and other males with dark skin may not need makeup at all. They often photograph well without it.

 

Problems can arise, however, with very dark-skinned black males who do not exhibit a natural skin sheen, since the tonal reflectance level can drop so low that a loss of form and dimension results. It is desirable to preserve these highlights, and occasionally even accent them with baby oil or glycerin.

 

 

 

Concealing and Emphasizing Facial Features With

Corrective Makeup

 

 Through corrective makeup procedures it may be necessary to play down undesirable facial features and emphasize positive attributes through contouring and highlighting.

 

In corrective makeup we are starting with the base or foundation and then blending in shades or makeup that are either darker or lighter.

 

 In contouring, a darker shade of makeup than the foundation or base is used to downplay features, such as a high forehead or an overly prominent nose.

 

Contouring can also be used to bring out the classic jaw line that's seen as desirable for women.

 

In this case, a darker shade of makeup is carefully blended into the foundation or base. To achieve this "classic look," the darker makeup will go from the chin line up to the earlobes and into the hollows of the cheeks.

 

 In highlighting, the object is to reverse this effect — to emphasize or pull the eye toward certain facial features or areas. In this case, use a shade of makeup that is lighter than the foundation or base.

 

This approach should also be used in shadowy areas under the eyes and under the lower lip to keep them from looking unusually dark on camera. Either use makeup two to three shades lighter than the base, or a translucent white highlighter.

 

In the case of both men and women, colour can be added to the cheeks by mixing a very light trace of rouge with the existing base makeup and then blending it in with a sponge.

 

 After all this is done, it's often necessary to use some transparent powder to dull down some (but not all) of the facial sheen. This is normally applied with a powder puff or soft bristled brush.

 

Sometimes there will be light spots on the skin, due to aging or whatever, that can be covered with a tanning spray, such as Walgreens Deep Dark Tan Sunless Tanning Spray carefully painted on with a Q-tip. The spray rather than the lotion is best for this.

 

Since it takes a number of hours — even up to a day — before the effect becomes noticed, this is a technique that definitely requires planning ahead. And, since results aren't immediately apparent and last several days, you need to experiment with this technique well in advance of going on camera.

 

However, once mastered, this represents a relatively inexpensive and convenient way of keeping this type of skin discoloration hidden. Prescription skin dye is also available, for this purpose, but it's quite expensive.

 

 

 

Makeup Removal

 

 Women may prefer to leave makeup on after leaving the TV studio. Unlike stage makeup, it should be so natural looking that there should be no need to remove it, especially early in the day.

 

Men, being a bit more sensitive to these things, will probably want to remove makeup with a cleansing cream or lotion.

 

After removing makeup, women may want to use an astringent to condition their skin. Men can use aftershave lotion for the same purpose.

 

 

 

Character Makeup

 

Character makeup covers great range, from adding or subjecting years, to today's grisly science fiction and horror-film transformations. It would take a good-sized book to cover character makeup; and, in fact, numerous books have been written on the subject.

 

Since it has limited application in day-to-day production work, we well simply use the following photos to give you an idea of what can be done.

 

 

 

 

 

Note that the young man shown above can be transformed into an old man through the use of elaborate makeup and prostheses (and a few hours' work).

 

In this case, a bald cap is first used to cover up the young man's hair (first photo). At that point, prostheses are used to add wrinkles and sagging areas to the face.

 

Then liberal amounts of makeup are then painted on to blend everything together. Although it may sound simple, character makeup can easily take many hours to apply.

What are the functions of colour in Cinema?

Noted Film analyst RN Dash writes about  

Functions of colour in cinema :

(1)Colour is considered a necessity for certain categories of films : those on Arts and Artists and those depicting splendour and glamour, such as the glory of the Mughal palaces, the grandeur of Royal courts and house-holds, or the world of Fashion. Costume oriented films require a variety of shades of colour appropriate to their textures. Art oriented films (Gaja Gamini, 2000 and Meenaxi, 2004 of M F Hussain, Holi, 1984 and Mirch Masala, 1987 of Ketan Mehta) display a variety of colours in brilliant shades.

(2) Colour enhances grandeur of palatial structures, as of Moghul palaces, and costumes of the royalty, danseuses and models.

(3) Colour has become an essential requirement for presentation of spectacular dance performances and fashion shows.

(4) Colour is often used to indicate the period to which the story of a film relates. Lagaan (2001) was filmed in sepia colour to indicate that it was a period film, relating to the old days of the British Raj.

(5) Colour defines the moods of characters. Facial expressions are often shown in blue, green or reddish colour to represent the state of mind of an actor.

(6) Colour adds to the visual effects of any presentation; the intensity and shades of different colours are manipulated in a film to create desired effects. Colour defines the moods of characters and also the ambience of a situation. Different colour schemes and shades are designed by the film makers to depict different type of activities, to set the tone and mood of the film and to match the contents of the scenes. The battle scenes in Birth Of A Nation (1915, D W Griffith) were tainted red, while the other outdoor scenes were greenish and domestic scenes were yellowish. In Agent Vinod (2012), scenes of Afghanistan were yellowish, whereas scenes of Pakistan were greenish. Romantic activities are shown in soft colours whereas scenes presenting fear, horror or terror are shown in deep colour. Deep and bright colours are used to present flamboyant activities and glamour; sober colour scheme is used to present restrained activities.

