Mise-En-Scene

Planet Earth from Space
 
Does he wave in triumph or distress? Drag the astronaut around the image.
Where you place him determines how a viewer reads his gesture.

 

  Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance and Leo White
Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard  
  A Jitney Elopement (1915). Left to right: Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance and Leo White. Twenty-seven years later, White played the waiter, Emile, in Casablanca.   Modern Times (1936). Left to right: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard.  
      Position characters and you interpret their action. Consider this assignation from Dracula (1931) .  
 

 

 

You Did It Then: Change the look and feel of Kid Auto Races at Venice by modifying elements of mise-en-scene using your editing software. Step by step instructions and the component shots are in the button below.
"Forty youngsters dare-deviled around a ten-mile course at Venice, California some little time ago in the Junior Vanderbilt Cup Race. They all had homemade one- or two-cylinder cars and they were all after one of the six silver cups and a share in two hundred and fifty dollars of prize money.

You Do It Now: Create a scene with three elements (a foreground subject, a midground subject, and a background). Photograph the scene twelve times. Making each photo, change the foreground subject position, the midground subject position, and the camera angle, lens setting, and/or distance. Then analyze how each change affects the mood and feel.
Albert Van Vrankin, Jr. sailed home with first prize in a little over thirty-seven minutes, although in the middle of the race he ran into a ditch, turned turtle, and had to extricate himself and his car."
Technical World Magazine, May 1914