Semiotics

Recently in Media studies, we have talked about Semiotics and what is meant by this term. Semiotics involves signifiers; and is a way of visually identifying objects due to pre-knowledge of the object before. We have gathered this information from the past due to media, experiences or our own perceptions of things in general. Such as being told from a young age a chair is a chair, therefore for the rest of our life we will always associate a chair as a chair, nothing else. Anyone else who tells us otherwise, we will disagree and tell them they're wrong, based on our knowledge of what this object is.

Signs denote the literal meaning on an object. Such as the object of a chair denotes the real meaning of a chair. Semiotics come in three parts: Icons, Symbols and indexical. The icon works through resemblance. For example, show anybody a picture of the S on a blue shirt and they will instantly think of Superman, without hesitation. This is because from a very young age the media has shown them many things about Superman, such as in films and in comic books; therefore the S is an icon for Superman.  Symbols works from things which are learned; or are arbitrary signs such as words. So the S on a shirt may be iconic for Superman, but what does it symbolise? It symbolises  the alien from another planet, who has super-human powers and can save the world from any type of danger. It also symbolises Clark Kent. All of this knowledge has been gained from a young age furthermore, like from seeing the old Superman films, and moreover reading the comic books to be taught this information. Something that is indexical works through a causal link. This means something like hearing the word Superman, then associating this word with superheroes. This is a casual link and everybody can make these associations of Superman with superheroes. Therefore, the S sign of Superman is polysemic. A polysemic sign is something that accounts for the icon, symbol and index.

Using our knowledge of Semiotics and our understanding of it so far, we were assigned to analyse a short clip from the film 'Titanic'. We had to firstly watch the clip and apply our knowledge of Semiotics to it, then we had to write a short essay on it. I thought this task and the essay went fairly well, and I understood the tasks well. We had to talk about how Cameron conveyed meaning through the use of Semiotics and what it symbolised. There were a range of Semiotics used, from the way the characters are clothed, music, lighting, sound, camera movements and so on.This was an interesting task and got me to think about all of the symbols in films that are less likely to be noticed, and the way in which directors wish to convey meaning.

Do generic conventions help or restrict filmmakers?

I believe there are two valid arguments for this, generic conventions can help and also restrict filmmakers. It helps them because give filmmakers a genre for their film, and because of all the standardized conventions for this genre, they will have a solid outline of what kind of things to include in their film. For example, tell filmmakers they need to make an action film, they would automatically know to include guns, action stars like Jason Statham, explosions and slick fight scenes.

However, generic conventions also considerably restrict filmmakers to what they can really do and explore further into their genre for the film. For example, action films can be considered restricted to just having explosions, guns and fighting scenes. It's rare to see action films that branch out from being conventional, and to find action films with sustained love interests for example and drama. In addition, filmmakers are restricted in the genre of horror. Horror films nowadays are all incredibly alike, most of them including some kind of demon or entity, that is haunting people and their families, such as 'The Conjuring,' Therefore, I think that filmmakers doing horror films are restricted, because us as the audience always expect with horror films, demons, jump scares, old abandoned houses or even creepy little children. We can also very much predict horror films because we have seen it all before so many times. You would say' I bet this is what will happen', and then it turns out to happen; we can predict horror stories. They are very formulaic at the moment, and we are waiting for a horror film that is un-ordinary and something we really haven't seen before.

However generic conventions can also help filmmakers. Take a film like 'Skyfall' from 2012, directed by Sam Mendes. This was a great James Bond film. I believe this film is a good example of generic conventions helping filmmakers. Firstly we as the audience have all seen James Bond films before many times, so we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Skyfall, in terms of generic conventions. We would all expect to see shoot-outs, James Bond and his women, some form of advanced gadgets, and of course slick cars. Therefore, the director of the film also knows this and as a result all of this is included in Skyfall. Generic conventions has helped this film be a success, because the audience loved the film because it met our expectations as a James Bond film.

Re-Genrification and our 'Romeo and Juliet' remake

In the early years of cinema, in 1950's America, people were obsessed with the idea of Science Fiction films. They had been introduced around this time, and people came to love them. They believed them; and became scared of potential UFO's and alien invasions, therefore the audiences wanted more. In fact, anything other than Science fiction would be seen as unnecessary; because Science fiction was the thing at the time, anything else would be unpopular, and irrelevant.

In the 1950's, a new American film was created. It was titled 'Creature from the black lagoon'. However, this film was created as a horror film. Therefore in this time, the filmmakers understood that this film may not be accepted into the film society, because it is not a Sci-fi. As a result, Universal decided the best option would be to market the film as a Sci-fi; not a horror. So they made it seem like the creature, or the monster in the horror film, was actually an alien who was invading the planet. The audience was invested in this as a result, because it fits under the Sci-fi conventions. Even though the film is a horror film, it was necessitated that it needs to be marketed as a Sci-fi film, in order to gain some popularity. The film then became an example of Hybridisation. This was also a successful example of re-genrification as the film did financially well at the box office, despite its real. In addition, film production companies had to consider the audiences and their needs. Universal were centered around horror films, but because these types of films were un-conventional at the time, they had to reconsider and turned to Sci-fi films, because they were so popular at the time. 

