Revision

LO3: Production Techniques

Mise-En-Scene

Costume - Binary opposition (male gaze? )

Props - Binary opposition

Lighting (high key/low key) and colour

Characters

Acting gestures - Binary opposition (representation , stock characters Propp 1928) (Mulvey 1975 male gaze, are women objectified)

Location and Iconography - when and where we are  (all genres have sub genres Barry Keith Grant)

examples from film:

Lighting is used within Life of Pi to create meaning in many different ways, alongside this Low key lighting is used for visceral pleasure to make the audience feel fear . In contrast to this high key lighting for the same reasons to make the audience feel happiness. In some ways this can be realated to binary opposition as the majority of the film is based around religious happenings - the high key lighting connotes this heavenly sense whereas the low key quite the opposite. Costumes help the characters in the film establish themselves and make their backgrounds known to the audience . In life of Pi, Piscine wears traditional Indian clothing which not only tells us the location of the film, but also shows how racial minorities can be seen as to be pitied as said by Alvorado 1987 - this is made obvious when the character finds himself in multiple different scenarios which the audience are allowed to find humourous or dangerous (therefore easy to be pitied).

Editing techniques such as eye-line-match are used within the film to create enigma codes as suggested by theorist Barthes (1977), we see Pi looking at objects which he requires yet struggles to retrieve due to Richard Parker being too close - this leads the audience into wondering what he needs the object for and how he is going to get to it. Similar to this Insert shots are used to the same enigma codes, we frequently see piscine writing in a note book which causes reaction from the audience as they wonder why exactly he is doing that when the narrative leads us to believe he thinks he wouldnt survive.