Strauss argued that narrative (he called it 'Myth') has two main characteristics. They were:
1. That it's made of units that are put together according to certain rules.
2. That these units from relations with each other, based on binary pairs or opposites, which provide the basis of the structure.
The idea of opposition that he proposing roughly works out something like this;we often understand a concept by knowing what it isn't. This, he said, meant that in texts we had direct opposites that reflected differing ideas in narratives (and thus, texts.) These opposites were often in conflict in thr narrative and that was where the crux of the story of the story or the crisis of the narratives lay.
ROLAND BARTHES: FIVE CODES:
Emigma Code
Action Code
Semiotic Code
Cultural Code
Symbolic Code
Saturday, 15 November 2014
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Denotation and Connotation
Denotation: The "literal" meaning of something, an image or idea.
Connotation: The extra added meanings that we attach to images, objects and ideas that are bit "lieral" byt based on our experience, culture, age, gender etc. They are often shared within group e.g. people of a similar age, people from a parcicular religion or country. Connonations are usually:
- Shared
- Similar
- Influenced by each other, the media and personal experience.
They are aften understood and shared by groups/ These groups can be based on many things, including:
- Race
- Age
- Geography (Where we live)
- Gender
- Occupation
Sometimes when reading a text, a person may read the text differently than was perhaps expected by the text's producers- this is sometimes a partial acceptance of the 'intended' meaning, and sometimes a complete rejection of it. These are called negotiated and aberrant readings respectively.
Connotation: The extra added meanings that we attach to images, objects and ideas that are bit "lieral" byt based on our experience, culture, age, gender etc. They are often shared within group e.g. people of a similar age, people from a parcicular religion or country. Connonations are usually:
- Shared
- Similar
- Influenced by each other, the media and personal experience.
They are aften understood and shared by groups/ These groups can be based on many things, including:
- Race
- Age
- Geography (Where we live)
- Gender
- Occupation
Sometimes when reading a text, a person may read the text differently than was perhaps expected by the text's producers- this is sometimes a partial acceptance of the 'intended' meaning, and sometimes a complete rejection of it. These are called negotiated and aberrant readings respectively.
Saturday, 8 November 2014
Lighting
Lighting is an important signifier in that it conveys the mood or atmosphere of the scene we are observing. In a studio, the lighting is usually from three sources and is set up as following:
The Key Light: Usually the brightest and the most influential.
The Back Light: Helps counteract the effect of key light, thus making the figure (or subject) more 'rounded'
The Filler Light(s): Helps to soften the harsh shadows that the use of back and key light creates.
High Key and Low Key Lighting:
The director manipulates this basic format to achieve the atmosphere s/he wishes to convey. If s/he only used the key and back lights, they will produce a sharp contrast of dark and light areas on the screen as the shadows are formed. This is known as low-key lighting and is often seen as expressive. High-key lighting means that more filler lights are used. This will appear more normal and realistic to out eyes but can also be manipulated to give more of a glamorous appearance to a star's face or add a 'twinkle' to their eyes (This 'twinkle' is called a catchlight)
The Back Light: Helps counteract the effect of key light, thus making the figure (or subject) more 'rounded'
The Filler Light(s): Helps to soften the harsh shadows that the use of back and key light creates.
High Key and Low Key Lighting:
The director manipulates this basic format to achieve the atmosphere s/he wishes to convey. If s/he only used the key and back lights, they will produce a sharp contrast of dark and light areas on the screen as the shadows are formed. This is known as low-key lighting and is often seen as expressive. High-key lighting means that more filler lights are used. This will appear more normal and realistic to out eyes but can also be manipulated to give more of a glamorous appearance to a star's face or add a 'twinkle' to their eyes (This 'twinkle' is called a catchlight)
Friday, 7 November 2014
Mise-En-Scene
Mise-En-Scene includes:
- The Setting
- The Costume and Makeup
- The use of figure, expression and movement by actors
- The Lighting
- The Positioning within the frame
THE STYLE SCALE:
Formalism & expressionism
- Form over content: how things are shown is most important, and beyond a usual representation of reality. Expressionist films are highly stylise, and are characterised by oblique camera angles, distorted shapes, bizarre setting, high contrast lighting and surreal and subjective.
