Bedroom location: Mise en Scene

Before:

One of our main issues whilst filming was our location of the bedroom as the mise en Scene of the room was not suitable for the character that we wanted to convey. We previously decided that the character who would become the victim would need to come across as a character who would be unsympathetic and uneducated in terms of mental illness. We thought it would be easiest to do this by making our character seem shallow and a stereotypical teenage girl, so that our target audience could easily identify what we, as the filmmakers, wanted the personality of the character to be. Therefore her room needed to fit in with this character.

 We immediately decided that major changes would need to take place within the room to make it suit the character, primarily by removing various items which clashes with the personality of the victim. This included all of the books on the bookshelf as we didn't perceive the character to be very interested in reading fictional works, the guitars in the corner of the room as we thought although she could be musical, these would distract from the main points we wanted to put across about her character.

We also took down any obvious posters, such as this band poster as it completely clashed with the personality and appearance of the character. We had to be careful when editing the room that we couldn't see any hidden parts in inconspicuous parts of the room which we wouldn't think to look, such as in the reflections of mirrors. We wouldn't want to film the scene and only notice a Mise en Scene error retrospectively as this would require us to re-film every shot again in the location.

We also thought that overall, the room was too plain for the provocative character that we were trying to convey. As we see here, the wardrobes were bare and no items around the room indicated that the character was in any way like how we wanted her to seem. We also didn't think that she would be the type of character to keep her room in good order, like is shown in the photograph.

After:

1) Shelves

Initially, we removed all the books and fluffy teddy bears and sculptures down from the shelves as these did not suit that character at all. To replace these, we put in lotions, make-up, sprays and all sorts of other cosmetics to show that she cares greatly about her appearance. We tried to make sure these looked as full as possible by putting rows and rows of cosmetics, rather than one shallow collection at the front. As well as this, we put them in a random order and knocked over some bottles to make them look authentic.

2) Floor

We focused heavily on making the floor look messy so that the audience could tell that she was a careless person. We covered the floor with shoes, making sure that all shows were ones that we thought would suit that character's style, to avoid any mismatching in that respects. We also added a pile of school work on the floor, to show the level of importance that she places on her education. The cosmetics being places above the school work in each shot would convey the character's priorities in life.

3) Wardrobes

On the wardrobes, we decided to plaster pictures that we had printed off of various celebrities to show off that side of the character. We thought these would make her seem more like the usual teenager, and made sure that the celebrities which we used were typical of our age group by asking around what our peers thought would be effective, and what they have as posters in their rooms. We also moved a mirror against one of the wardrobe doors, as we thought a mirror would be essential in the scene to show off her vanity. It also helped to make the room look less spacious, and more cluttered. We had to balance the mirror on a set of drawers to make it stand out more, and from it we could hang more items which would show off the character's tastes, such as the pink nightgown and more pink clothing, hopefully making the dominant colour in the shot pink and conveying her femininity.