Analyses one of your production in relation to media language.
In order to answer this question I have selected to use my A2 short film “*********” which is about ……………………………….synopsis / outline to the plot.
Media language is the way that meaning is constructed using semiotics, the study of signs, to communicate a message to the audience. Media language can be interpreted through the use of visual, auditory and written codes which are obtained through the producers decisions in the technical elements of camera, mise-en-scene, editing and sound.
Michael Wohl, (The Language of Film 2008) explains the term as “If ‘language’ is defined as how we communicate, then it can be interpreted in many levels when it comes to the medium of film. We know that each language consists of learnt “words, phrases, grammar, punctuation, rules and common practices”. For us as film makers this must be interpreted in our use of conventions o that our audience can understand the product we are making and the messages involved.
To begin with let us look at mise-en-scene which is made up of a number of different elements, for example, lighting, costume, location, character movement, props etc. During the scene in which the father character smashes the make-up on the floor, the composition of the camera frame includes the schools girl’s bag in which you can clearly see a packet of pills. The director and I decided to make these props prominent as we wanted to communicate to our audience the dominant hegemonic reading of the girl committing suicide. However from a negotiated hegemonic position the audience might perceive the violence of the father (character movement) to connote the juxtaposed reading that he is responsible for the narrative closure of her death. This implementation of media language was intentional as conventionally with short film the narrative is often open to interpretation by the audience.
The decisions on the media language within camera, angles, shot sizes and movement played an important role in my film (Closer). It was important to portray messages to the audience through the use of signs depicted using props so that the audience was able to receive the preferred reading that the person he had killed was talking to him. We used close-ups, effects on lighting in editing and narrative flash backs, on the fridge and leaflets to heighten the audience’s awareness of the words being communicated. Our decisions on camera angle and shot size during the scene in which he is on the floor contemplating cutting his wrists while staring at a picture of him and the implied dead female character, signifies to the audience a potential closure to the narrative and Todorov’s “new equilibrium” through the attempt to represent the characters disorientation and emotion.
The sound design in our short film (Karma) played a key role in the connotation of the juxtaposition between the girls’ perspective on life and that of the outside world at the outset of our narrative. We used the binary opposites (Levis-Strauss) of different genres of music; non-diegetic sound track of classical with an eerie twist vs. the implied diegetic music of rock pop on her head-phones. During this opening sequence we also edited the soundtrack so that one genre was overlaid with the other to signify to the audience the represented confusion of her conflicting lives and setting up the narrative that she was a victim.
Our decision on having arguably a slow pace to our editing (Fleeting) represents our intentions to portray the match-on-action with the characters life-style and lack of movement for the bench. During the scenes in which he meets all of the other stereotypical characters Jonathon only moves from the bench to take a photograph of the prop left behind. In order to construct this pace we intentionally used slow fades to black and back up again with a slight gap in the timeline for the briefest of pauses so that the transitions between the days is signified but also to emphasise Jonathon’s emotional attachment to the bench.
Media language obviously relies on conventions set out by film practices already historically established, (e.g. continuity editing, match-on-action, parallel editing) as well as those implied by the medium (short film, use of stereotypes and exploration of character) and genre (social realism/drama) therefore in order for our production to be understood by the audience we have to conform to existing rules of communication. Throughout the production process we as producers have to be aware of the media language we are using and what it implies especially at the pre-production planning stage. Arguably our use of media language has been restricted largely to conventions as our brief was to make a short film in its entirety with marking criteria that insists on “editing so that the meaning is apparent to the viewer”, therefore a short film that was potentially “film art” perhaps studying the techniques of Edwin Porter (intercutting shots to create an emotional impact on the audience) would not have meet the criteria yet our experimentation and diversity in creatively using media language could have been explored further.
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