RESEARCH: Semiotics

 This post covers what I learnt from Roland Barthes semiotic analysis video.

Roland Barthes analyses an advertising image, Panzani pasta, and uses it as a means of teasing out how different messages are conveyed by a system of signs, this essay is called The Rhetoric of the Image.

Signs

Signs covers all of semiotics, it can be broken down into denotation and connotation. Denotation covers the literal aspect, how something is intended, whereas connotation can be left to interpretation.

A 'myth' in terms of Roland Barth says that it is an obvious level of signification that is built upon arbitrary stereotypes and is defined as a denotative signs.

The video looks at the Apple logo, an apple, its connotations to me suggest high costs and sleek design, while to someone else it may suggest sweatshops and globalisation.

The presentation taught me how to analyse aspects of film language through his breakdown of Tales of Terror From Tokyo

• Misc-en-scene
• Misc-en-scene covers what we see on screen, this including the set. In the video, he shows us an extract, Tales of Terror from Tokyo going through and breaking down how it uses semiotics. He brought attention to the corridors of the set being small and cramped, this demonstrates and increases the high anxiety of the scene

• Sound
• The tone of characters can be used to establish their intentions/personality, this can be supported through ambient sounds, in the extract the man behind the door has a high, shrill voice creating him to seem like an antagonist while in the background chimes are playing to create a nervous feeling in the viewer.
• Camerawork 
• The camera can be used as to establish setting or a characters position within the scene. The extract used wide angles as to make the girl seem small in the room.
• Editing
• Editing can influence the audience by choosing where their attention is held, by using sharp cuts to a door handle accompanied by intense non-diegetic music, this alerts the audience as to know something dangerous is behind the door.

Signs being found everywhere in film and Tv mean that directors and filmmakers must be creative with their signs to keep audiences interested.

Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss is an example of a creative who effectively utilises symbolism to create meaning In his texts. 

The screenshot from Ae Fond Kiss portrays a bulldog, a symbol of Britain, urinating on the shop owners sign. Loach uses connotational signs here where this could be interpreted as the toxic relationship between Britain and other cultures, this is due to the disrespect that the locals are showing him and with the dog being a bulldog portrays this is Britain being discriminatory as a whole rather than individualistic behaviour