Mise En Scene

Super 8 is a film about aliens on Earth. When a freak train accident occurs in a town, weird things begin to happen. Animals act strange, things go missing, and people start seeing bizarre things. A group of kids decide to investigate and it soon turns out the strange occurrences have been caused by aliens so the military gets involved and evacuates the town.

I chose this image to do my mise en scene about because it represents an important part of the film. The image also tells a lot about the occurrences in the film. The four characters here Joe, Alice, and each of their fathers are the main focus of this shot. This is closed form as it focuses solely on the main characters in order to demand the viewers attention on them and no one else. They create this form in a few ways. This is an intimate shot as it is meant to show the emotion and closeness of the characters. Another thing that is important is the fact that the characters in the background are blurry to keep the viewer's focus on the front four. During the film, each of the children get into arguments with their fathers about the occurrences. This causes a lot of tension between them but this shot shows that they are their to comfort each other in times of need no matter what. This is why the intimate proxemic is important. These techniques capture the intensity of the events while also showing the union of each child and their fathers.

Phillpott, Mise en Scene in Super 8

I chose this scene from Super 8 to do my mise en scene analysis because I feel like it captures many different elements of this terrific science-fiction movie. In the particular scene, we are presented with the military, the civilian parent, the law enforcement parent, and the children's reactions to the alien leaving Earth.

The dominant in the scene is the four characters in the foreground of the frame: Jackson, Joe, Alice, and Louis. Because they are in the foreground, it shows the significance of their reactions and interactions. In this scene, the military is removed from importance by the depth of this frame because the soldiers are sent to the midground and background of the shot, and they are slightly out of focus. The lighting is high key on the main four characters, but the military is literally left by their selves in the dark.

The character proxemic is intimate because the four characters are very close to one another. Both fathers are physically in contact with their own child. And Joe and Alice are merely centimeters apart. This closeness and unity seem to emphasize how the parents have now resolved the conflicts they were having with their children. The events surrounding the alien have had an effect on them and their relationships. The fact that Joe and Alice are very close highlights that they have made a close bond over the events of the movie, and it is not one that will easily break.

This scene is a closed form because the characters have been staged so that you can see particular things. It is not a haphazard or "normal" setup. The audience's attention is supposed to be on the main four characters so they have been positioned in the center and in the foreground. From this scene, the audience can determine that the military did not want the alien to leave Earth, but the four central characters are happy to see it go.

Engineer, Mise en scene analysis of Super 8

Super 8, is a brilliant science fiction film with meta narratives that tell us compelling stories about government control and the struggle of small town people being confined by the military. The story begins with innocent children trying to satisfy their curiosity of the unknown by making a zombie movie. The children are trapped in the middle, when they stumble upon the military’s intention to contain an alien. The Director, J.J. Abrams captivates the viewer’s attention by using visual materials to narrate each scene in an extraordinary mise en scene manner. All four distinct formal elements such as staging of the action, physical setting and décor, manner in which materials are framed and photographed are brilliantly portrayed in this film.

In this scene, a tight frame is used to show how one of the characters, Preston is confined to a tight space on the left side of the frame with no room for movement. On right side of the frame is Joe Lamb’s father, Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler) who is in an intimidating position wanting answers from Preston about his son’s disappearance. The frame excludes audiences in the background by blurring their presence. The dominant is the reel of film, Preston is holding right in the center; the subsidiary contrast is the towering presence of Jackson looking Preston straight in the eye. Closed form is used in this scene to show confinement and no way out for Preston, who instantly comes out with the film reel. Available lighting is used as this scene is in a hospital setting. The characters are in a three quarter turn position which conveys Jackson’s unfriendly feelings at that moment towards Preston. The camera proxemics appears to be an extreme close shot, even though the character proxemics especially of the father appears to be angry and hostile, but not intimate.