Writing about Mise en Scene

Mise en scene is the term used to refer to the arrangement of visual compositional elements and movements within a given space. In movies, it is defined by the frame that enclosed the images. Cinematic mise en scene encompasses both the staging of the action and the way it's photographed.

What comprises mise en scene?

Sample Paper: Manhattan

Writing about Narrative Structure

Although many films vary from classical structure, one paradigm has dominated narrative film production for the last hundred years. The classical paradigm emphasizes dramatic unity, plausible motivations, and coherence of its constituent parts. Classical plot structures are linear, beginning with an exposition that situates the characters in the place and time and introduces the protagonist and the main conflict of the film. The following scenes intensify this conflict in a rising pattern of action. This escalation is treated in terms of case-effect, with each scene implying a link to the next. The conflict builds to its maximum tension in the climax. After the climax, the dramatic intensity subsides in the resolution. The story ends with some kind of formal closure.

Syd Field, the author of several noted handbooks on screenwriting, claims that the classical paradigm plays out in film in terms of a three-act structure: setup, confrontation, and resolution.

What is three-act structure?

Sample Paper: The Verdict

Writing about Genre

The term "genre" refers to a category of films that share common elements of content and form, as well as draw an identifiable audience who comes to the films with certain expectations. In categorizing films, we identify a set of similar themes, characters, narrative structures, and camera techniques that link movies together. These conventions of the genre create the expectations the audience members hold when they come to view a film in that genre. Most discussions of genre also keep in mind that genres change over time. Genre theorists have identified four stages that genres go through.

1. Primitive--During this stage the conventions of the genre are just developing, and the audience has yet to develop set expectations for the genre.
2. Classical--During this stage, the genre is at its peak of popularity, the conventions of the genre receive their fullest expression, and the audience knows what to expect.
3. Parodic--By this stage, the conventions of the genre have become so stale and well-known, that they are laughable and ripe for parody.
4. Revisionist--During this stage, genre films consciously question and/or reverse the established conventions of the classical stage of the genre.

Sample Paper: Unforgiven