In class on Tuesday the 16th, we had to use this idea of re-genrification and apply it to films we know, and would then have to present out ideas. My group decided to choose Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet', starring Leonardo DiCaprio. By standard tradition, this film is a romance, tragedy and love film. However, our group explored it further using our genre understanding so far, and we concluded this film can be seen as a thriller film. 

We came to this conclusion for several reasons. One reason is the iconography with guns and swords; this makes the film seem more tense and also makes the audience think of the more violent scenes to come. We would also not associate guns and swords with love at first glance. Secondly, this film can also link to a Western film, due to the film being set in one small area, and the audience thinks, how far can these characters outrun the danger? In addition, director Baz Luhrmann includes soundtracks with suspense, the tone and also adds an exciting dimension to the film. Furthermore, to convey our idea that Romeo and Juliet can be seen as a thriller, George in our group created a short video trailer of the film as if it was actually a thriller film. To make it seem like a thriller, he used quick editing techniques, quick frames instead of extended shots, and fades to black, and along with a fast paced, tense soundtrack over it. Doing so made the trailer look tense, exciting and like a thriller film. You wouldn't of thought of the film Romeo and Juliet as a romance, tragedy love film by looking at this trailer. This is significant. Large film companies such as Universal and Warner Bros could also do this, doing so would create audiences expectations for the film, which is actually somewhat different to what the film actually is. For example Universal could show audiences our Romeo and Juliet thriller trailer, then the audience would build up expectations of the film to be a thriller, when actually it's a romance and love film. Genre can be misleading and cause the audiences to build up expectations when in fact the film is different. The overall term of genre evolving is 'Compartmentalised'. 

An introduction to AS Media Studies

An introduction to Genre 

So far over the course of 3 media lessons, we have began to talk about and try to understand what is really meant by the term 'Genre'. Genre is, by standard definition, a main theme of a film or piece of media such as Comedy, so then people can associate this film with comedy; then they would create expectations when they would see it in the cinema. Genre is hugely important to Media and the industries, because Genre provides all the knowledge the audience would think they know about the film, then they go to the cinema to see the film and spend their money. If Genre didn't work like this, the audiences wouldn't form expectations of the film as soon as they hear its name and genre, they may not be invested to see it; because they don't know what to expect. But luckily genre will always give people their expectations as they are extremely familiar with it all, however genre isn't quite as simple and one-dimensional as us audiences may think.  

Each genre has its specific conventions that make the genre that type of genre. For example horror films we would associate with dark, abandoned houses, creepy noises, and a lot of the film set at night time. And action films must all involve shooting, explosions, and lots of fun. But is it really this simple, does a film really only have one genre? Realistically the answer is no. Such as in class, we discussed Star Wars and the first genre that came to peoples head's to describe this film trilogy was Sci-Fi. But when we looked a bit deeper, we found lots of genres that apply to this film trilogy. Such as drama, Westerns, action and adventure, space opera etc. However at first, audiences wouldn't probably associate these other genre types with Star Wars, because we are so used to thinking films are limited to a couple of genres, and not have considered further genres hidden in the films. But even so, genre performs a massive part to attract people and audiences to see the films. They just have to hear 'Bruce Willis action film' and they will know what to expect, what to imagine, and know that they will want to see this film. 

Genres also help the filmmakers out massively. Filmmakers can be told they will be making a new Thriller film; with the help of genre, they will have a good idea of what to do. They will conclude that they need a gripping script, unexpected twists in the story-line, a visually stimulating film, and some good actors to bring this thriller to life. They will also know what actors to incorporate, because these actors have previously been in thrillers before, plus the audiences are aware of this. So really, the audiences associate actors with specific genres, because they very familiar with actors and what types of films they're in. Genre is all about being formulaic; each film will have direct relationships to the previous film made, of the same genre. This is due to over time, filmmakers have understood that their film belonging to a type of genre must involve conventions employed by this genre. If they haven't followed the genre conventions, they may think audiences would be thrown off the film; because they are unfamiliar with it, it's not ordinary for the audiences. 

Genre also plays a roll on audience and people themselves. In standard films, the good main characters will always defeat the bad characters; the bad ones will rarely get away with their crimes. This is significant; as this ultimately re-presents life. People who commit murder, steal, and commit crimes are not going to get away with it, and this is reinforced by films and the media itself. If it was the other way around, the media would not be sending a very good message; due to the fact they are sort of telling us that we can commit real life crimes and get away with it, but this is not the case. So the fact that films and media does this is a good thing, and we now expect it due to the years of film that we have seen this characteristic many times.