Mise-en-scene: The Woman in Black

What is Mise-en-scene?
Everything within the frame - setting, lighting, costume, framing and composition, colours, expressions and makeup.

Creation of the mise-en-scene can influence the way the reads the scene/its interpretation of character situation

Semiology - the study of signs/symbols - helps create death to the scene

- It has a limited colour palette (largely greys) because it is a sad film

- They are travelling to an isolated area

 

- They pass a grave maker, which later in the film we find out is the young boy who died in the house's gravestone. This is dramatic irony - once the plot is revealed, it will be more relevant

- More gravestones which has connotations of death

- It is unkempt and messy which implies that no one has been around to take care of it

- Low camera angle to make the house appear more threatening and big

 

- The camera is placed in the window above to make it seem as he was being watched from above      

    

 

- Camera angle is high to make Kipps look vulnerable and small

- He is framed in a shot that is within a doorway and you can see the Woman in Black very subtly