AICE Mediastudies Blog

  Barthes' Semiotic Theory  broke down the process of reading signs and focused on their interpretation by different cultures or societies . According to Barthes, signs had both a signifier, being the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses and the signified or meaning that is interpreted.  Barthes identifies five different kinds of semiotic elements that are common to all texts. He gathers these signifiers into five codes:  Hermeneutic, Proairetic, Semantic, Symbolic, and Cultura l .  I n his book states that the cultural code is the code that ‘everyone knows’ what the author means of established and authoritative cultural forms. Therefore, the cultural code is the code that is taken from the authoritative cultures which are known by everyone. The term codes can be misleading. Rather than a set of rules for how a text should be interpreted, Barthes’s codes are a perspective from which you can view a text. Reading a text with the fi...

  An establishing  is a shot at the head of a scene that clearly shows us the location of the action. Establishing shots have no rules other than helping to build tone and context, but they're not required to be wide or from a drone or to be accompanied by a screen-sized title card.  An extreme wide shot (aka extreme long shot) is a camera shot that will make your subject appear small against their location. You can also use an extreme long shot to make your subject feel distant or unfamiliar.  The wide shot  (aka long shot) is a camera shot that balances both the subject and the surrounding imagery. A wide shot will often keep the entire subject in frame while giving context to the environment.  A wide shot should keep a good deal of space both above and below your subject. Of the many camera shots, a long shot gives us a better idea of the scene setting, and gives us a better idea of how the character fits into the area. Wide shots also create narrat...

  A great way to think about camera angles is that they can help you get a different view or perspective on a scene or subject, and in turn produce a more interesting frame.  There are many different types of camera angles that can be used to capture an image, including low-angle shots (from below), high-angle shots (from above), eye-level shots, and bird’s eye views.  There are many angles that a film director can use when filming. Most of them have their own purposes and effects, but it is important to know the basics before shooting any type of scene in order to produce quality work. Filmmakers use a variety of different camera angles to convey meaning, emotion, and provide information about their subject. Camera angles can be categorized as being high or low. Low angle shots show the subject from below with an emphasis on power or strength. High angle shots show the subject from above which gives the viewer a sense of dominance over them. The different type of camera...

Orange, yellow, and red, which are often warmer tones, help to further emphasize the story's sense of warmth. Warmer hues reinforce the warmth of the family unit and the house in several movies. Warmer tones are frequently used in romantic comedies because they elicit a gentler, more romantic reaction from the audience. Black and white is a tool that, when used effectively, may help a movie set its tone. A visual aesthetic that color photography cannot can also be added to projects. It's crucial to keep in mind that black and white may be just as subtly subtle as color since there are so many different things you can do to it. First off, there are always shades of gray in between black and white; they are never just black and white. Also, silver. also beige.  Black and white is the color of glamour cinematography. The most glamorous icons of the screen, those actors who only require last names—Garbo, Bogart, Bacall, Gable, Dietrich—are most famously photographed in black and wh...

Secondary colors are the colors that are a result of the mixing of primary colors. On the RYB color wheel, the secondary colors are purple, orange and green.   The color green has come to represent ecology. Green is regarded as a lucky hue by some and a holy color by others. Green is often the signal for go at traffic lights. Green also has more variations than any other color. A small percentage of persons with red/green colorblindness. The color green is associated with nature, recovery, tenacity, health, envy, immaturity, corruption, and forebodingness in movies. Orange is a highly bright and divisive color. Like the fruit, the color orange stands for wellbeing and good health. Hazard cones and life rafts are also orange in color. Orange is a triadic hue with green and purple and the complementary color of blue. In movies, the color purple is associated with humor, coziness, friendliness, happiness, exoticism, and youth.

RYB, or the colors that cannot be blended with any other color, is a collection of primary colors. Red, yellow, and blue are among them. The RGB colors, which when combined produce white light, are another set of primary colors. Red, green, and blue are the three main hues. One of the hues that appeals to the eye the most, blue is the color of nature, from the sky to the lake. Red is hot and blue is chilly. Orange is the color that complements blue. It is also one of the fundamental colors. The color blue is associated with water, calmness, faith, spirituality, loyalty, tranquility, harmony, unity, and isolation in movies. It is also associated with melancholy, cerebralism, passivity, and calm. On the color wheel, yellow is the color that shines the brightest. Compared to other colors, it draws the viewer's attention the most. On the color spectrum, the human eye first interprets yellow. Because of this, warning signs and emergency rescue trucks are painted yellow. Yellow is the co...

