Case Study On Mise-en-scene in Beautiful People By Christina Low

Costume and Hair BEFORE No logos Looks very cheap Liked to wear dresses Nylon tracksuits Clothes with heavy Patterns Chunky shoes are Worn in school The school uniform is Not modified by the Students. All the boys have middle partings and girls tend to have their hair scraped back. Hairstyles are typical of those in the nineties. Very fashion conscious style. A ‘normal’ modern hair style A lot of designer clothes. Clothes look very expensive

Setting Weather looks perfect. Shows flashes of money- shows wealth. Shows many designer boutiques such as Dolce &Gabbana. People there look happy. The streets all look very clean and well kept.

Setting 2 Very industrialized. bad weather Looks very dirty and dingy. A lot of graffiti. No designer boutiques. The complete opposite of New York Furthest away the characters go on holiday is Slough Inside the house the décor is very old fashioned, and is not at all modern.

Props No mobile phones. The phones are still very old. No plasma televisions etc. The television programme shown is an old clip of Eastenders, which was probably televised over 10 years ago. They drink ‘homemade wine’ suggests that they can’t afford proper wine.

Speech/Dialogue No modern words such as ‘innit’ or the constant use of ‘like’. Simon insinuates that his mum is an alcoholic, his sister has gone out with every boy in the street, his dad has being playing away, and it is also mentioned that his aunt use to be addicted to prescription drugs.

Beautiful People Sound

Digetic The main aspect of Digetic sound comes from interaction between characters with a large majority of it being dialogue. Certain characters also tend to sing a lot in a musical style (Breaking out into song while walking down the street going to school).

Non-Digetic A wide variety of songs are used to depict the tone of different scenes. Some of these songs are used in a commentarial sense. For example, in Episode 1 when Debbie thinks that Reba is having an affair with her husband (Andy) and is very emotionally upset from it, the non-digetic song is Jolene – Mindy Smith which is about a woman stealing the heart of the singers man. As Beautiful People is a comedy show, there are no clichéd ambient sounds to make the audience aware of the the antagonists/protagonists.

Genres of Music There are three main genres of music used in Beautiful People: Musical, 80’s and Modern Pop. The Musical genre is used to highlight their vocal abilities (Especially in Episode 2 when Simon and Kyle audition for a stage school) The 80’s music is used to depict Simon and Kyle’s dream of living in the 1980’s where their typically ‘gay’ behaviour would be accepted as the norm. The modern pop music includes singers such as Kylie Minogue, the current biggest gay icon in the world, to show the affection from characters (Mainly Kyle who only responds when called by the name Kylie after his hero).