Semiotic analysis homework

Semiotic Analysis- one music video

The mise-en-scene in this music video is quite normal to any other music video. The location that it is set in is partly an alley way, for a few seconds the location is a studio where the artist is saying the lyrics as you would do for a practice run. Another thing that i noticed in this music video which is different because not many other music videos include are images or few second shots from a different video and include it in theirs. The effect is different and it explains the words through the images in a different kind of way. So instead of leaving the hidden meaning for the audience to figure out it is shown through the pictures through secondary data. In my judgement because in the video the main location is the alley way to me it symbolises that feelings and thoughts are narrowed and small not heard kind of thing.

In the diegetic world when your in an alley way your alone whether your walking through it or just stood there, only your thoughts are seen as begin important to you no one else matters at that point.
The character who’s in this music video is the producer of the work. The costume is casual wear like a hoody i don’t think the costume was meant to be of a high class and i hardly think it was the important thing to think about when it came to organising the video shoot. The main prop is the mic that is placed in the music studio.

The lighting and colour are normal and have to fit into the diegetic world to maintain verisimilitude because bearing in mind the shots are taken in an alley way. Other bits of the video the colour and lighting are of a very high quality. The lighting in the alley way is also a lot realistic to a normal everyday day outside etc. If the lighting was changed to dull boring colours like black and white then the audience will automatically know that the colour doesn’t look right and because of this won’t attract their attention much.
Moving to the next stage which is camera shots , angles and movement etc, most of the shots were more or less the same. There are medium shots that closely show the artist singing the words.

The connotation that is here is that the words are important and have great meaning behind them that maybe the reason why a medium shot of the artist is done.
On a general note the movement is that the camera stays in one place and doesn’t move, but throughout the video the character walks facing his back to the camera and for a few steps the camera picks up the steps and changes it’s movement. I noticed that quite a bit of editing has been done in the video too. This maybe so the other snap shots that have been included will have to be included at the right time and space in time to the video instead of just being misplaced somewhere in no order. If this was done it would clearly show to the audience that full work hasn’t been put towards the video.

Semiotic Analysis- one short video (Scream)

At the beginning of the film, a medium shot of a home telephone is shown that’s securely placed on a table. The deeper meaning to this Is that it’s showing that the telephone is the important prop at this part of the film. The second time the phone rings the camera gradually but in good speed moves up closer to the main character’s face to show her body language the second time the phone rings. The main character’s body language at the time of the second phone call is very calm, because she doesn’t see it a being something creepy. This shows the audience that this first character tries to stay positive at times. Something that has really caught my attention as watching the video. A few seconds later the phone suddenly rang again and the location was in the kitchen at this point. At the side of the worktop where the main female character seated herself near her there was a set of knives. Now when most of us see a knife in our direction we will scream that’s where the title plays a vital role.

At the time of the call the woman is cooking something on the hob, she forgets all about it because she’s speaking to this anonymous gentleman on the phone. This shows the power this man has and shows that his voice has a lot of weight to it. The camera moves all over the house being behind the woman. She has positive body language and facial emotions this shows that she doesn’t suspect something and also leaves the audience on a bit of a cliff hanger and keeps them thinking what the end result ill be. A little while after the man says something in particular on the phone, her mood changes and goes to a negative note. The camera pans forward and gives a close up medium shot, to illustrate to the audience that something is changing and something scary is about to happen. The ending bit certainly is tricky and grabs your attention especially with the sound effects.


One Documentary- Walking with Dinosaurs

A very quick start into the kind of location that the documentary is set in. Walking with dinosaurs is a science/natural history documentary. The reason why I know it’s this type of documentary is because the key features included are some kind of wildlife and it goes into detail about this particular theme. It also features a narrator who does all the speech for the documentary to give an outline of what is happening and on some cases to give his/her opinion. Because the documentary starts of quickly into the location it therefore is showing the audience the actual anchoring commentary in other words this is the place we are in.
It starts off with a medium close up of a dinosaur and after a few seconds the narrator starts speaking and describing a little more about the dinosaur that is on screen.

When he starts talking abut his large plates on his back the camera straight away increases the zoom. This clearly illustrates that the plates are the important part of the dinosaurs body because that’s what part is being explained in detail. Non diegetic music is used to show verisimilitude and so the audience know that it’s a real. In the middle of the documentary a high angle location shot is made, this is to show the audience what type of place the dinosaur lives in. Throughout the documentary the camera work continues to maintain the structure of the close up medium shots. The movement of the dinosaur is shown at zoomed level this is to make it more real, exciting and dramatic for the audience so thy emphasise with what is being said by the narrator.

By Shazana Monir