Mise en Scene and 'The Last King of Scotland'

During our lesson today, we watched a shot clip from the movie 'The Last King of Scotland' set in the 1960s. We saw a  clip of Nicholas Garrigan, a post-graduate doctor from Scotland, living in a small, basic home on the outskirts of Kampala on a missionary. He is then called by the Head of the Ministry of Health to travel with him to meet President Ili Amin in his home in central Kampala.

Journey Montage-
The clip shows the journey through rural Uganda to central Kampala. After reading an interview with Michael Carlin, we discover that this shot was in fact not in conjunction; that used several shots from several locations around Uganda including rural Kampala and Ginga, and built-up, central Kampala.

Colour-
From the interview with Michael Carlin, we learn that the makers of the film used colour to represent the travel through to central Kampala. In the beginning, the colours are brown, rustic and dry. As it gets closer to central Kampala, colours get brighter, lime green trees in a forest to later, bright white buildings and houses. Carlin makes the point that the colour blue is not seen until the last scene where Nichols Garrigan has arrived in President Ili Amin medical room "which ideally is a subliminal shock for the audience... hopefully doesn't hit you as a trigger that something else is happening and in comes Idi Amin, larger than life, and another part of the film begins."

Time-
The scene where the car Nicholas is in turns the corner into Kampala High Street was the film teams biggest problem as the art department had to hire 100 people to get
rid of al the post 1960 stuff and cover up things months before shooting started.

Mise en Scene in my own film opening-
With this film, miss en scene was very important due to it being set in a non-modern time. My film will be set in the modern day, making it easier and cheaper to find a place to set my film and props. Because thrillers tend to begin in a normal, average setting or time, I will have to include eerie like objects subtly into my scene. I feel it is important to set the scene as soon as the film starts, so with editing, I may be able to change the tone of the frame or make certain things seem more eerie than they really are.