Mise en Scene

What exactly is mise en scene? Is it singular pieces of a whole? Or is it the whole collective piece? Or is it both? These are a couple of the questions pertaining to the Film Theory term Mise En Scene I find to be very interesting. This film term is something quite extraordinary because it can easily transcend into philosophies about life and yet so much has been written about the world of the cinema imitating life as well as life imitating the cinema. This is a short film I made attempting to explore, perhaps with a bit of humor, the term Mise En Scene. For this film, everything was hand made and hand processed, so that the maker is in complete charge allowing myself to become the whole mise en scene. And yet what it becomes, that which the maker has made, is it something as very simple as his work, or does the film unfurl into a life all unto itself, thus seeking it's own mise en scene and what is this really made up of? Did the maker simply make a reflection of himself in the form of film? What really does make up a film? What really does make up a life?

Mise En Scene from Benjamin Popp on Vimeo.