- Realism
- Content over form: looks like real life- the intent is to make up forget it is a representation. This is the dominant style of most films, and is sometimes referred to as "the style of no style"
SETTING:
Setting gives a sense of place and time.Whatever the film is, you should always anaylse the set, because it provides important clues about the nature of the film, such as:
- Where the action takes place
- When the action takes place
- The mood
- The characters
- The genre of the film
COSTUME AND MAKEUP:
Costume and makeup can be considered as part of the set, because they indicate:
- The period
- The state of society
- Social class
- Cultural backgrounds
- Character traits
Changes in costume indicte changes in character, for example:
- Rich to poor
- Taking off clothes as lowering defences
- Clothing may also be a trademark
FIGURE, EXPRESSION AND MOVEMENT:
- Body language
- Appearance
- Facial Expression (very significant in close ups)
- Sound elements
- The way a character stands and moves is important
- If they are in the foreground, they may be considered to be more important
- If they move against a stationary background, attention is drawn to them
- Even distribution of characters makes for a balanced shot, whereas uneven distribution is unsettling to the eye
- Positioning of characters within the frame may even indicate emotional distance
STUDENT NOTE: Questions to use when analysing-
- Dominant- where is our eye attracted to first? Why?
- Lighting Key- is the lighting high or low key? High contrast? A combination?
- Shot and camera proxemics- what type of shot is it? Camera distance?
- Angle- low? High? Oblique? Neutral?
- Colour values- what colours/hues are dominant? What is the colour symbolism?
- Lens/filter/stock- are these used to distort or comment on the scene?
- Subsidiary contrasts- what are the main eye-stops after the dominant?
- Density- how much visual information is there? What is the texture?
- Composition- how is the screen space segmented and organised?
- Form- Open or closed? Window view or proscenium arch?
- Framing- Tight or loose? Do the characters have room to move?
- Depth- how many planes of depth are utilised? How do they interrelate?
- Staging positions- How are they positioned in relation to each other?
- The Setting
- The Costume and Makeup
- The use of figure, expression and movement by actors
- The Lighting
- The Positioning within the frame
THE STYLE SCALE:
Formalism & expressionism
- Form over content: how things are shown is most important, and beyond a usual representation of reality. Expressionist films are highly stylise, and are characterised by oblique camera angles, distorted shapes, bizarre setting, high contrast lighting and surreal and subjective.
- Realism
- Content over form: looks like real life- the intent is to make up forget it is a representation. This is the dominant style of most films, and is sometimes referred to as "the style of no style"
SETTING:
Setting gives a sense of place and time.Whatever the film is, you should always anaylse the set, because it provides important clues about the nature of the film, such as:
- Where the action takes place
- When the action takes place
- The mood
- The characters
- The genre of the film
COSTUME AND MAKEUP:
Costume and makeup can be considered as part of the set, because they indicate:
- The period
- The state of society
- Social class
- Cultural backgrounds
- Character traits
Changes in costume indicte changes in character, for example:
- Rich to poor
- Taking off clothes as lowering defences
- Clothing may also be a trademark
FIGURE, EXPRESSION AND MOVEMENT:
- Body language
- Appearance
- Facial Expression (very significant in close ups)
- Sound elements
- The way a character stands and moves is important
- If they are in the foreground, they may be considered to be more important
- If they move against a stationary background, attention is drawn to them
- Even distribution of characters makes for a balanced shot, whereas uneven distribution is unsettling to the eye
- Positioning of characters within the frame may even indicate emotional distance
STUDENT NOTE: Questions to use when analysing-
- Dominant- where is our eye attracted to first? Why?
- Lighting Key- is the lighting high or low key? High contrast? A combination?- Shot and camera proxemics- what type of shot is it? Camera distance?
- Angle- low? High? Oblique? Neutral?
- Colour values- what colours/hues are dominant? What is the colour symbolism?
- Lens/filter/stock- are these used to distort or comment on the scene?
- Subsidiary contrasts- what are the main eye-stops after the dominant?
- Density- how much visual information is there? What is the texture?
- Composition- how is the screen space segmented and organised?
- Form- Open or closed? Window view or proscenium arch?
- Framing- Tight or loose? Do the characters have room to move?
- Depth- how many planes of depth are utilised? How do they interrelate?
- Staging positions- How are they positioned in relation to each other?
