This week, we began to look at the techniques of continuity editing as developed by Edwin Porter and D.W. Griffith, including the match cut, cross cut and analytical editing. Along with continuity editing, aspects of mise-en-scene (the elements/figures placed before the camera to be photographed) play a significant role in the viewer's comprehension of the film story.
1) From your reading in Film Art (Chapter 4), identify and briefly describe the four aspects of mise-en-scene in the following clips:
The Baby's Meal (Lumiere Brothers, 1895)
The Cook in Trouble (George Melies, 1904)
2) Exercise: 180-degree rule (screen direction)
The 180-degree rule states that when filming, the camera must remain on one side of the 180-degree line (axis of action) in order to maintain consistent left-right relations from shot to shot.
In this brief clip from Frank Capra's Meet John Doe (1941), locate the axis of action and provide a brief explanation as to how you've determined its position.
1) From your reading in Film Art (Chapter 4), identify and briefly describe the four aspects of mise-en-scene in the following clips:
The Baby's Meal (Lumiere Brothers, 1895)
The Cook in Trouble (George Melies, 1904)
2) Exercise: 180-degree rule (screen direction)
The 180-degree rule states that when filming, the camera must remain on one side of the 180-degree line (axis of action) in order to maintain consistent left-right relations from shot to shot.
In this brief clip from Frank Capra's Meet John Doe (1941), locate the axis of action and provide a brief explanation as to how you've determined its position.
16 comments:
The Baby’s Meal
Costume- The costumes used in this particular scene depicts normal wear for the time period the film was shot in. It appears the mother/wife is a stay-at-home mother because of the maid-esque attire she is wearing. The father is a white collar worker.
Setting- The Lumiere brothers use a staged real setting for this scene. The family appear to be eating a meal in the yard of their home. The corner of the house ahead of a group of trees with the characters sitting at a table with silverware in there hands are some of the major setting characteristics that drew me to this conclusion.
Lighting- Determining the lighting effects used is very hard to tell through the still image of this scene. I would assume the scene would be shot during the same time the meal would normally be eaten by an average family.
Staging- The medium camera shot was used to give the impression of a close knit family while still enabling the viewer to visualize the setting and the family.
The Cook in Trouble
Costume - Two of the males are wearing cook costumes. Another appears to be wearing an infant suit. Perhaps that would be the cook that is in trouble? The other is wearing a blue collar style uniform.
Setting- The director chose to use setting props for this kitchen scene. It appears to be a kitchen in an outside setting.
Lighting- The scene appears to be taking place outside so the director lights the scene to give the impression that the scene takes place during the day.
Staging- The long camera shot allows the viewer to visualize the entire scene. The action takes place in two different areas of the scene.
180-degree Rule
The axis of action is the guy holding the pipe. The clip begins with the two gentlemen on either side of the gentlemen holding the pipe. As the one gentlemen exit’s the room the camera is directed toward him as he runs into the stand-alone ornament. However the camera only pans toward, never leaving it’s position. That is when I determined the axis of action. As the clip continues a woman walks in the office. As the woman begins to sit down the camera zooms out to a long shot. This shot choice solidified my determination that the gentleman holding the pipe was the axis of action.
The Baby’s Meal
The Brother’s incorporate the idea of making film appear close to reality. They do this with the setting of the scene taking place on an actual set using actual props. It gives you the feel that the family is outside at their table eating a meal not on a theater stage. He also uses lighting to help accomplish this by making the scene rather bright appear relatively equal to that of being outside, making details very visible. The camera angle appears to be a medium shot this is used to show the family sharing a meal together resembling something that was often done during that time period. The close shot presents the closeness of the family relationships but still allows us to get the feel of the setting. The characters are also dressed to suit the time period; the father is dressed up as if he were going to be soon going into work while the mother is dressed in more casual clothing for the era representing the idea that women were known for staying home while the men worked.
