Key Vocabulary...

DENOTATION: When you discuss a text or image at a denotive level, you describe what you initially see.

CONNOTATION: Once establishing what you initially see from the image, you discuss these elements on a connotative level, working out what these elements may mean, or signify.

SEMIOTICS: Semiotics is the study of signs. To fully analyse an image you need to look at the signifier, signified and overall signs of the image.

SIGNIFIER: The signifier is the object in the picture.

SIGNIFIED: The signified are the implications, such as expression, of that object in the picture.

SIGN: a sign is an image, object or action which carries significance. It is the combination of the signifier and signified which gives the overall picture.

For example...

     When you look at this picture, what do you see?

SIGNIFIER: kitten

SIGNIFIED: cute

SIGN: cute kitten

Analysing footage...

When analysing a piece of footage, there are 4 key areas to look at:

MISE-EN-SCENE:

• The mise-en-scene is everything within the frame. This includes things like set, props, costumes, composition and actors. It also includes more specific things like facial expression, gaze direction, gesture, posture, body contact, appearance and spacial behaviour.

SOUND:

• Diegetic sounds are the sounds which exist within a world, for example a phone ringing or background street noise.
• Non-diegetic sounds are sounds like a soundtrack, or voices within someones head, which cannot be heard by all the characters in a scene. This is shown here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpgU3Ck6h3c in the infamous bike flying scene from ET. The music used adds to the exciting and uplifting feel of the scene, and allows the audience to suspend their disbelief.

CAMERA:

• The Camera work consists of angling, shot crop and tilt among over things. There are many different types of shot available, like the wide shot, close up, 2shot etc.. which all give different feelings to the scene and are used to empahise emotion or action.

EDITING:

• Editing is harder to identify wen analysing a piece of footage, as it it generally intended to be seamless and difficult to spot, to create comfort for the viewers. However you need to look out for different kinds of cuts, as they can signify changes in mood/scene/action and force the viewer to look at certain things, guiding their opinions.

A little about me..

My name is Grace and I am currently 16 years old. I like photography, photoshop, drawing, and watching movies. My dad loves movies and so makes me watch a whole bunch which I wouldn't normally go near, but normally end up loving too.

I am doing media mainly because of my love of movies. I love the way they allow you to enter another world and see a snapshot of someone elses life. The characters can form such a strong bond with you that you miss them after the film is over. I know I've seen a good movie when all I can think about is that world and how much I wish it hadn't ended. I want to be able to create that feeling for other people in the future.

My favourite movie is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I love everything about it, the characters, the scripting, the soundtrack.. I have watched it at least 7 times now and I love it just as much as I did the first time. The idea of being free and having no boundaries just allows your imagination to run wild.

I hope this course allows me to broaden my knowledge of films and helps me to develop my skills creating them.