Practical Task- Mise-en-scene (Costumes)

 

Practical Task- Mise-en-scene (Costumes)



 

I decided to do my practical task on costumes. For our initial idea of our opening scene to a horror film, we decided to have two characters; a vulnerable, young deaf girl who is religious and a masked killer. This conforms to both psychological horror, and when we add in some fake wounds and gore, Slasher as well, so we decided on a hybrid. For the young girl, we wanted 'normal' but fairly understated clothing. For my practical task, I chose a light green zip-up hoodie with a white camisole underneath and navy blue skinny-jeans. I then found a small rucksack which the girl would have and then attached a wooden cross keyring to it to show that she is a Christian. As well as this, I found a small gold cross necklace that she would also wear. Because the girl is deaf, to emphasise and visually show this, I ordered a hearing aid from Amazon for her to wear in her ear. In these pictures where I am simply modelling the vision we have for this character, I pinned my hair back on the side in which I am wearing the hearing aid so the audience can see it clearly and easily. 

 

 The full outfit with the rucksack and a bible- we were thinking about having the girl on the floor of a church so I demonstrated in this still.

 The hearing aid

The gold cross necklace symbolising Christianity and conforming to psychological horror

 A mid-shot of the jumper, camisole and cross

 

 

 In this picture, the girl is praying on her knees- you can also see the hearing aid in her right ear and the cross around her neck

 A full long shot of the girl's costume

Close up of the hearing aid

The other character is still a bit up in the air regards to decisions about whether the killer will be a male or female. However for the purpose of my practical task when I was the only available model, the killer was a girl. This does subvert the common conventions of killers being males though so it is potentially a route in which we will go down. It also took a while to come up with an appropriate outfit for the killer because we hadn't decided whether we were using a boy or girl. In the end, I decided on a black hoodie with black leggings and hiking boots. I also ordered a white mask off of Amazon so the killer could mask their identity. This outfit allows for flexibility in deciding whether to use a male or female.

Long shot of the full outfit- it was also quite easy to create haunting shadows

 When filming, we must ensure we are consistent in making sure that the fringe hair or skin from the face isn't on show

 It was also quite easy to distort the white face using the flash on the camera, other objects such as branches and the window in which I was looking through was fairly dirty which created a misted effect.

Close up of the masked girl- the mascara on the eyes subverts the common conventions of men being the killers.

 The graveyard at night was also a good place to shoot the killer because the clothes blended in with the dark night and the white face was a complete contrast that really stood out.

However, for the real thing, I would suggest the actor wears black gloves so that portrays how they don't want to be caught with their fingerprints and also something like a black balaclava or scarf to cover up the villains neck so they are completely black apart from their face.


As mentioned, these are just initial ideas for costumes but with time, discussion and the development of more ideas, these may change or be developed.