What is Media Language?
Paragraph 1- Media language encompasses the technical micro-elements used to create meaning these are camera angles, sound, mise-en-scene and editing and uses these to create meaning specific to the macro-elements character, narrative and genre.Media language can also include conventions, visual signs and symbols as a way to communicate its meaning to its audience. The production I will be analyzing is my AS horror film opening which was about a haunted doll who possess a group of youths who thought she was just a rumor.
Paragraph 2- Media language is a broad term which will enable a broad approach to this media text. My horror film opening was constructed through careful planning of codes and conventions that were needed to be followed and challenged.The first approach we took was a character based approach using mise-en-scene to create a particular impression of the youths and the protagonist 'Scarlet' the doll. The youths were dressed in tracksuits, hoodies, smoking, drinking alcohol and using strong language.This gave the message of the stereotypical youths being represented as rebellious and out of control and this visual code was reinforced by the theorist Barthes who argued that the organisation encodes particular messages and ideologies. In this case the ideology is that youths are anxieties to society. In my film opening through several medium shots it shows the denotation of youths holding empty bottles of wine.I can infer from this the con nation of them being drunk and careless. This concept is reinforced by the theorist Fiske 'denotation is what's filmed and con nation is how its filmed'.
Paragraph 3- The theorist Roland Barthes also said that the language of signs used objects to stand in to infer a deeper meaning. The haunted doll swinging on the signifier the swing signified the exposure of childhood and how the innocence had been taken out of it. The diegetic sound of the doll singing 'Ring a ring a roses' is a nursery rhyme which indicates that the doll is a childhood toy and the tone of the sound being very slow and mellow allows the audience to read the song and understand the deeper meaning of it linking to the plague having con nations of death.The make up that we applied to Scarlet the doll was very over exaggerated and was almost seen as a mask. In particular cultures masks are used to allow people to explore personalities of others for example masquerade ball. However in this case the sense of a mask was a way to hide the message of the doll being evil to allow the enigma code of is the doll a villain in this film opening? asked by the audience. The theorist propp adopted the idea of the roles of different characters and this is shown through the youths being the hero's and the doll being the villain. This shows the binary opposites between good and bad which is a message that I was trying to get across.
Paragraph 4- The micro element of editing was shown by linking each shot with the dip to black tool. Also changing the saturation, levels and curves of the flash forward to remove the color and get the eary night time feel to the opening. The reason these were edited in post production was to show the dark and frightening atmosphere to set the scene and allow the audience to recognize that the genre is horror. By also organizing the shots to apply quick paced flashes of the flash forward emphasizes the enigma code that the audience will have a lot of unanswered questions of what is about to happen next.
Paragraph 5- Conclusion- Overall the preferred reading of the horror film opening is that it is a representation of the exposure of childhood and how youths are exposed to evil inferring the world. By using the micro elements of mise-en-scene, sound and editing especially shows the impression of youths being stereotyped and the doll conforming to the convention of evil. Along side this the visual signs and symbols as well as semiontics to illustrate the clear story line. A narrative of a group of youths experiencing a surreal world of evil.
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