The Cook in Trouble
Unlike The Baby’s Meal this does not use an actual setting. The background is painted on and only a few props are real. You still develop the sense that it seems to be an outside kitchen but seems more as if it were taking place on a stage. The lighting reflects the idea that the scene is outside by using brighter lights as if it were sunny out. The costumes reflect the title and the setting by making two men wearing chief costume and a man in a white shirt and dress pants, its some what difficult to determine the fourth persons attire. The camera angle is probably at a fix position showing an extreme long short making it feel as if the film is on a stage.
Axis of Action:
When watching this you notice that the axis of action is the horizon of the opening scene in line with the edge of the side of the desk. The man on the right always is on the right and the women who enters remains on the left.
Zachery Holder
In the two clips given all four aspects of mise-en-scene play a key role. In the first clip with the baby, their costumes reveal what kind of people they are (societal status, money, and where they are in history). The family was eating outside, so in a real life setting, as opposed to a stage. Natural light and most likely some artificial light both appeared in this scene, although it is hard to tell due to it being black and white. Staging stayed pretty much the same throughout the clip.
In the cook clip, two of the characters were dressed in what their profession called for (cooks) and another was in a “baby” getup. The lighting in this one was difficult to tell due to the way this was filmed. The room looks as though it is not inside, referring to the setting. The shot used for this scene is a long shot; it looks similar to how a play would appear in a theatre.
After first reviewing “Meet John Doe” I had the impression that the edge of the table (closest to the camera) was the axis of action. But then later in the scene the camera zoomed out so I then looked to see what was on the other side of the table, it was a man smoking; I then realized that this man was the axis of action.
-Ryan Bender
Setting: In "The baby's meal" The setting along with the whole movies is there to make it feel more homely. It is there to make you go, "wow" because it looks like your home. When this first came out it was revolutionary. "The cook in trouble" Is set up so that the scene looks real like the first, butm ore comical in the fact everything is interactable. People are coming in and out of every spot imaginable on the set.
Costume: In the first film costumes are set up to be more home like. Average people. The second film, the costumes and make up are there to add the comic relief and make the people look like mice, ninjas, or wizards. They are using illusions to "make a funny"
Lighting: The lighting in the films light up the key areas of the set they are working on. Wither it be a baby, or a stove, the key area is visable.
Performance: In the first film, the family is acting how a normal family would, feeding the child. The second film is again more comical and it shows the mice and ninajs being chased around, and the frustration the cook feels because his food is ruined.
The axis of action stays right about where the first two men to speak are. They would be do points on the line and the line doesn't move throughout the scene. The closest the camera gets to crossing the line is when the girl walks into the office and the camera slides behind the boss in the office.
The mise-en-scene in the films of old are much easier to identify than film/cinema of today's culture, as things were simpler back then. In "The Baby's Meal" the Lumiere brothers create a sense of home life by different means. The setting is established as a nice breakfast outside on a nice day. Their costumes seem authentic, nothing extravagent, but still quite regal, even aristocratic. The staging of the shot shows that, through a medium shot, that the family is sincere and draws attention to the baby, hence the title of the film. The lighting seems natural, as would be for an outside shot, making this whole sho seem authentic.
George Melies' film "The Cook In Trouble" is quite different than the work of the Lumiere Brothers and the mise-en-scene is changed. The most obvious change is the setting. It is clearly shot on a stage and the use of props takes from the realism of the shot. The lighting is perhaps too bright for an inside scene where no visible lights in the kitchen are seen. Their costumes are believable and bring some realism to the shot, but still makes it look less than serious. The staging of the scene shows that, through the use of a long shot, there is a lot of action going on and the camera is trying to pick it all up.
In the clip from "Meet John Doe" the axis of action clearly takes place from the left side of the room. Though the camera moves around a bit, it never crosses over to where the man in the black coat is. When it does go slightly behind person, the action is still in front of the camera (i.e. when the detective is talking to the lady).
