Animation Staging
- Character placement & composition
- The use of long. Medium and close up shots
- Background and setting
Screen Direction
- Screen Continuity
Mise-en-Scène, as a central concept in the art of cinema, involves the arrangement and placement of all the visual elements that can be seen in the frame.
I would like to analyze the combination of split-screen and Mise-en-Scène with narrative in the context of my favorite movie, Lord of the Rings.
Set Arrangements and Props:
For example, the strong contrast between the Hobbit village and Mordor in the movie is conveyed precisely through the set arrangement of Mise-en-Scène.
The warmth and naturalness of the sets and color palette of the Hobbit village expresses the peaceful, uncontested life of the Hobbits.
While Mordor is a gloomy, barren landscape with shades of black and gray, representing the power of evil.
Light and color
In the Mordor shots, the director uses a lot of low light and shadows to focus on the characters’ faces or key props, highlighting the sense of danger and oppression.
Rivendell（Fairy kingdom）’s lenses use brighter and more natural light, bringing more openness and serenity.
The picture below shows the white-robed wizard Gandalf, the Aragon, the dwarves, and the elves on the journey to Rohan for support.
The lens slowly pulls back as the horse moves to the left. This picture is very characteristic，which contains close-up, middle-range and long-range shots. The close scene is the nearby rocks, the middle scene is the grassland and the moving Gandalf group, and the distant scene is the boundless mountains and the twilight sky. When a scene designer constructs a scene, they will choose to do so, because the images with close-up, middle-range, and long-range scenes have more depth and space.
Shape the characteristic
For example, a very distinctive character in the Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Gollum has complicated personality traits, and his good personality often talk to the evil personality. “Gollum is a compelling case study on the internal struggle of good and evil all on his own. The Lord of the Rings provides an impressive blend of relatable individual struggles while simultaneously setting up a clear “good versus evil” scenario.” (Pak, J. (2020, December 04). Why the lord of the rings are the best fantasy films of All time. Retrieved December 06, 2021, from https://www.looper.com/289917/why-the-lord-of-the-rings-are-the-best-fantasy-films-of-all-time/)
One of the scenes was that the Gollum squatted by the water and talked to his evil personality to discuss taking the Lord of the Rings. When the evil personality speaks, the camera records the water surface, and when the good personality speaks, the camera records Gollum’s face. Objects with reflection function such as water surface and mirror are often good means for photographers to show the dual personality of the characters.
Shot and theme
This picture is from the third section of The Lord of the Rings. After Aragorn and the other people defeated Sauron and became the king, Aragorn and the people saluting the four hobbits who destroyed the Lord of the Rings.
At the beginning, the king and queen salute first, and then the people closest to the hobbit begin to salute. As the people gradually gave the respect to the four heroes, the camera zooms out.
The audience found that the small and humble hobbit was honored by so many people. This shot shows the theme: no matter how small you are, as long as you persevere with hope in your heart and never give up, you will be respected by others.