Sunday 30 September 2012
Tuesday 25 September 2012
Meaningful Image
Definitions
Iconic: These signifiers always resemble what they signify
Indexical: These signifiers act as evidence e.g- the amount of sweat you produce represents your effort
Symbolic: Visual signs that represent something in a non-literal way
Polysemic: Signs and images which may have several meanings
Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special
Indexical: These signifiers act as evidence e.g- the amount of sweat you produce represents your effort
Symbolic: Visual signs that represent something in a non-literal way
Polysemic: Signs and images which may have several meanings
Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special
Monday 24 September 2012
Sunday 23 September 2012
The representation of age is apparent throughout this clip from ‘Monarch of the Glen’. We understand that a girl called Amy had lied about her age when in fact she is 16, she gets caught by her headmaster and then runs away.
Immediately we can tell that she is young from the way she appears to be. Her light yellow, long sleeved top has a resemblance to that of what a child would wear. Yellow connotates happiness and joy which contrasts with her character as she does not come across as being happy as she runs away and escapes situations. Also, the simplicity in the way she dresses, the way her hair is styled and by her wearing very little make up reinforces how she is younger than what she says she is.
We then see Amy get into a car in which we can see just how uncomfortable she looks in that situation: again, reinforcing her age. The dialogue: “accelerator, clutch. Or is it clutch, accelerator?” tells the audience that Amy has not passed her driving test so she either is under age or inexperience with a car. The camera pans around from the front of the car to the window which allows us to see the huge size of the car compared to her tiny frame. It then zooms into a close up shot which shows us all of her facial expressions which are vital as they portray how she is feeling: uncomfortable and out of place.
Immediately we can tell that she is young from the way she appears to be. Her light yellow, long sleeved top has a resemblance to that of what a child would wear. Yellow connotates happiness and joy which contrasts with her character as she does not come across as being happy as she runs away and escapes situations. Also, the simplicity in the way she dresses, the way her hair is styled and by her wearing very little make up reinforces how she is younger than what she says she is.
We then see Amy get into a car in which we can see just how uncomfortable she looks in that situation: again, reinforcing her age. The dialogue: “accelerator, clutch. Or is it clutch, accelerator?” tells the audience that Amy has not passed her driving test so she either is under age or inexperience with a car. The camera pans around from the front of the car to the window which allows us to see the huge size of the car compared to her tiny frame. It then zooms into a close up shot which shows us all of her facial expressions which are vital as they portray how she is feeling: uncomfortable and out of place.
After Amy crashes the car into her old headmaster, illustrating her young age, we see a complete opposite age group. The headmaster demonstrates a stereotypical headmaster: someone of an older generation, bearded, tweed suit, glasses etc. We see him stood behind the two collided cars which acts as a barrier and almost as a gender divide. His voice is very husky, deep and he is well spoken which gives us the impression he knows what he is talking about and is a sophisticated, well-educated man. The camera shot gradually gets closer to his face as we begin to build a relationship and understand him. The headmasters age is then reinforced later on when he is given a rather large glass of brandy.
In the other direction we see a shot of the father, mother, Amy and the boy. Their positioning illustrates a hierarchy of power, with the adult male at the front, followed by the young adult male, then the adult female and lastly Amy, the young teenager. Amy is closely clasped in the mother’s arms which is expected within of a child when they feel they are in danger. The close-ness between them conveys how she is scared and doesn’t feel she can fight her own battles, demonstrating that she is much younger than she originally said she was. It is this scene that we discover Amy is in fact only 16. Close ups are used to clearly show all of the characters’ reactions to her revealed age.
In the brief scene between Amy and the Paul, the status of each of them and age is clearly shown through the use of camera angles and shots. When we are shown Paul, it is a high angle shot so this gives him a lot of authority and almost all of the power between them. In contrast, when we see Amy it is a low angle shot which almost degrades her. This clearly portrays their age difference, as Paul is much older, he is given a much higher status within the scene and as Amy is much younger, she is presented as being nearly worthless.
Sunday 16 September 2012
The Textual Analysis Toolkit
Rule Number 1- All images are 'contructed' to create meaning
Rule Number 2- EVERYTHING IS THERE FOR A REASON
Rule Number 3- all texts are intended for someone
Just as there are many layers in the construction of a text, there are several processes' incolved in the analysis of images and other popular cultural texts.
1- Denotation: Describing exactly what you see and/or hear
2- Connotation: Think about what it might mean. What does the image suggest? Have you seen something similar somewhere else? Is there anything special about the choice or combination of particular elements?
3- Anchorage: Is there any accompanying writing that emphasises or re-enforces the meanings that are suggested by the image?
4- Treatment: How has the text been constructed? What materials have been used, in what way? Consider the choice of colours, lighting, locations, characters, props, etc.