In the Lumiere brothers picture, mise-en-scene plays an important in The Baby’s Meal. The setting is outside and that makes it feel real and an at “home” type of feeling. They look like a wealthy family because they are eating outside, and the house looks nice, and the view behind the house looks like a nice one. The mom and dad looked a little dressed up for a meal outside. They look like a typical family though, because they look like a happy family. The lighting in the scene is hard to determine. Because it’s a still photo its hard to tell if the lighting is from it being outside, or if there is lighting on the characters.
In George Melies The Cook in Trouble the setting feels like it could be someone’s kitchen. There are two people sitting on stools at the table with one of the cooks, and they look like they may lives with two cooks, or gone over to a nearby house. There are two characters in the scene who are dressed like cooks. It’s hard to determine if the setting is inside or outside because it looks like stuff is hanging from the ceiling, but the stairs make it look like they lead to a door to go inside. If it is outside, then you can tell there was lighting used in the scene. They all look like there in a good mood. The cook with the two guests at the table look like they are laughing and the cook in the back looks like he is singing or telling them something.
I had a few impressions on what the axis of action was going to be. I would say the axis of action was desk, because the camera was always working around the desk it seemed. But at times it seemed like it could have been the guy, because he was always on the left and when the woman enters, she always stays on the right.
Robert Aldrich
The Baby’s Meal
Setting: The scene takes place in a natural outdoor setting. The couple are seated at a table, with a baby between them.
Costume: The man and woman are both dressed in black-and-white; only the infant is wearing stark-white clothing, probably to help establish her as the focus of the clip. They seem reasonably well-to-do, like a middle- to upper-class family.
Behavior: The couple are fawning over the infant, mainly the father. The viewer’s attention is drawn to the interaction between the father and his baby, interrupted periodically by the mother whenever she breaks from making tea.
Lighting: There doesn’t appear to be any use of lighting other than direct sunlight.
The Cook in Trouble
Setting: a stage kitchen, with props that have obviously been painted.
Costume: The costumes here are very obvious—the chef’s hats, the magician robes, the mice tails, etc.
Behavior: The cook and his attendants’ gestures are very flamboyant, as are the stunts by the mice; all the characters move everywhere on the screen, mainly on the lower-horizontal half of the screen.
Lighting: Again, there seems to be little use of lighting. I assume the director just used one main light source, set at the upper left of the camera.
Axis of Action: At first I thought the axis of action was the edge of the desk toward the camera, but that didn’t quite make sense to me, especially after the camera moved extremely close to the gray-suited man's shoulder. Then I realized the dark-suited man with the pipe was almost right between the two speaking characters, so I think he is the axis of action.
Hannah Mann
The setting in the Lumiere Brothers’ clip is very realistic. It seems to have been shot outside of a house instead of in a studio. The clothes worn in the scene by the actors looks like normal attire for the time period and the makeup worn is either minimal or none. The lighting of the scene looks very natural, perhaps it is only from the sun, and increases the realism. Staging in this scene is most impressionable by the facial expressions of the actors. The man appears very delighted to be feeding the child while the child awaits its food and the woman stirs her tea with a delighted look on her face.
The setting of the Melies clip is much more elaborate and detailed but less realistic than the Lumiere brothers’ clip. The backdrop is designed to look like a large kitchen. The large stove and pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling makes this area easily recognizable to the viewer. The actors’ costumes are exaggerated in order to emphasize their character. A cook, a woman, and a boy seem to be peeling vegetables while another cook stirs a pot. Without the costumes their roles are unknown and the story blurred. The lack of shadows in this scene suggests frontal lighting which also makes the scene seem two dimensional. The acting looks exaggerated, especially in the case of the female character. This may be considered bad acting by today’s standards but from a standpoint of silent film it was a useful way of furthering the action.
