mise en scène

plural mises en scène · plural mise en scènes · alternative mise-en-scène · alternative mise en scene

1. A physical environment; surroundings.

   Keeping the bird low in my field of view emphasized its early post-liftoff flight path and allowed the lake and its far bank to add layers of color to the mise-en-scène.

   2021, Peter Cavanagh, “9. Cranes”, in 100 Flying Birds: Photographing the Mechanics of Flight, →ISBN, page 218

   1 more example

   The smoking-room proper, with its mise en scène of Turkish divans, narghilehs, brass coffee-trays, and other Oriental properties, is no longer considered a necessity in the modern house; […]

   1897, Edith Wharton, Ogden Codman Jr., “The Library, Smoking-room, and “Den””, in The Decoration of Houses, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 151

2. broadcastingThe arrangement of props and actors on a stage or for film.

   For reasons explained in the previous volume, noticeably absent are mises en scène representing productions at the Théâtre-Italien.

   1998: H. Robert Cohen, Original Staging Manuals for Ten Parisian Operatic Premières, 1824–1843, page xiii (Pendragon Press; →ISBN, 0945193610)

   3 more examples

   Although this mise en scène may sound like a contrived “Twilight Zone” setup, it provides Mr. Powers with the perfect opportunity to show off his virtuosic skills as a writer[…]

   1995 June 27, Michiko Kakutani, “Playing Pygmalion to a Hermeneutic Computer”, in New York Times

   Dupont interrupts the continuity of the master narrative of lighthouse-keeping and marital and extramarital love with visually arresting mise-en-scènes and mise-en-shots.

   2010, Paul Matthew St, E. A. Dupont and His Contribution to British Film, Pierre: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, page 173

   This is also the point at which mise en scène no longer simply describes the passage of a text to the stage, but rather encompasses the autonomous organisation of the theatre work, the 'synthetic' vision of theatre and of mise en scène which is the subject of an accomplished study by Guido Hiss.

   2013, Patrice Pavis, translated by Joel Anderson, Contemporary Mise en Scène, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), pages 9–10