5- Context: Who constructed the text and why? When was it constructed?
6- Ideology: What values and ideas are being represented in the text?
Rule Number 2- EVERYTHING IS THERE FOR A REASON
Rule Number 3- all texts are intended for someone
Just as there are many layers in the construction of a text, there are several processes' incolved in the analysis of images and other popular cultural texts.
1- Denotation: Describing exactly what you see and/or hear
2- Connotation: Think about what it might mean. What does the image suggest? Have you seen something similar somewhere else? Is there anything special about the choice or combination of particular elements?
3- Anchorage: Is there any accompanying writing that emphasises or re-enforces the meanings that are suggested by the image?
4- Treatment: How has the text been constructed? What materials have been used, in what way? Consider the choice of colours, lighting, locations, characters, props, etc.
5- Context: Who constructed the text and why? When was it constructed?
6- Ideology: What values and ideas are being represented in the text?
Friday 14 September 2012
His movies are renowned for their huge budgets and incredible special effects. But he also writes great female roles. He talks about what inspires his film-making
‘Maybe it’s just a quest to understand women who are sometimes inscrutable’ … James Cameron. Photograph: Pro Centre
It's 8.30 on a grey morning in Belfast and James Cameron, never a fan of the small gesture, strides into the recently opened Titanic Belfast museum to the swelling strains of that Celine Dion song. Despite having landed about 12 hours ago, Cameron, a good-looking 58-year-old with a powder-puff moustache and beard, is full of beans, eager to wring yet more drops out of the waterlogged wreck of RMS Titanic.
The ostensible reason Cameron has flown to the other side of the world from his homes in California and New Zealand is to promote the 3D Blu-Ray disc of his world-swallowing multi-Oscar-winning 1997 film. But the real reason is that this is simply the kind of thing that he does. Cameron will happily travel anywhere to expound upon his three great passions: marine and space exploration, and technology. When we meet after the press conference he tells me repeatedly that the only reason he made Titanic was so a film studio would pay for him to go on deep-sea dives to see the wreckage: "Anything I had to do after that was just part of the deal, I make no bones about that." He seizes the opportunity of the early-morning press conference to announce proudly that three years ago he commissioned a study with the US naval academy to learn more about the sinking of the Titanic, out of plain curiosity. In the years between Titanic and Avatar he became a proficient deep-sea diver and earlier this year he was the first to make a solo dive to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.
When I ask if he ever just chills out, he protests that of course he loves his downtime with his family: "But we'll usually jet-ski all together or do something like that." He and the presumably very energetic current Mrs Cameron – Suzy Amis, who appears briefly in Titanic – have been married for 12 years and it is by far the longest of his five marriages. "I've probably mellowed out," he says simply.
Well, it is all relative, but it is perhaps not surprising that he has been married five times as he only seems to deal in big numbers: it has been decades since he has made a film that wasn't described as "the most expensive ever made" – The Abyss was the first to be awarded that honour, then Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic and finally Avatar – and the takings have nearly always justified the budget. At a conservative estimate, Cameron's movies have made more than $7bn and Titanic and Avatar are the two biggest-grossing films ever. The costs are largely due to his determination to make his fantasies a reality.
As a child Cameron fell in love with marine exploration, seeing it as a more accessible form of space exploration. When he saw the underwater technology that had been developed to explore the wreck of the Titanic in the 80s, he thought: "I've got to get me some of that." His love of special effects marries his love of art and science and I can still remember the gasping thrill of seeing the liquid metal in Terminator 2 at the cinema for the first time.Cameron can be a fantastic storyteller: no matter how much you roll your eyes watching it, Titanic is as irresistible as the suction of a sinking ship. But his love of effects risks distracting his attention from the storyline, and it is not really an accusation that he does much to refute. During the morning press conference, when asked what his favourite scene from Titanic is, he replies, "when Rose and Jack first kiss," which seems a surprisingly sentimental choice for him but then he adds: "Not for the emotionality, but the way we shot it." Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet asked him how they should kiss, "and so I drew some lips here," he says, pointing to the knuckles on his thumbs and beginning to knock them together, "and said: 'Like this.'" And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win a best director Oscar.
Avatar is the most obvious example of Cameron's interest in technology taking precedence over plot and it is astonishing to think that he is about to start shooting Avatars 2, 3 and maybe even 4 when there was barely enough script for Avatar 1, and what there was flirted with condescending colonialism.
