Final Mise decisions (Joe Fisher)

Some of our final mise decisions were decided on the day, as some of the items that appeared within our scene needed to be improvised to make it look natural, as planning everything would
make the scene un-natural.

The things that we improvised on the day of filming were:

-The paper scattered around the desk

-The placement of the boxes

-The paper in the bin

-The picture of the person on the case file (with his permission)

-The scene surrounding the TV

-The cat

-The leaders stuck to the wall

Mise en scene needed to be considered when improvising the set that we would be showing on screen, this is mainly because we needed to make the scene look actually messy instead of a "controlled mess" which wouldn't look as good when being viewed. The paper around the desk needed to be scattered and in a mess, but it didn't need to have writing on it because it would be screwed up to the point in which the audience wouldn't be able to read the writing anyway, so there would be no point going in to this much un-needed detail for the set.

The weapons inside the cloth were improvised mainly as we couldn't provide a scalpel as we initially wanted, so we just fully improvised the weapons that were going to be shown so that the old rusty blade looked natural when placed against the rest of weapons on the screen.

The placement of the boxes allowed us to add much more mess to the surrounding scene, as well as added life to it. In terms of meaning for the boxes, it's supposed to represent the fact that this person has just moved in to this apartment, and no one knows how long for. The condition of the surrounding set suggests that he's not staying there for long, and may as well keep his possessions in the boxes instead.

The paper in the bin is also there just to add more mess. The paper has no writing on it, but that doesn't matter  as it wouldn't be visible anyway. the screwed up paper (noticeably a lot there as well) is supposed to hint at this persons intellectual level, and gives us insight as to what this character does within the first scenes, and that would be writing. Writing what though? the audience does not yet know, and the contents of this screwed up paper is not alluded to during the film opening, but it could be things such as revolutionary plans, times, dates, locations, or even sketches, but we do know that this character featured in the opening is very secretive, and whatever is on those pieces of paper will surely give insight to his overall intentions

With the progression of the scenes, it's easy for the audience to gather that the person in the picture on the case file, is our main characters target, as the scenes leading up to it contain our character pulling his weapons cache, concealed within a cloth, from a drawer and laying the blades on to the desk.

The scene surrounding the TV is supposed to show our characters intellectual level, but unfortunately, not much of it is seen on screen. There are many books surrounding the TV, which usually connotes a character as being intellectual. The books placed here would be "The Communist Manifesto", "The Bible" etc.

The leaders, stuck to the wall in a messy fashion, is supposed to connote our characters inspiration for sparking a revolution in this futuristic, vintage setting for our movie.

Scenes where we want to consider Mise to the finest details.

-When the camera pans over to the desk.

-When the camera first zooms on the desk

-Where the character in the scene flips the page to view the particular location of the politician.

-Where the knife is stabbed in to the table

1) When the camera pans over to the desk, we don't want the walls to be plain as we could easily add some more things within that large area to do with mise that could hint to the characters intentions, inspirations, or even next targets. We decided to go with the decisions of making it a wall of inspirations, but it also has a lot of mess around it so the wall doesnt look to plain and the interest factor is lost.

2) When the camera first zooms in on the desk, we wanted everything to be on show, maybe too much on show, but this was so it would grab the audience, and everything on that desk has a meaning. For example, the cigarettes give insight that our character is a smoker, whats the connotations of cigarettes? is our character stressed? of course this is just a small example, but it's an example none the less.

3) The case file contains information regarding the information on the characters next victim. We wanted to make this look real, therefore we used templates from real case files, real types of crimes, real places within England.

4) The knife is stabbed in to a specific place on the table. Going in to detail, it is stabbed in to the word Overlord. It now becomes rather obvious that our character is rebellious in his nature, if it wasn't already, and wants to spark the fires of a revolution. Considering this has set in England, what new governing policies have been instated in this alternate universe for this to happen? This mainly tries to connote that something has gone on in this world that is so drastic that it would force many nations in to dictatorship, and it may be revealed as to why in the later stages of the film.

Planning the set for the day
Everything had to be ready for the day of filming, and setting up the set would take a lot of time. We set up the set as a whole in a spare room in one of our group members houses, and tried to recreate the feeling of this specific time period, concealed within that one room. There were things that we could add on the day of filming as we did have a few hours to set up all of the equipment in which we had to use to get the perfect picture quality for all of the scenes within our film. The camera was the most important thing in which we had to get correct, ready for the day of filming mainly because if the quality of the camera was bad, there would be no point in having a detailed, representative set as none of it would be visible and would be blurred. Of course there were times when, on the day, the camera would change the focus points of specific scenes, such as the scene where the blood is dripping down our characters finger. We had to get this scene correct as the blood within this scene becomes a symbol of what events unfold within the first part of the film (where the blood drips on to the picture of the suspect, signifying that the man in the picture is our characters next target). We had to shoot and re-shoot that particular scene over and over again as the camera changed focus as the scene moved. Another instance where this happened was when we panned over from the TV to the desk itself. Even the TV was a challenge to get in focus, as it shone a very bright light against the camera lens, causing it to lose focus every now and again. We had to get this scene correct however, as it signified the difference between the current society of the viewer, and the society within this movie, making it easily distinguishable that there are many differences in this alternate reality compared to the viewers. When the camera panned over, the scene then became very dark, and because of this, would lose focus. We needed the wall to be easily visible on camera, as it was part of our mise en scene planning, and on this wall, would be our characters sources of inspiration (revolutionaries, leaders, etc.)

The next most important thing was assembling the props that are essential to our films running sequence, and are also key to presenting the main ideas within the movie through the use of mise en scene. This included things such as
- The "Overlord" poster
- The weapons and their assembly in the cloth
- The knife that would appear throughout these scenes.
- The case file and the picture inside (None of the writing was essential, but it made it look realistic on camera, and is part of our smaller mise on scene considerations)
- The desk (The desk needed to be there otherwise their would be no basis to put any of these items on, and therefore no set in general)

The desk was essential to representing nearly all of our scenes within this movie, and because of this, considerations needed to take place to make sure that the desk suited the scene itself. For example, we couldn't  and wouldn't use a modern glass table to feature in all of our scenes as it just wouldn't fit with the time period that we wanted our production to be set it, plus it wouldn't even be able to hold half of the things on the desk without smashing. It had to fit with the era that our film was set in as it would appear in nearly every scene. Luckily, one of our group members was able to provide a desk just like the ones that we originally planned to have.
The case file and the picture were the most essential pieces of paper within our opening sequence as it really helped us define the running order of scenes. without this, there would be no point in some of the scenes within our opening sequence, such as the blood running down the persons finger and on to the picture, as well as the close up and extreme close up shots that show information about this specific person. having such a bright sheet of paper also made it easier to import some of the opening credits within the post production phase, as the font colour was black, making it stand out a lot more.

The other props were important to creating the feel of the set, but were mainly added on the day of filming just so we could get the correct feeling of a mess, but also help create an actual "room" so to say, so we decided to add things which we had not planned about before to make it look more unique, but also realistic for the time that we intended for it to be set in. This included
- Coins
- Shoes
- Desk lamp
- Desk clock
- Passport
- Cigarettes and ash
- Books