Mise-En-Scene

   For my Mise-En-Scene project, I decided to watch and talk about the Batman movie staring Christian Bale, The Dark Night (second movie in the Dark Night Trilogy). This movie is one of many Batman movies, however the Dark Knight Trilogy is considered the best of the Batman movies. For a little amount of context, for any Batman fans, in this movie we get the introduction of the Joker. Which if you know anything about Batman, Joker is the arch nemesis of Batman according to the movies and comics. In the Dark Knight, Christian Bale plays the role of Batman, and Heath Ledger plays the role of the Joker. 

    For lighting, we can look at literally any scene with the Batmobile. When Batman is chasing or diving anywhere in the Batmobile, the producers use the effects of Low-Key lighting to make the darker color of the Batmobile pop out more. What the producers will do is darken the background while Batman is driving in order for us to focus more on the Batmobile. This is not the only example of Low-Key lighting that is used in the Dark Knight, low key lighting is also used in many scenes with Batman present to highlight his dark silhouette to make him look more menacing. In both of these examples, the lighting made the scenes feel more intense and or make Batman feel like a menacing character. 

    Now for the costume portion of The Dark Knight, we look at Batman's costume (Bruce Wayne's suit). Batman is notorious for the suit he wears as the "caped crusader, he wears an all black armored suit with a cape and a cowl. The cowl has tips on the head to make him resemble a bat. The reason Batman uses things that resemble bats because of trauma he suffered as a child from bats. The costume adds both a moral meaning to the character as well as another intimidation factor with the all black suit. 

    The setting of a scene is what really shapes the dynamic of the whole movie or TV show. For instance, when the Joker and his goons are robbing a bank in Gotham city, the setting is obviously a bank. If the producers of the film decided not to film in a bank setting, it would not be a bank robbery at all. The setting of a bank gives the audience that emotion to lock them into the scene in order to see what happens next. 

    Lastly, we talk about staging, a big ideal in staging is blocking. Blocking is when the most meaningful character in a scene appears the closest to the camera. In the Dark Knight, when joker blows up the hospital, he is walking toward the camera. As he walks toward the camera, it makes the audience focus on him since he is the most meaningful to the scene. This adds a more intense feeling to the audience as we see the Joker blow up a hospital and see him walk away untouched.