Thursday, 6 November 2014
Semiotics
Semiotics: the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. It is a sign of the image/code/physical part that stands for a 'thing' or 'idea'. The thing that is the sign (the thing that means something) is called the signifier. What it means is called the signified. Signs that have literal meaning (denotation) and 'value added' meanings- things we associate with them, as individuals are as groups (connotation). The meanings signs are shared by groups of people. The understanding of the non-literal meanings of signs by a group is especially goverend by factors such as:
- Age
- Race
- Religion
- Country of residence
- Cultural upbringing
- Schooling
- Class
- Our hobbies and habits
- Media experiences
Meaning has to be shared by a group for the 'code' to work. 'Codes' have different numbers of people who are fluent in that 'code' 'Codes' are used everyday and include language (spoken), written language, moving images (TV, film), behavior at mealtimes, marriages, etc just to name a few. These are often called 'Discourse' in media studies. Signs can relate directly to what they re[resent. (i.e. look like what they stand for- called 'iconic') or they can be an arbitrary shape or sound that a group agrees to and not look anything like the thing they represent (called 'symbolic'). Signs that give or have meaning based on a relationship between the two are called 'indexical' (such as using smoke on warning sign to indicate fire)
OTHER FACTORS IN MEDIA STUDIES RELATED TO SEMIOTICS
Things are not usually black and white- they can be on a graded scale (called a 'Cline'), think about grades or degrees of heat/hotness. Users of the code (such as language or film) make choices relating to what happens next (called 'syntagm') This is like a sentence or the running order of scenes in a film; it's about choosing along the linear. Those same users also make choices at each point from a list of options (called a 'paradigm'), making a choice each time from a list. People associate ideas and things together and this is used to make meaning in the media. It's called contiguity (contiguous). People often use the characteristics of one thing to stand for the whole of it- so Big Ben for the Houses Of Parliament and/or for the UK Government, likewise the White House is used to stand for the president administration, or The Eiffel Tower for Paris. These meanings are called 'mentonymous' (metonsyms).
People's shared experiences, especially in media texts, allow for media text producers to refer to other media texts in their work. This is called 'intertextuality'- The Simpsons often does this when they 'do' The Simpsons versions of- for example- horror films. Theorists argue a lot about the extra meaning ('value added'- connotations). The audience or receivers of texts are often assumed to be/react or read a text a similar way. This similarity is called 'homogenous' (homogeneity). However, audiences are not the same, and they read things in different ways. They can be very diverse. Diversity in audiences is called 'hetrogeneity' (hetrogeneous). There are different types of signs as alluded to above:
- Icon: looks very like the thing being represented (e.g. Photograph)
- Index: suggests something related to the image (e.g. Smoke to indicate fire)
- Symbol: had agreed, shared meaning(s) not related to what the sign itself looks like, and those meanings can be quite 'deep'.
Signs that have more than one meaning are said to be polysemic. Because signs can have more than one meaning, the way they are grouped or places together is important- adding words for example anchors meaning. Images are places together carefully in groups to help the audience makes sense of what they're seeing.
- Age
- Race
- Religion
- Country of residence
- Cultural upbringing
- Schooling
- Class
- Our hobbies and habits
- Media experiences
Meaning has to be shared by a group for the 'code' to work. 'Codes' have different numbers of people who are fluent in that 'code' 'Codes' are used everyday and include language (spoken), written language, moving images (TV, film), behavior at mealtimes, marriages, etc just to name a few. These are often called 'Discourse' in media studies. Signs can relate directly to what they re[resent. (i.e. look like what they stand for- called 'iconic') or they can be an arbitrary shape or sound that a group agrees to and not look anything like the thing they represent (called 'symbolic'). Signs that give or have meaning based on a relationship between the two are called 'indexical' (such as using smoke on warning sign to indicate fire)
OTHER FACTORS IN MEDIA STUDIES RELATED TO SEMIOTICS
Things are not usually black and white- they can be on a graded scale (called a 'Cline'), think about grades or degrees of heat/hotness. Users of the code (such as language or film) make choices relating to what happens next (called 'syntagm') This is like a sentence or the running order of scenes in a film; it's about choosing along the linear. Those same users also make choices at each point from a list of options (called a 'paradigm'), making a choice each time from a list. People associate ideas and things together and this is used to make meaning in the media. It's called contiguity (contiguous). People often use the characteristics of one thing to stand for the whole of it- so Big Ben for the Houses Of Parliament and/or for the UK Government, likewise the White House is used to stand for the president administration, or The Eiffel Tower for Paris. These meanings are called 'mentonymous' (metonsyms).