The axis of action, or 180 degree line, in the scene from “Meet John Doe” (1941) appears to create a line between the desk and the chair. I first felt this way because the detective was talking to another man who then left the office. The two men were standing in this line. When the woman came into the scene she immediately sat in the chair. The dialogue between the detective and the woman is mainly shot from the camera between the two which makes the line all the more visible. Although the angle changed from behind the detective and behind the woman the action remains in that line, or axis.
Nathaniel Winter
In The Baby’s Meal, the setting is very important. We can clearly see it is a family setting, taking place near a home at the dinner table. Setting is also important in The Cook in Trouble, as the ovens are clearly visible in the background while the customers and tables are visible in the foreground. Costuming is also important for both scenes. While the baby is being fed, it is wearing a standard baby outfit, while the parents are appropriately dressed as normal adults. In The Cook in Trouble, costuming is also important. We can see the man dressed as the cook in the background, and the somewhat outlandish assistants in the foreground, adding to the sense that the cook is currently overwhelmed with the task at hand. Lighting is also a factor in both scenes. The lighting in the first scene shows that it is possibly morning or early afternoon and the family is sitting down for a meal. In the second scene, the lighting appears to indicate that the scene is taking place at night, during a dinner rush at the cook’s restaurant. Staging is a key factor in both scenes. The mother, father, and baby are all placed together at the table to make them seem even more like a family. The cook and his assistants are placed apart to emphasize how much work the cook is doing by himself.
The axis of action in the scene from Meet John Doe is located in the foreground immediately in front of the editor’s desk, running from the wall behind the desk to the opposite wall. This is clear because the camera never moves beyond the side of the editor’s desk. It remains on the same side of the room throughout the scene. This is most clearly scene during the moment when the editor is explaining how many people want to meet this John Doe, as the woman’s image stays fixed on the left while the editor stays on the right.
In the first image from the film by the Lumiere Brothers shows a typical family raising a child. The setting takes place at what seems to a typical family home, eating outside. The costumes that were given make the family look somewhat classy. They seem to me to want to sit down and have a nice meal and enjoy feeding their child. The lighting is fairly simple; it looks to be the mid afternoon, not too sunny but nice outside. For the aspect of staging the baby is placed it the middle of the frame and the parents focus it on the baby. The father is turned to the baby in this frame and seems to be feeding his child.
In the second image from Melies’s film, the setting takes place in some type of kitchen. The walls are obviously painted on to look like a real background. The costumes for the characters make them seem to be a little bit lower class, and the two bearded are wearing typical clothes that a chef would be known to wear. The lighting seems basic; they look to be inside which somewhat dim lighting. The staging in this scene has three characters in the front left pealing food while the other chef who seems to be in charge looks to be stirring in the background.
In Frank Capra’s film I found the axis of action to be at about the middle of the desk. You never see the camera pass this point and that is where most of the conversation is taken place in this scene.
-Logan Lovett
The two screenshots in the blog have the 4 elements of Mise-en-Scene in them. The first clip is The Baby’s Meal:
Costumes: The costumes in The Baby’s meal are suggestive of a normal family. The baby is dressed in a regular baby outfit; the father has on a vest and a tie making it suggestive of him to be a workingman. The mother is dressed in a sort of maid outfit which suggests that she stays at home to tend to the house and baby all day.
Setting: The setting of the scene is very basic. The Lumiere Brothers filmed with a real set that looks like the families backyard. The house is on the right side of the screen and there are trees in the right corner.
Lighting: The lighting appears to be fine for this shot. Although it is hard to tell from just a screen shot, all of the characters are lit well.
Staging: The camera is set up on a medium-shot of the family. This shot squeezes together the entire family and gives the viewer a good look at them all.
The Cook in trouble
Costumes: The costumes in this shot are very theatrical like in the sense that they are not wearing just ordinary clothes. Two of the men appear to have cooking clothes on with hats. The other man has his sleeves rolled up hard at work. And the final person is dressed like a baby with a bonnet on his head.
