"Mise-en-scène is a French term and originates in the theater. It means, literally, "put in the scene." For film, it has a broader meaning, and refers to almost everything that goes into the composition of the shot, including the composition itself: framing, movement of the camera and characters, lighting, set design and general visual environment, even sound as it helps elaborate the composition."We've been studying this in my Film and Literature class, focusing on how the story is told through visuals. As I was browsing YouTube, I came across a video about the making of Silent Hill 3- unlike Silent Hill 2 and some instances from the first game, they focus more on physical fear compared to psychological horror.
To the left are some set designs to put the player on edge: the walls and floors will bleed, "burn," and swarm with dark stains, sometimes making it harder to see where you're going. This creates anxiety, fear, uneasiness and confusion among the player. Not only that, but the only light you have is a flashlight. There is rarely, if ever, another light source. Yet there's a catch: the more light you use, the more likely you'll attract danger. But you know you need it to survive.
Creepy/scary/serious games/movies are just more fun to analyze: They focus more on camera angles and lighting, and are meant to stir up the emotions of the audience. They just have more to offer in my opinion. Go watch the Silent Hill Movie then go see High School Musical. Which movie was more appealing? (base this on visuals, not the obvious plot failures).
If you watch that video on YouTube, the creators of the game put an enormous amount of thought into everything in the game- they didn't have another reference so they had to do everything from scratch, making this game even more original. Even the characters were carefully chosen.
For example: look at this picture. This is the first character concept of Heather, the main character of the game. If you were to describe her with simple adjectives, what would you say about this girl?Sweet?
Innocent?
Young?
Feminine?
Now does she really look like a character that you would find as the heroine of a survival horror game? . . . Not really. The female co-designers insisted that she be a little more sexy with her clothing style (not in jeans like the original designer pictured her) and with shorter hair, yet they made it slightly curly, to still give it that innocent look.
How would you describe the final version of Heather?
Here's Heather's actress, doing some moves that will later be recorded via movement senors
Here's Claudia's concept: the main "villain" of the game. Note the impressive amount of detail put into her appearance. The designers also had the idea to make her bald with her body completely covered in tattoos, yet it would make her too "obvious." You can already kinda tell how much of a religious zealot she is just from these concepts.
Here's the final version of Claudia. They purposefully gave her no eyebrows to make her more mysterious in what she was thinking/feeling. Not only were they successful in that, but they still managed to make her look really creepy looking.
Vincent is (spoiler alert) a hypocritical character- he uses you for his own purposes and basically only looks out for himself. He likes to tease you along the way- he and Heather argue over who's "side" he's really on.
Here's another mise-en-scene thing: Sometimes, the camera angle will be from first person, with Vincent addressing the "camera." Since you play as Heather, I guess you can assume that we see what Heather sees. However, if you look really closely, when Vincent speaks to you, he doesn't look you in the eye. He seems to be looking over your shoulder at something else. . .
Here's what Mr. Hitchcock had to say:
Hitchcock is the creator of the "Hitchcockian blot:" this is where we 1) identify the viewing subject, someone who is looking in a particular direction. Then, we 2) see the viewing object; we have switched to the viewing subjects point of view and can see what they're looking at. 3) the gaze is returned as a reaction to the viewing subject.
Take this scene from Hitchcock's rendition of Rear Window from 1954:
(click to enlarge). . . sweeeeet.