(7) Colour in cinema is also used as an editing device, to present past or future, as discussed earlier.

(8) Colour is also being used as a narrative technique to enhance the dramatic effects of the visuals, and occasionally to add meanings to the portrayals.

What is mise-en scene?

 The arrangement of everything that appears in the framing – actors, lighting, décor, props, costume – is called mise-en-scène, a French term that means “placing on stage.” The frame and camerawork also constitute the mise-en-scène of a movie.

 

 

Don't be confused. Mise-en-scène isn't a production term. Directors don't walk around saying “Let's create an elaborate mise-en-scène.” Not at all.

 

From the craftsman that builds fake bookcases to the cinematographer that chooses where the lights will go, the mise-en-scène is the result of the collaboration of many professionals. Thus in the production environment, the director is more specific with his requests and orders. Is he trying to talk to the prop master, the set designer, the actors, the make-up artists? All of them are part of different departments. But all of them, in the end, have influence in the mise-en-scène.

 

In the academic realm, the term mise-en-scène is always invoked when the overall look and feel of a movie is under discussion. Students taking Film Analysis should be quite familiar with the term.

 

Even though many professionals are involved in its creation, the director is the one that oversees the entire mise-en-scène and all of its elements. Not just that, but during the early stages of pre-production, the director or his AD sits down with set designers, prop masters, location managers, costume designers, and scenic artists to determine the look and feel intended.

 

In some instances, the mise-en- scène is used to evoke lasting feelings throughout the movie and not just for selected scenes. In the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), distorted shapes and claustrophobic scenery is implemented to disturb the audience and enhance the horror.

 

Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967) has been praised by its amazing, exciting, and multi-layered  visual design. For this reason, the following segments will shed light on many scenes from The Graduate but also from other pictures.

 

Décor

 

Décor refers to the decoration or decorative styles, comprising mainly of the set and props used in a movie. Instead of just dressing the set, the director must be savvy to fathom how objects may bear significance in a deeper level, while also emphasizing themes, creating meanings, and provoking thoughts.

 

An early scene from The Graduate (1967) opens with a close-up of Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) alone on his bed. Behind him is a fish tank, which may symbolically represent Ben’s entrapment in a life that he doesn’t want. Later in the movie, Ben finds himself at the bottom of a swimming pool, thus further elaborating on that concept.

 

In Rear Window (1954), an enlarged photograph placed in the living room offers exposition on the accident that rendered L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) handicap:

 

Lighting

 

Unarguably one of the film elements that has the greatest power to evoke emotions, lighting must be manipulated by the director to accommodate his or her desires for the movie. The two broad types of lighting approaches are: low-key lighting and high-key lighting.

 

High-key lighting is often seen in romantic comedies and musicals, encompassing an even lighting pattern and avoiding dark areas in the frame. Everything looks bright with little to no shadow at all. High-key lighting has little dramatic effect, and it is often used in a scene with no tension.

 

 

Low-key lighting is often seen in horror movies and thrillers, comprising of a lighting pattern that has both bright and dark areas in the frame. The chiaroscuro (Italian: bright-dark) technique, long used by painters, is characterized by strong contrast, often employed to unnerve the audience.

 

 

Note that this terminology is counterintuitive as low-key lighting is high contrast and high-key lighting is low contrast.

 

Costume

 

 The obvious purpose of costuming is to dress an actor according to his character. Lawyers wear suits, nurses wear scrubs, and a drifter could wear worn out shoes, ragged shirt, and baggy pants.

 

But, more than that, costuming can also be used to establish someone’s hierarchic level. Regimentals, for instance, bear the status of the person who wears it. And even the color may distinguish an enemy from a friend. In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), a comic situation arises when Blondie (Clint Eastwood) heads toward the enemy cavalry that was covered in dust. When the enemy general slaps his gloves on his sleeve, his apparently gray uniform changes to blue.

 

 Costuming may also be used to emphasize a theme. In the first scene at the Taft Hotel in The Graduate, Mrs. Robinson wears a fur coat that makes her look like a predator hunting for her pray. Her coat bears a pattern that resembles the fur of a cheetah. Or could it be a cougar?

 

 

Location

 

In Witness (1985), on the day after declining Rachel’s (Kelly McGillis) seduction, John Book (Harrison Ford) explains to her why nothing could have happened between them the night before. Quiet conveniently, the confrontation takes place in a barn, while Rachel is collecting eggs. The location emphasizes Rachel’s responsibilities as a woman. If they had made love and Rachel gotten pregnant, she would have to carry the baby and eventually give birth. Also, during the conversation, John stands outside the barn, thus being separated from Rachel by the barn’s door. In this case, the door functions as a metaphor of the social and cultural barriers that keeps them a part.

 

The final confrontation in The Graduate takes place in a church. Ben tries to prevent Elaine (Katherine Ross) from getting married, but he arrives too late. Nonetheless, when Elaine sees him, she runs to him, and they run away. When the couple is cornered by infuriated parents and relatives, Ben starts swinging a cross to avoid them. Stepping out, Ben uses the cross to hold the church’s doors shut.

 

The prop (cross) and location (church) impose a comment on religious institutions, perhaps implying that Elaine’s parents are trapped by traditional believes and practices.