Mis-En-Scene Blog Analysis

Mis-En-Scene Blog Analysis

By: Sharmeen Shivji

    This week's assignment is to watch a movie or TV show and to describe the 4 general mise-en-scene areas. These areas include scene lighting, costume and staging. For this assignment I decided to chose the next best show-Grey's Anatomy. This show follows Meredith Grey and the team of doctors at Grey-Sloan Memorial hospital who are faced with life-or-death decisions on a daily basis. These doctors experience insane cases and they are also managing their personal lives at the same time, which sometimes interferes with their jobs. 

    This assignment was a little difficult for me to encounter because I was absent the day it was taught. I tried my best to understand the different areas of mise-en-scene and how they can contribute to a film, however it was still a little tricky. 

    To begin with, the setting of Grey's Anatomy occurs mainly at Grey-Sloan hospital, but sometimes it occurs at one of the many doctors homes. In season 7 episode 2 the setting opens at the conference room of the hospital where Meredith Grey is being talked to by a therapist. She has to get cleared before being able to go back work due to the hospital shooting that happened days before. The setting then moves to Doctor Yang's home where she is nervous to get back to work as she had stopped for a while due to trauma from the shooting. The setting change throughout the episode create a sense of reality and realness for the audience because it lets them experience the doctors' lives with its ups and downs.

    Next, the lighting in the hospital is a low-key lighting with high-contrast including deep shadows with a few bright highlights. With the use of this lighting it lets the audience focus on the mood of the characters and their surrounding without distracting them. For example, at the beginning of the episode when Dr. Grey is being talked to by a therapist, the lighting lets the audience experience the gravity of the situation without adding extra performances. It also gives the audience the reality of actually being in a hospital. To add on, the opening scene of this episode had lighting and thunder, which because of the low-key lighting lets the audience know that the weather was like that throughout the episode. 

        To add on, the costumes of these characters is pretty self-explanatory and constant which includes medical scrubs. Small additions like a long-sleeve tee under the scrubs adds again, a sense of reality and realness to the show. Some characters like the therapist and the Chief of Surgery wear suits to give these characters a sense of importance as they are dressed professionally. Additionally, the makeup of these actors is a very natural and a no-makeup look. This makes the characters seem normal without making them too un-natural. 

    Lastly, the staging at the beginning of the episode uses offscreen space which means that there is someone or something that is not physically present in the frame. As Meredith fake cries to try to get the therapist to clear her, he is not in frame, however with the offscreen spacing, the audience already knows who it is. The staging in this episode also has blocking, in which Dr. Grey and Dr. Karev are up in a gallery watching surgery, in the background there are many other doctors that are being blocked. This gives Dr. Grey and Dr. Karev dominance over the other characters. The characters use method acting which is shown through their mannerisms, dressing, performance, etc. This way of acting gives them a very naturalistic vibe which makes the actor no longer distinguishable from the character.

    In the end, this episode of Grey's Anatomy uses many settings, lightings, costumes, and staging. I chose to focus mainly on the beginning of the episode because I felt that it highlighted the main areas of mise-en-scene of the episode.