People's shared experiences, especially in media texts, allow for media text producers to refer to other media texts in their work. This is called 'intertextuality'- The Simpsons often does this when they 'do' The Simpsons versions of- for example- horror films. Theorists argue a lot about the extra meaning ('value added'- connotations). The audience or receivers of texts are often assumed to be/react or read a text a similar way. This similarity is called 'homogenous' (homogeneity). However, audiences are not the same, and they read things in different ways. They can be very diverse. Diversity in audiences is called 'hetrogeneity' (hetrogeneous). There are different types of signs as alluded to above:
- Icon: looks very like the thing being represented (e.g. Photograph)
- Index: suggests something related to the image (e.g. Smoke to indicate fire)
- Symbol: had agreed, shared meaning(s) not related to what the sign itself looks like, and those meanings can be quite 'deep'.
Signs that have more than one meaning are said to be polysemic. Because signs can have more than one meaning, the way they are grouped or places together is important- adding words for example anchors meaning. Images are places together carefully in groups to help the audience makes sense of what they're seeing.
Monday, 3 November 2014
Example Horror Shot
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This is an example of a horror shot (shot my myself). It is an extreme close up (ECU) of a face, more specifically a subject's eye. This type of shot is used in horror to limit the information of a scene. You are unsure what is happened to or around the subject, because you can only see one feature in great detail. You cannot accurately determine the facial expression of the character. For instance, this shot in particular only shows a portion of someone's face, which can mean more than one thing. Are they scared? Are they surprised? What's happening? Are they even alive? All of these questions and more are asked until they find out more information.
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Sunday, 2 November 2014
Saturday, 1 November 2014
Introduction to "Film Language"
Film Language consists of many aspects. These aspects of a film help to create meaning for the audience, therefore, creating understanding.
EDITING- STYLES:
- Straight Cut
- Jump Out
- Fade
- Wipe
- Dissolve
- Graphic Match
MISE-EN-SCENE:
- Setting
- Props
- Hair/Makeup
- Facial Expressions
- Body Language
- Lighting and Colour
- Positioning within the frame
USE OF CAMERA:
FRAMING:
- Close Up
- Extreme Close Up/Big Close Up
- Mid Shot
- Long Shot
-Extreme Long Shot
- Point Of View
- Subjective
- Master Shot/Establishing Shot
- Over The Shoulder Shot
- Two Shot
- High Angle
MOVEMENT:
- Pan
- Track
- Tilt
- Roll
- Zoom
- Crane
- Crash Zoom
- Whip Pan
- Arc
- Steadicam
- Aerial Shot
- Hand Held
SOUND:
- Diegetic Sound
- Non-Diegetic Sound
- Parallel/Contrapuntal sound
- On/Off Screen Sound
- Sound Bridges
LIGHTING & SOUND:
- Low-Key Lighting
- High-Key Lighting
- Back-Lighting
- Top-Lighting
- Underlighting
EDITING- STYLES:
- Straight Cut
- Jump Out
- Fade
- Wipe
- Dissolve
- Graphic Match
MISE-EN-SCENE:
- Setting
- Props
- Hair/Makeup
- Facial Expressions
- Body Language
- Lighting and Colour
- Positioning within the frame
USE OF CAMERA:
FRAMING:
- Close Up
- Extreme Close Up/Big Close Up
- Mid Shot
- Long Shot
-Extreme Long Shot
- Point Of View
- Subjective
- Master Shot/Establishing Shot
- Over The Shoulder Shot
- Two Shot
- High Angle
MOVEMENT:
- Pan
- Track
- Tilt
- Roll
- Zoom
- Crane
- Crash Zoom
- Whip Pan
- Arc
- Steadicam
- Aerial Shot
- Hand Held
SOUND:
- Diegetic Sound
- Non-Diegetic Sound
- Parallel/Contrapuntal sound
- On/Off Screen Sound
- Sound Bridges
LIGHTING & SOUND:
- Low-Key Lighting
- High-Key Lighting
- Back-Lighting
- Top-Lighting
- Underlighting
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