<P> Mise - en - scène (French pronunciation: ​ (miz. ɑ̃. sɛn) "placing on stage") is an expression used to describe the design aspect of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"--both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction . It is also commonly used to refer to multiple single scenes within the film to represent the film . Mise - en - scène has been called film criticism's "grand undefined term". </P> <P> When applied to the cinema, mise - en - scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement--composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting . The "mise - en - scène", along with the cinematography and editing of a film, influence the verisimilitude or believability of a film in the eyes of its viewers . The various elements of design help express a film's vision by generating a sense of time and space, as well as setting a mood, and sometimes suggesting a character's state of mind . "Mise - en - scène" also includes the composition, which consists of the positioning and movement of actors, as well as objects, in the shot . These are all the areas overseen by the director . One of the most important people that collaborates with the director is the production designer . These two work closely to perfect all of the aspects of the "mise - en - scène" a considerable amount of time before the actual photography even begins . The production designer is generally responsible for the general look of the movie, leading various departments that are in charge of individual sets, locations, props, and costumes, among other things . Andre Bazin, a well - known French film critic and film theorist, describes the mise - en - scene aesthetic as emphasizing choreographed movement within the scene rather than through editing . </P> <P> Because of its relationship to shot blocking, mise - en - scène is also a term sometimes used among professional screenwriters to indicate descriptive (action) paragraphs between the dialog . </P>

What are the two major visual components of mise-en-scène