MISE EN SCÈNE
April 2023
noun
noun: mise en scène; plural noun: mises en scène
the arrangement of actors and scenery on a stage for a theatrical production, a narrative, or a motion picture.
the setting or surroundings of an event or action.
origin: french
growing up, i have always paid careful attention to detail. i have never cared about what others thought and have always walked to my own beat, seeing things through a different lens than others. putting things together in what many would call an “aesthetic” fashion has always come very easy to me. simply put, i have always been a perfectionist in my art. every line had to be seamless, every stroke of paint had to be smooth, and nothing could go outside the lines – literally speaking that is. metaphorically, i never wanted my work to be just like everyone else’s. as i got older, drawing and painting slowly turned to digital drawing and graphic design. the next thing i knew i was going down the path of media arts and straying further away from the traditional visual arts that i had grown up doing.
my camera roll on my iphone is filled with so many videos of me and my brother being silly with each other. if there was a snow day you could find me on google docs writing a terrible script for an extremely cliché movie i would later try and convince my brother levin to act in with me. i would hook up my phone to my gimbal and i would boss lev around telling him where to be, what to wear, and how to act for the movie. without fail, we would get distracted ten minutes in and these little scripts and movie shots would end up on the cutting room floor.
mise en scène is arguably one of the most important components of a film. there are so many examples of movies that have been coined “great movies” simply because they contain beautiful shots. some of my favorite examples of this are films directed by wes anderson. when i watched my first wes anderson film i not only fell in love with his style of storytelling, but also his cinematography style. the perfect symmetry, the color choices, the framing, it all felt so perfectly orchestrated. the more films i watched, the further into the wes anderson rabbit hole i fell. entranced in his pure artistry of mise en scène, my interest in pursuing filmmaking flourished once again (this time a little stronger than my spontaneous snow day imovie making). i wanted to learn more about the crazy world of filmmaking – especially the beauty behind cinematography.
during the summer of 2022, i packed my bags and traveled to los angeles, california for a summer filmmaking program that i had found online. over the course of three weeks, i brainstormed, wrote, storyboarded, and directed three short films of my own. furthermore, i was able to try out the many other jobs required to make a movie such as being a boom operator and cinematographer. it was a great learning experience but i quickly learned that the process of filmmaking was obviously much harder than it looked. no matter how many times i tried to make the mise en scene aesthetically pleasing like in so many beautiful films, it never turned out the way i wanted it to. other people in my program seemed to be successful in their endeavors, but in my head, my films always looked different. i started comparing the cinematography of my short films to my photography. i would ask myself why i am able to create strong stories with my images – which don’t move or speak, but not with my filmmaking?
during the second half of the summer, i spent three weeks in new york city doing a photography summer program. it was there that i really dove deeper into the aesthetics and thought critically about creating visually appealing work. i started to realize that i was using the methods and information that i had learned while studying film in los angeles for my photographic work as well. it had actually been a very useful experience. that’s when i believe my work really transformed. i started to develop a style, i started to shoot with intent, i started to understand lighting and framing more, and i started to practice directing people for photoshoots. i learned to translate my fascination with stunning cinematography and express it through my photography.
fast forward to now, my close friend gabi has one of the most beautiful homes i have ever visited. every time i walk through the doors i can feel the stories the decor tells radiating from the walls. finally, after weeks of planning, gabi and i did a photoshoot in four locations in her house. i felt like i was finally on an amazing movie set with so much creative freedom in the art i could produce. my inspiration for our photo shoot was the film stills taken from movies. i wanted the photos i took of gabi to look like they had been taken straight out of a film. although i wasn’t aiming for the work to look anything like wes anderson’s, his cinematography is always in the back of my mind reminding me of my goals and the importance of mise en scène. over the three hours that i photographed gabi, i could feel the stories underneath our set-ups unfolding. previously i had thought in order to be able to tell a strong story you needed words or subject matter that was visually moving. but to my surprise, it was also possible within photography – something that didn’t move, make sounds, have words, or speak…and i had done it.