After the press conference, I meet Cameron upstairs looking out over the dock where the Titanic set sail for Southampton a century ago. In person he is charm itself, talkative and open, and looking healthier than he did 10 years ago, doubtless thanks to his "gradual conversion" to a vegan diet, primarily for environmental reasons. Only occasionally are there the flashes of the legendary impatience, the first one coming when I refer to an infamous incident in which he kicked over a tea cart because he was so outraged the film crew took a break."That was years ago! Hello?!" he shouts and it briefly looks as if I might be the next tea cart. But the storm passes as swiftly as it erupted: "Look, there's an aspect of movie-making that rewards bad behaviour. You're working with a team of people and you tell them what you want and a few weeks later they've forgetten everything. So you scream at them and somehow they remember. Not my actors, though – I've always been very circumspect with them."
This is somewhat debatable. While some, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigourney Weaver and Bill Paxton, have worked with him repeatedly, others couldn't get away fast enough. Winslet said Cameron "has a temper like you wouldn't believe" and she would never work with him again "unless it was for a lot of money".
But, he avows, he's a changed man. The underwater expeditions he has done in the past decade have "taught me about good leadership because now I know if someone hasn't done their job properly, I haven't done mine because I haven't communicated to them what I want".
Not that he has entirely mellowed. When I ask if it's true he wanted to buy the rights to Michael Crichton's book Jurassic Park, just the memory of how Steven Spielberg beat him to it by mere hours sparks hissing frustration: "That motherfucker!"
While Cameron is known now for spending as much on films as small countries spend on their military, he in fact started out with small budgets. After a happy childhood in Canada and then dropping out of college, he decided on film-making after seeing Star Wars and he found work at the low-budget Roger Corman studios. From there, he got an ill-fated job as the director of Piranha II and then, after coming up with the story in a feverish dream, he wrote Terminator.
Into the deep: Titanic. Photograph: Image Net Despite his displays of machismo Cameron has written some of the best roles for women in cinema. "I didn't even think it was that remarkable when I did it with Terminator – it's remarkable by its absence in other Hollywood movies," he shrugs. "I do think Hollywood movies get it wrong when they show women in action roles – they basically make them men. Or else they make them into superheroes in shiny black suits, which is just not as interesting."You seem to enjoy writing roles for strong women, I say.
"Absolutely. To me, it's just another challenge. It doesn't matter to me if it's an engineering challenge, a scientific challenge, a writing challenge – for a man to write a woman and make her interesting to women as well as men, it's a challenge. Maybe it's just a quest to understand women who are sometimes inscrutable," he says.
As well as writing strong women he seems to enjoy marrying them. His roster of ex-wives includes Terminator's Linda Hamilton, film producer Gale Anne Hurd and the director Kathryn Bigelow, with whom he remains good friends despite losing out to her for the 2009 directing Oscar.
These days, he, his wife and his five children – aged between 23 and five – live in both New Zealand and Los Angeles after Cameron decided he didn't want his children to grow up solely in LA: "I didn't want to raise them in that poisonous atmosphere. There's a climate of materialism in Los Angeles. We're all vegan, we grow our own organic food at our ranch in California, and we'll continue to do that in New Zealand. You want your kids to grow up with a certain set of values."As part of that endeavour, he threw out the family's television sets but does allow the kids to watch movies, yet only as a family group, with everyone voting for which film to watch: "It teaches them conflict resolution. It's like the old days when everybody lived in one room in a cabin." Albeit a one-room cabin that reportedly cost $16m and is set on 2,500 acres of prime New Zealand land. "Oh, come on! There are ranches in Montana that are 100,000 acres!" he scoffs.
So seeing as Cameron is no longer beset by his ego and temper maybe I can ask him the question that's been bugging me for the past 15 years.
"Sure," he says.
Couldn't Rose have shared her wooden board with Jack at the end of Titanic instead of shoving him into the ocean? "Wait a minute, I'm going to call up William Shakespeare and ask why Romeo and Juliet had to die," he snaps.
Ah, that's better.
'Love' Film Review
- Love
- Production year: 2012
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): 12A
- Runtime: 84 mins
- Directors: Michael Haneke, William Eubank
- Cast: Bradley Horne, Corey Richardson, Emmanuelle Riva, Gunner Wright, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant
With a musical score supplied by the US band Angels & Airwaves, this sci-fi meditation from 29-year-old debutant director William Eubank is a technically accomplished but stiflingly reverential homage to Stanley Kubrick. It often seems like an 80-minute pop video with a 2001 gimmick. There's a "pre-history" sequence: not apes, but soldiers in the US civil war who make a strange discovery. Then we rocket forward centuries to a lone spaceman, Captain Lee Miller (Gunner Wright), in a cramped craft, who receives a disturbingly curt message from Houston. He's on his own. Panic is succeeded by existential horror and hallucinations that somehow trigger a kind of leap to a new consciousness, and we loop in the civil–war discovery. Technically proficient, good-looking – but what's the point?
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