Ryan Ryersen 9-20-17

          Today in class we started out by discussing how choices in mise-en-scene affect narrative elements of film. We also learned how to revise one’s analysis in order to maximize specificity and clarity.  We began by asking how choices within the elements of mise-en-scene develop narrative objects of the film. We started with this rather simple statement that had clarity as it was easy to understand, however, it lacks specificity. So, we tried to add specificity using details by asking the sentences interrogative based questions. Interrogatives are words such as who, what, where etc. A root of the for interrogative is interrogate which means to question someone or something aggressively. The interrogation of these sentences can and will lend itself to more complex, concise and sophisticated statements. After our discussion of these statements we broke off into our groups and began to craft sentences following this structure that related to our group. My group analyzed the picture from The Departed and we came up with many statements but my favorite related to the lighting key. The statement goes as follows the contrast of the lighting key gives the office a very dark, bleak and boring feel while outside the window it appears to be bright, colorful and exciting. This shows that the man leaning on the desk, the dominant feature, probably wants to depart from the boring office to the exciting outside world.  This sentence explains both the mise-en-scene feature, the lighting key, and the related narrative feature, which is the exposition. After we shared our responses by writing them on the board, we then discussed how to enhance the sentence by revision. Before the class concluded, we “interrogated” two specific parts of our sentences, the narrative element and mise-en-scene element. We could choose a sentence from our own group or another group, I decided to choose another group’s sentence. Their original sentence was “The screen density is quite low except for the 2 guys showing that they are very important”. I revised the statement so that it reads “The screen density is sparse excluding the area surrounding the two men which exemplifies that these characters are main characters in the movie.” The second sentence is more specific due to the use of interrogating the sentence.
              I chose the extension to what we learned in class today to be from the opening monologue of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Specifically, the screen density and camera angle in 0:49-1:19 in the clip I provided below. These two mise-en-scene elements in particular develop character in the exposition. The screen is very dense with various things scattered around the room. The way Bueller is positioned puts him right in front of the window which is the only not dense part of the screen this makes Beuller seem important as he stands amongst a crowd. The camera angle also plays a large role in character development as we see Beular look directly at the camera and the camera is at eye-level. This makes Ferris seem confident and powerful because he doesn’t shy away from direct contact. This also makes him seem very straightforward as in he knows what he is doing and doesn’t seem to have a problem with anything or anybody.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KFVLWX7eEY