R+P Post 7: Our opening sequence's planned mise-en-scene

The set-up for our opening sequence is relatively simple: the room is an interrogation room, which in is displayed traditionally as a dimly lit, empty room, containing only a few pieces of set, such as a table and chairs. One such interrogation room that adheres to this image is seen in The Dark Knight.

Our interrogation room will contain a blank, white table and two clinical chairs.

We will also use a bulb that will hang on a wire from the ceiling, which we will use as our sole light source. The use of high angle lighting is seen in many interrogation scenes to create high-contrast between the key-lit areas of characters and the areas that are left in shadow; this will create a sense of each character's, including the detective's, moral ambiguity. The use of lighting in this way is called the Chiaroscuro effect, which is demonstrated in the opening scene of The Usual Suspects.


We will use our camera to create certain effects; for example, we will keep the framing of characters tight, and use multiple close-ups in order to achieve a claustrophobic tension to the scene, similar to the interrogation scene in Now You See Me.

We chose to add props that will compliment the feel of an authentic interrogation room; this involves an official folder that will contain a plastic-covered picture of Peter, which is an item seen in a lot of crime dramas, such as in the BBC drama Luther.

We will also use props that carry the plot of the opening sequence; a mobile phone and earphones that Raj will use to listen to music, and a box of tissues to use when Cherish starts to cry.

Costumes will be our biggest piece of mine-en-scene, because they will be the biggest first impressions the audience get for these characters. This is incredibly typical of traditional neo-noir crime dramas, where the appearance of each suspect would say a great deal about their social status and their personality, which the film will either conform to or challenge; this can be seen evidently in the line-up near the end of The Usual Suspects.

For instance, Tyrone will wear a dark hoodie in the opening sequence to conform him to a general negative class stereotype that labels young males of lower class as gang members, who are represented as wearing hoodies in many forms of media. This is a representation that will be challenged later in the film.