2. We can call everything that is put in a scene by a French
word mise-en-scene, which literally means put on the stage.
This is a handy phrase once you know how to spell it
because it includes all the elements of acting, location, set,
production, design, costume and make up, that are put in a
scene to contribute to the meaning of the scene.
As media students we have to work out what extra meaning
is added by these techniques including how the acting,
location, costume and make up also add to the meaning.
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Blade Runner is a film with a very rich mise-en-scene.
Watch the first ten minutes of the movie of the film. Start
your analysis by looking under just one topic: Location
and setting
4. TASK 1
Blade Runner is located in a very rainy city of the future.
We hear and see the rain -
•what does this suggest to us about the film?
•Why has the director added the rain?
5. LOCAT ION & SET T ING
He wants the audience to feel that this is a dystopian city - the opposite of a utopian
city which is an ideal or perfect state where everything is as good as it possibly can
be. So Scott is showing us a place where:
1. It rains all the time and it is night, suggesting an underworld of vice and crime
2. It is overcrowded
3. There is too much traffic above and below you
4. The police can see into everyone’s personal life
5. There is an air of menace and violence
6. The cityscape is festooned with adverts
7. The cit seems to swamp the individuals
• There is very little that we can relate to from our everyday lives
1. This could be hell
6. We can see that this is a constructed set - both real and
virtual (CGI). It is obviously not a real location. We can see
that the set and the location are conveying meaning as to
how are read the film. This is called the Production Design.
The Production designer oversees everything that is to do
with the set or the location. The Production Designer works
with the Director creating the backgrounds, the set design
and the look of a film.
In Blade Runner these design elements have become a
defining feature of the film.
7. TASK 2 : L IGHT ING
• Is the lighting hard?
• Is the lighting soft?
• Where does the main or key light come from? Does it
come from less where the camera is placed or from
the side?
8. L IGHT ING
• Some genres have lighting conventions such as horror
where monsters and bad characters are lit from
underneath.
• A toplight can produce a spotlight effect that goes with
musicals. In fantasy films a toplight suggests a
character has superior or magical power.
• Naturalistic lighting? A police or cop drama, and most
soaps, will try to create a very flat, strip-light look into
an office setting. They will make the scene look
realistic with few highlights or shadows.
9. COSTUME AND MAKE -UP
Costume and make-up can
sometimes assume
importance to the viewer.
A period film such as Grease
which was made in 1978 but
set in the 1950s, uses
costumes and make-up and
props like classic cars to
suggest the look and feel of
the time.
10. TASK: COSTUME
• Explain how the
costumes help to
establish the
period and the
genre?
