Researching Mise En Scene for Photographic Shoots

A successful photo shoot contains more than just clicking the button on the camera. Lots of preparation is required to pull off a successful photo shoot. Professional photographers will dedicate hours to to planning their shoots, such as, lighting, costumes, setting, hair, make up, positioning and poses. Professional photographers will often have staff, and people that will often prepare the stuff for them. As I am neither a professional or wealthy enough to afford to pay people to do it for me, I am going to have to research Mise En Scene for the rock music genre.

To create professional and successful photos Mise-en-scene needs to be thought about in detail, this includes costumes, makeup and hair. For the rock genre, rock starts are presented to look rough and ragged, this is achieve by using costumes, makeup, in some cases, and their hair. For my front cover, I am going to need to think about how I’m going to create a cover image that will appeal to the target audience, in order to sell my magazine.  

To begin with, I researched costumes. It seems that suitable costumes are the likes of denim wear, jackets and jeans, torn clothing, which again connotes the rough, bad image portrayed by the rock genre.  The costumes will be very retro and resemble clothes worn by rock stars from past decades, as that is what is associated with the rock genre.

This is an example of the kind of costumes that rock bands wore during performances.

The makeup that is usually used is either very colourful, extravagant makeup that consists of bright colours, perhaps seeming pretty outrageous and against the normal this again connotes rock music as it is often associated with the rock as it is portrayed and rebellious. On the other hand the makeup could be very subtle, just enough to make the subjects of the photograph look a little dirty and scruffy. In my shoot, I will use the different techniques to get a range of different pictures in my magazine, to how that it’s not just about one part of rock, but will cover a lot of it. Having these types of makeup will help me to get the right perception of the rock genre and will enable my target audience to recognise their magazine, by the images on it.

 This is an example of famous rock band kiss. They are well known for wearing extravagant make up.  

Finally, I looked at what types of hair you would expect to see on a rock artist/rock model. I found that, as with all the other aspects, making the person look scruffy is the main objective. To do this, making them hair big, knotty and dirty looking is key to getting the rock look perfect. Longer hair is better for achieving the right look because it is seem as rebellious that a boy would have long messy hair, as opposed to short, well kept hair. On the other hand, short, wacky hair is also something that can be associated with rock, as again is seen as rebellious. So on my magazine, I will try to make my models hair look scruffy and messy to achieve the best rock look I can in order to help sell my magazine.

This is a video of how to create a slick back old school hair style which was commonly seen amongst rock men with long hair.