The Treachery of Images ("Ceci n'est pas une pipe"; "This is not a pipe"), by the French surrealist painter, René Magritte (1898-1967).
The English translation of the caption is "This is not a pipe", if the image is not a pipe, then what is it?
"The famous pipe. How could people reproach me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture 'This is a pipe', I would have been lying!"
This is one of the most important things to remember, all media texts are representations of a version of reality, not reality itself. Every media product including news and reality tv programs have been created by a process of selecting, omitting, constructing and representing. These representations can be in many different forms: - Individuals - Social groupings - Institutions - Ideas - Events - Issues All representations hold the values and point of view of the creator(s). This can be expressed to the audience in a variety of ways through the selection and manipulation of the codes and conventions. The codes and conventions are the rules and standards of a media form. The codes are signs that create meaning and conventions are the general framework and expectations of the audience often connected to a particular genre. The codes may actually have different meanings depending on the culture or society in which it is produced or viewed. For example colours can have different meanings and those meanings can develop overtime such as the colour green, within Australia the colour is connected not only to the environment but environmental protection, being a greeny or going green, a connotation that did not exist about 25 years ago. These codes can be divided into two main groups: - Technical Technical codes are the way the equipment is used to tell a story such as the production elements. - Symbolic Symbolic codes are objects that have meaning such as the setting, objects/props, colour and body language. These are best described through their respective story or production elements such as mise en scene, acting and setting.
Technical codes
A film is made up of various components, which are often referred to as production elements. When studying a film, you need to be able to deconstruct it in order to understand how the director has put the component parts together to create story, meaning, themes and emotion.
Camera Technique (angles, movement, lens, shot type) Acting Mise en scene (visual composition) Editing Lighting Sound
Camera Technique:
Angles: The angle of a shot can create the mood of a scene, reveal important information, establish relationships between characters and develop both the characters and storyline.
Camera movement: Camera movement can be used to create emotion within the audience or to draw the audience's attention to a particular object or character. The most basic movements of a camera are: Panning (side to side movement) Zooming (closing in on or pulling away from an object) Tilting (looking up or down) Tracking (the camera travels alongside the object being filmed) Hand-held (in the operator's hand and not on a tripod)
Camera lens: Camera lenses range from wide-angle to telephoto. The skilled director and cinematographer will choose the lens that best suits the telling of the story and the feeling or mood that they are trying to create within their narrative.
Camera shot type: The most basic shot types include: Extreme close up Close up Mid-shot Long shot Extreme long shot Point of view POV
Acting: Acting is perhaps the most obvious of the production elements used in film. How the actor portrays the character through body actions, posture, and delivery of lines develops the character and creates a relationship between the character and the audience.
Mise en scene: The french word for 'staging' or 'put in the scene' referring to the visual composition of the scene. Including production design, costume design and cinematography.
Editing: Editing is the process of placing images and sounds in an order that tells a story and creates emotion for the audience. At its most basic level, editing is the process of looking at the footage shot by the camera operator, selecting the most appropriate shots and then assembling them into a sequence that conveys the narrative to the audience.
Lighting: Lighting is perhaps the production element most taken for granted by the audience. At the most basic level, lighting allows objects and characters to be seen by the audience. However, lighting can also be one of the most creative elements of filmmaking. Lighting can be used to set the mood of a scene or describe a relationship between characters. In basic terms lighting can be either hard or soft.
Sound: Sound can be divided first into three main categories: diegetic, non diegetic and meta diegetic. Diegetic sound is the sound that occurs within the film world, what the characters would hear. Non diegetic sound comes from the outside of the film world only heard by the audience. Meta diegetic is imagined sound such as an internal monologue or singing songs in their heads, that both the individual character hears as well as the audience. Sound includes many elements such as dialogue, voice-over, music and sound effects (Foley). These elements combine to communicate story, character development, point of view, mood and emotion. Dialogue: what the characters say, it can be heard from the actor, voice-over, narration or off screen. Music (the score): is generally non diegetic and supports the action on the screen.
Symbolic codes
Symbols are all around us, they are a thing that stands for or represents something else. When we examine signs/symbols and their meanings you are talking about Semiotics, the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. Film semiotics are directly tied to the production and story elements within such as setting, lighting and mise en scene. If we examine mise en scene within Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006), there are two very distinct colour palettes, the cold steel blue of Vidal's cruel world and the warm golden, oranges and reds of Ofelia's fantasy world. These two palettes mix and become more complex as her fantasy and the real world merge into one. Del Toro brings in additional imagery that the audience would be familiar with in order to develop the audience understanding and engagement. These are often subtle references such as:
The majority of the audience would be familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland, either the literary version Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or the film adaptation in 1951. The story follows the adventures of a young girl who falls down a rabbit hole into a mysterious world full of unusual creatures. This visual link to Alice in Wonderland reinforces the genre of fantasy and allows the rules of the real world to be bent, ensuring the existence of her fantasy world.
Holocaust imagery
Referencing imagery the audience are already familiar with helps to reinforce the same emotions and understandings connected to those images. With the example of the Holocaust shoes, the absolute horror and slaughter of the innocent is echoed through the Pale Mans lair heightening the audiences fear for Ofelia and disgust of the Pale Man. Del Toro also references past scenes, the visual connection between Vidal's feast and the Pale Mans lair, linking one monster to another.
Representations and Audiences
For codes and conventions to successfully convey meaning, there has to be a general agreement among the audience about the meaning of the codes- just as there is a general agreement about the meaning of words among speakers of a language. Stuart Hall, a Cultural theorists, developed a theory about audiences and their understanding of a text. This can be broken to three reading types: - Dominant or Preferred reading - the reader shares the coded meaning and interprets the text in a way that the author intended, or is consistent with the dominant social values of the culture in which the text is produced. - Negotiated reading - the reader generally accepts the dominant reading of the text but incorporates their own interests and influences. - Oppositional reading - the reader understands the dominant reading of the text but rejects it and creates their own meaning.
Representations, Values and Context
Representations always have values embedded within them, some of these values are obvious and others are not as clear because we consider them to be normal or natural. Any media text in any media form will contain the values of the society who produced it, it is really important to understand the context (place and time) of the society. The values that the audience bring to the understanding of a representation are important, but a reading of the text can be influenced by prior knowledge, cultural understandings, personal opinions or biases, as well as the text itself and the context that surrounds the representation. What a society values, respects and fears can be seen in particular within the representations of ethnicity, which include representations of racial, ethnic and linguistic groups. Key questions to ask yourself when looking at representations: - What is represented? - How is it represented? - Who made or produced the representation? - When was it made? How does it fit in with other representations of the time? How did events of the time shape the representations? - Why is this being represented? Why is it represented in this way? - What is emphasised and what is left out? - What do you understand by the representation? Would others have the same understanding? - What alternative representations have you seen? What is the difference between them?