Mise-en-scene

Component of mise-en-scene

Locations

Props

Costumes

1. Locations:

Ho Chi Minh is a wonder of beautiful hallmarks, hidden gems, alleyways, dark corners and sudden twist and turn. The merger of old architecture remains from colonial time, to booming new night life sector and large skyscrapper, cultivates an unique, distinct atmosphere of urban lifestyle. 

Henceforth, location scouting in Ho Chi Minh city is as hard as it is easy. With illusion of choices, we are susceptible to be over idealized and nitpicking about our locations, as well as circling back to square one if the debates couldn't settle. 

There are 3 main locations in our opening sequence: a balcony overlooking the city; a main, busy streets with lots of colorful and distracting lighting;  a deep, hidden alleyway

 1.1: Balcony:

Name	Address	Reference photos + Notes
Vinhomes Central Park balcony	Bình Thạnh district, HCM city	Overlooking the villas area
Vinhomes Central Park observation post	Bình Thạnh district, HCM city	Lighting is a very big issues, as well as noises and nearby passengers Transportation of equipment as the stairs leading to the post are very dangerous
48E apartment complex	48E Ký Con street, District 1	Minus: the balcony kicking will not have as much dramatic effect as metal bars balcony
2PM Coffee	135/39 Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh street. Binh Thanh district	Cafe-area so may not feel as lonesome and dark May not be allowed Not as dramatic when kicking
Sài Gòn Center	65 Lê Lợi street, District 1	May not be allowed Noise and too much lighting

 1.2: Busy streets:

Name	Address	Reference photos + Notes
Nguyen Hue walking street	Ben Nghe Ward, District 1	Too busy, may bother people Too much traffic
Ung Van Khiem street	25 Ward, Binh Thanh District	May not be as walking friendly, but very good youth atmosphere
Xuân Thủy street	Thao Dien, District 2	May not be as walking friendly, but the

1.3: Alleyways:

 Any alleyways in center of District 1 is fine as they all are stunning with similar gloomy, private, mysterious atmosphere

• Le Thanh Ton alleyway
• Pham Ngu Lao alleyway

2. Props:

             Props are minimal in our opening sequence, as the Detective is mostly seen running or expressing concerns for upcoming threeat, but not any physical danger are shown. Thus, the props that are needed to convey the atmosphere is also limited, to minor details like the photo portrait and the phone case to fake antiqueness of the opening.  

Props	Specifications + notes	References
Photo portrait	Old-colored, may be soaked in coffee and dried Crinkled	(Our actual photo portrait)
Props gun	Typical shotgun props, with loadout	(Prop gun that we rent from Hai Phong)
Red nails press on	For the antagonist, so that their hand movement is exaggerated
Cigarette, lighter	Regular cigarette, quite crumbled

3. Costumes:

    There are 2 prominent characters in our opening sequence, thus there are 2 sets of costumes we would like to revise. Both of them would signify a sense of authority and mystery, as they are power figure in their own right getting trapped in a chasing sequence.

 3.1: Detective A.: Color pallete: Brown, grey and earthy tones to show the washed up and used up feel of the character

• Trench coat: Knee length, mustard color
• Shirt: Off white, crinkled, untucked from the pants, albeit the crooked big-panned belt
• Pants: Way too loose for their physique, washed up color of brownish tone

 3.2: Femme Fatale: Model like the appearance of traditional femme fatale, with charming appearance and 

• Boots: High platform sillouhete or boots, to emphasize on the menacing footstep of the antagonist approaching
• Red nails: Emphasize their hand movement 
• Black bodysuit: Convention for intimidating character

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Location scout

10/3/23

As of 10/3, we went on an expedition to location scout in real life, and assess whether location we found online is apt for our filming. In total, we ventured around 20km, totalling to 2h30 travelling time, to settle on places near Vinhomes. This is for the concern of transportation, and maintanance of our gear and budget.

• Running scene will be done in Vinhomes
• Alleyway is in walking distance to Vinhomes, but we would travel by motorbikes because we would bring gears and camera

(Various scenery in Vinhomes Central Park, and imagine them at night)

        Actual location scout has a lot of issues, especially for the alleyway. At first the alleyway was either too big, too small, too narrow or too crowded for our taste. As it is a typical alleyway with residents, sometimes we would interrupt with their activity too abrasively. Moreover, we would want to factor in how the alleyway would look at night, as the last scene is when the sun entirely set. 

 

        The alleyway we chose, fortunately, branched into smaller sub-alleyway with a open scenic to the nearby skyscrappers, which would stunning at night. Moreover, the residents there are really accomodating to us, which we prove to ask for their support on multiple occasion with a glaring smile. 

           One minus although, is that the alleyway is full with dogs (typical amongst Vietnamese household), and our production crew is shy away by them. Contrastingly, there are a lot of cats and we were also distracted by their cuteness :>

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On set mise-en-scen mistakes

                Funnily, or unfortunately, we ran through a lot of mise-en-scen mishap during shooting that span over multiple days. Most of them are small, unforseeable mistakes that cracks us up, but colletively cost us a lot of time on set. 

• I forgot to bring enough acessories for Nat's costume, such as belt and especially the boots, as I had to borrow of my sister. Once she went to school with the boots while we in dire need of them, so that I had to run to school and switch her shoes. 

(Our footwear collection) 

• Rene's red nails is simple plastic press-on with single use adhesive, thus making her very uncomfortable during the first try on. On later shoot, we actually ran out of adhesive as we had to try on too many times already, and I had to split the remaining 2 adhesive stickers into 4 fingers for Rene to handle the prop gun.

(Rene and the first time adhering the nails)

• The colored photo potrait is printed with high quality hard paper (as I thought that would prevent it from flapping when we shoot in windy environment), proves that it cannot be lit through a hole with cigarette. We had to use regular print A4 paper without color for subsequent shot

• As our locations are located in the heart of the city and we shot around night time, there were a lot of vehicles passing through our shot. We had to wait patiently for each of them to pass through, which sometimes not patiently if we kept making mistake in the footage or them passing by mid-shot.

    ➡️➡️    It goes without saying that although there is risk assessment and checklist, there are always mishaps ocurring. This requires quick decision making and problem solving (and running), which is a skill I would want to harness more personally in both media production and general skill set.