 One of the numerous instruments the director has to tell the story is the costumes. Costumes aid performers in becoming different and convincing characters on screen and convey to the audience specifics of a character's personality. The character's attire immediately reveals something to the audience, giving a hint as to what the show will be about and who the character is in relation to the action of the performance.  Comparatively speaking to wearing regular clothes, costumes aren't as straightforward. Some costumes need to be customized and suited to the individual wearing them. On one person, a tailored item of clothing might look amazing, but awful on another. Additionally, some costumes feature hidden velcro or fasteners that are simple to remove in a quick change behind the scenes but are manufactured to appear a specific way. Following trends and styles that change from one decade to the next, costumes can also express the play's context, such as the historical...

The world of entertainment depends heavily on actors. They are responsible for establishing an audience connection between the screenplay and the story by accurately portraying the audience's feelings and ideas. Acting is not merely an art, as is commonly believed; it also incorporates a number of ideas and practices. One needs thorough knowledge of the filmmaking process, how one discipline affects the other, and significant practices and ethics that are relevant to the industry in order to succeed in this field and establish oneself as a professional actor. Acting comes in a wide variety of forms, including those for soap operas, theater, Disney, television, and movies. Understanding these many acting styles can be challenging for most people outside of the industry. The novice actor starts to feel very overwhelmed by education when they have to learn how to act for a one camera production as opposed to a three camera shoot.  When an actor is about to go on a film audition or sho...

A scene or atmosphere can be rapidly established by the settings. It can aid the audience in comprehending  the motivations and inner selves of the story's characters. The majority of movies have both a main setting and supporting settings. The limitations of a place frequently dictate how the characters respond or provide a hint as to how the plot will unfold. so much potential exists in a location or the way a set is dressed. Settings can act as an extension of your character, helping to communicate their emotional state or inner thoughts. Or it could even be a character all on its own, setting a tone and atmosphere for the entire film, like Pride Rock in  The Lion King , or the snow-laden terrain in  Fargo . Setting is a crucial component of the entire production process, so it is disappointing to see sets that are weakly convincing, lack coherence, and receive a poor second place in any production. Not that complex or expensive sets are required. As lo...

          Camera composition has many elements to it.  The rule of thirds is very simple. You divide the frame into 9 equal rectangles, 3 across and 3 down.  The goal is to position the scene's focal point(s) along one or more of the lines or at their intersection(s). We naturally gravitate toward wanting to center the important issue. Most of the time, applying the rule of thirds to position it off-center will result in a more appealing composition. The goal is to position the scene's focal point(s) along one or more of the lines or at their intersection(s). We naturally gravitate toward wanting to center the important issue. Most of the time, applying the rule of thirds to position it off-center will result in a more appealing composition.  Now that I’ve told you not to place the main subject in the center of the frame, I’m going to tell you to do the exact opposite! There are times when placing a subject in the center of the frame works re...

       This lesson was created to demonstrate how color may impact a scene or film's mood and emotion. The use of color in movies helps to establish a connection between the audience and the content. Black can symbolize fear or death, yellow can symbolize happiness or naivete, and red can symbolize either danger or strength. Black, for example, might express fear, although directors frequently stray from a genre's typical hues to emphasize or symbolize something. A colorist is a person who collaborates with the director to manage the picture's color scheme in the world of film production. The tone and shade of colors can also be edited by the colorist in post-production.  Although colorist specialize in color, directors still have large input about what colors go in the scene.       The goal of this of this preliminary exercise is to analyze why the director used certain colors for certain scenes. We also analyzed what these colors are suppos...

       The placement and positioning of your subjects in your photos is known as camera framing. It's all about composition in photos. Composing a photograph is more important than simply aiming the camera at the subject. The quantity of subjects you include in your pictures, as well as their spatial relationships with one another and the camera, should be taken into account while framing images for filmmakers and videographers.  Based on how you plan to position your subjects, you'll need to adjust your camerawork. You'll want to capture your framing details on a shot list well before you arrive on set. That way you have a clear idea for the scene and can communicate your vision with ease.     Now let's get into the types of camera framing.  As long as only one character is depicted in the frame, single shots can be arranged and framed in any shot size you like.  A two-shot is  a camera shot with 2 characters featured in the frame....