Mise-En-Scene Analysis

Media Mise-en-scene Analysis: Prom Night

Mise-en-scene is an important part of a film because it helps to signal to the audience about how they want you to feel. It also tells the audience more about the characters and how they are feeling to each other.

The lighting and colour play a major part with highlighting people & objects and helps to convey the message that the film is trying to portray. In the beginning of the video, low key lighting is being used to create shadows and darkness. This connotes mystery and danger as the low lighting is causing the whole scene to look darker and blacker. This is conventional for a thriller movie because they will always try to create mystery so that the audience will be interested and want to work it all out. If we look at 4:23, the lighting and colouring helps draws the audience's eyes to the antagonist. This is caused by the light behind his head and the black door which causes the bright light to stand out more which causes the villian to stand out more.

The costume, hair and make-up show the audience more about the characters and what their personalities are like. The victim, Donna is wearing a ball gown with light make-up and the antagonist, Richard is wearing dark casual clothes with a baseball bat. You can see that Richard is the antagonist because he is wearing dark clothes, with darkness connoting danger and evil. He is also wearing a baseball hat which hides his face a little bit from the audience. Donna is wearing light colours, which can connote innocence and purity. It is conventional for the antagonist to wear dark clothes and clothes that will help them to disguise themselves & hide better. However, Donna’s outfit isn’t conventional for a thriller movie but it goes with the title on the movie, ‘Prom Night’

The positioning of characters draws attention to certain characters and highlights who are the main characters and who aren’t. One scene where this is shows is when Donna is getting her mum’s shawl from the closet in her hotel suite. When she is picking it up, Richard, the antagonist is behind her and puts his hand out to stroke her hair. Donna is in the middle of the shot, which shows the audience that she is the main attention on the scene. With Richard’s hand coming out of the darkness, it shows the audience that he is the bad person once again. This is also conventional because the victim will normally be the main focus with the antagonist being the secondary character.

The setting can help to manipulate the audience by building expectations and creating situations. This movie is held in a grand hotel which isn't conventional for a thriller movie, as you would expect a thriller to be held in an abandoned place or somewhere scary. However from the title of the movie ‘Prom Night’ the hotel is the perfect place for the movie setting. Donna and her friends are staying in a big suite with multiple rooms. This gives it a maze like feel which the audience see when Donna is locking and running though all the doors and rooms. The maze feel also makes the whole chase scene more exciting and makes it look more like a cat and mouse chase, because Donna hides under the bed, whereas if it was in a simple one roomed hotel suite, the chase scene would be a lot smaller and less exciting. This would make it a weaker scene and would not grab the audience's attention.

The facial expressions and body language can help the audience understand what the characters are feeling towards each other. When the security alarm goes off, we see most of the students being confused and not really moving. This shows that they don’t realise the seriousness of the situation and don’t actually seem to believe the guy who is telling them to move. This is conventional to a thriller movie because confusion helps to make the attacks and climaxes more intense and the confusion can make the audience believe that it is all going to be fine and create an illusion of safety.

My analysis of ‘Prom Night’ has shown me that if you do the correct mise-en-scene then you can create a very successful thriller movie. This has helped me with planning for my own thriller clip because I now know what to do to keep the audience's attention on my sequence and that the little details, such as lighting can play a major factor into a scene.