Setting: The setting also gives a theatrical sense because of the fake background used. The picture of the town and the cooking ovens are fake, while the stairs on the right side and the props the characters are using are real.
Lighting: There is not much effect from any lighting in this shot. All of the characters and the scene appear to be well lit.
Staging: The long shot of the scene lets the viewer see all of the characters acting at once while showing their location.
180 degree axis rule: In this short clip I found the axis of action to be the desk. The camera never moves from the left side of the desk between shots. When the man behind the desk is being filmed it appears the camera is almost exactly on the axis. Although it comes close when the lady walks through the door, I think the desk remains consistently the medium between one side and the other of the action.
Kyle Probst
The setting of the Lumiere brothers clip “The Baby’s Meal” shows a very domestic setting; a back yard, behind a house. The couple seems to be upper class wearing very proper clothing that could be seen being worn everyday in the era, the makeup is very realistic and nothing is too exaggerated. Its daytime and the weather is warm, this gives a very safe and almost happy aura around the picture. This couple is sitting at a table with their child between them with their expressions very neutral; their expressions give off a sense of security that nothing wrong is happening. The surrounding light of the scene illuminates the faces and surrounding of the couple and the infant, it allows the viewer to observe the happenings of the scene as it happens. The shot crops the couple and surrounds the baby, it is a mid-shot that utilizes the functional area of the scene such as the table and the things the actors are able to grasp.
The background of George Melies “The Cook in Trouble” stands out very much, its very obvious that It’s two dimensional. The bright lighting, long shot, stereotypical costumes, fake beards and heavy makeup make this scene quite ridiculous. The long shot is meant to show the entire scene similar to early films theater plays. Bright lighting gives the viewer a light and airy sense that creates a comic aspect of the clip. Clean and bright are the cook’s costumes in the scene and the makeup and fake beards are meant to draw attention to mannerisms the actors might be giving.
The axis of action is located along the plane of the room between the door and the man’s desk. The scene is captured between those two points and nothing outside of that. From the initial scene when the man is on the phone that is where the axis is established and hence forth through the scene it gradually shifts towards the door and the woman who walks in.
Nick Edmonds
In these two photos there are the four elements of Mise-en-scene. First the lighting, in Melies film the lighting is studio because it seems to be filmed with in a studio. In the Lumiere Bros. the lighting is outdoors under shade. Next is the costumes, in Melies film the men are dressed in cook outfits and there is a man dressed as an infant, this shows a silly comic feeling to the film. In the Lumiere Bros. film, the two adults are wearing simple middle class clothing and the baby is in a simple white outfit. And then there is setting and staging. In the baby's meal a medium shot is used to get a closer look at the families facial expressions and the setting is a nice family lunch outside. In the cook in trouble it seems to be filmed in a studio and backdrops are used to give the illusion of a kitchen and the shot is a wider medium shot.
The 180 degree rule is followed in the film meet john doe. The line seems to be halfway on the desk through the man behind the desk. It's apparent when the woman enters and while there is dialogue between characters later in the scene you can see behind the desk to the right.
In these two photos there are the four elements of Mise-en-scene. First the lighting, in Melies film the lighting is studio because it seems to be filmed with in a studio. In the Lumiere Bros. the lighting is outdoors under shade. Next is the costumes, in Melies film the men are dressed in cook outfits and there is a man dressed as an infant, this shows a silly comic feeling to the film. In the Lumiere Bros. film, the two adults are wearing simple middle class clothing and the baby is in a simple white outfit. And then there is setting and staging. In the baby's meal a medium shot is used to get a closer look at the families facial expressions and the setting is a nice family lunch outside. In the cook in trouble it seems to be filmed in a studio and backdrops are used to give the illusion of a kitchen and the shot is a wider medium shot.
The 180 degree rule is followed in the film meet john doe. The line seems to be halfway on the desk through the man behind the desk. It's apparent when the woman enters and while there is dialogue between characters later in the scene you can see behind the desk
to the right.
Chris Moore
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