Media Language

Recap: "Media Language refers to the tools used by any text to communicate meaning. Each media text is a collection of Signs, Codes and Conventions that communicate meaning and generate responses for the consumer."

Some of the techniques we are going to use for our film are:

Cross Cutting: This is a technique that we used in our Foundation Portfolio film last year. We are using it this year to speed up the action and create enigma. It will also make the audience question what they are seeing and wonder what is happening next.

Cross cutting can be seen in the 'Gumtree' advert at 0:04

CCTV Style Footage: This will be a challenge for us as it's a technique neither of us have tried before however it will work very well if we get it right. We want to create the feeling that the rioters are under surveillance by the CCTV cameras.

There are a lot of tutorials on YouTube to help to create CCTV style footage

Handheld/Mobile Phone Shots: For the shop looting scene we will use handheld, shaky camerawork. This fits the connotations of a social realism film- in the riots people filmed what was going on on their phones. We will try to use an iPhone for this but if the quality is bad we will resort to using a handheld film camera.

TV Interference: We want to use this on the TV during the Establishing shot. It will create a slightly creepy feeling to the film. We liked this idea after we saw it on the opening credits for Paranormal Activity.

The credits (at 1:30) show the 'interference' technique we wish to try

Action and Enigma Codes: We will be using  various action and enigma codes, as seen in Roland Barthes' theory of Narrative Codes. These can be seen HERE in our Narrative post.


By Colette