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Media Language Essay

Every medium has its own language (using familiar codes and conventions that are universally understood) that it uses to communicate meaning: The Secret, for example, uses verbal and written language as well as the languages of moving images and sound. Mise-en-scene makes up a large part of this language - location, character, cinematography and everything in the diegetic world. The location of our film is a house in suburban Belfast, Northern Ireland which connotes the views and beliefs which are prominent in our film (such as homophobia and petty quarrels in politics) assuming that the viewer has had cultural experience living in NI. The set-design also denotes many things which help to shape the viewers opinion and stance on the situation: school books and use of a mobile phone will show that the protagonist is a teenager and the appearance of videos such as musical theatre on his computer screen may be a connotation of his sexuality. As for the character, there are many s...
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The Secret

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Narrative theory studies the devices and conventions governing the organisation of a story into a sequence: for our film, The Secret, some narrative theories can be applied to a certain degree and some cannot be applied at all. For example, Barthes was a professor who unravelled texts and wrote about the process of doing so. He discovered that some texts can be considered open, being unravelled in many different ways and having many different meanings, and some can be considered closed, where there is only one obvious string to pull on. Barthes had 5 narrative codes, some of which can be applied to The Secret: the Hermeunatic Code is that which refers to the mystery of the text, which can be clearly seen in our film, as clues are dropped about the main character’s sexuality and we are aware that he has a secret which is gradually unveiled, however there is always an element of mystery throughout the plot. Another one of his codes includes symbolism, and how objects and events in th...
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The Counselor

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2017/04/03/the-counselor/ This film is based on a true story and follows the story of Ted Bundy, one of the most gruesome serial killers of the 20th Century, who is working at a suicide hotline. At first, before his identity is revealed, the narrative seems completely different to what it does during the second watch when his identity is known. His tone, actions and how the conversation unfolds completely flips upside down and develops a new meaning to the eye of the viewer. As the film seems to be relatively calm with little being unveiled during the majority of the duration, this film does not necessarily comply with Todorov’s narrative structure. Todorov states that a typical film will begin with equilibrium, the characters will face disruption which results in a series of events, which are eventually resolved and the world of fiction is restored to a new equilibrium (also known as a “classic Hollywood narrative”). The Counsellor doesn’t fit int...
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