Media Theory - Lesion 1 -Stuart

18th September 2017

Today in Stuart's lesion I learnt  the different type of codes that are used in   film.

There are 3 types of codes that are used in  a film.

Technical - which is  camera shots , camera angles, and movement .

Visual - these are  the  codes  that the audience see when they are  watching a film , such as lighting , costume, , props, gesture, expression  and many more. 

Furthermore, I learnt about different  audio codes that can be incorporated in a film, either in the production or post- production process.  These are music , dialogue,  sound effects and narration .

For example: Some sounds you hear in  films are  heard by the actors on  set as well as the audience,  in other words, sound in the world of film.  This could be a sound effect of a  creaking door in a intense part of a horror, film  The team for all of this is called diegetic sound.

However, some sounds are added in after filming takes places in post -production (Editing ) An example of this could be a voice narration over for a film , where the narrator may tell the audience  information during the film or a music sound track being added. This is sound only the audience can hear and is called non diegetic sound. 

I also had to complete a task where there was a vocabulary sheet and below it was descriptions that the words would match too.


Later in the lesson I also learned about the different types mode of address and they can be used in visual and audio productions. One is in direct mode of address . This is  means  as an audience , we are not personally addressed by   someone saying the word ' you' or a news reader  directly looking into a camera to inform us about the news.

indirect mode of address is where there is no dialogue or  eye contact  that addresses the audience .


At the end of the lesson I was given a homework task to  :

Find a scene of a film of my  choice and to observe in bullet point form:

The film I have chosen to observe is called Adjustment Bureau - The dance scene



3 Audio codes

• There is dialogue  between some of the characters 
• There is a sound effect of the main male character running at the very end of the scene.
•  The  are  to types of music in the scene  one is very intense and the other type is very graceful

All of these would of been done in post production.

5 technical codes

Camera angles - There are various camera used in these scenes to  convey detail and the environment

long shot 

medium shot 

extreme close up

close up 




For example a long shot is used in the scene to show the character and the surroundings.
A close up is used to  zoom in and focus on detail. in addition to this there is a shot in the scene where the camera zooms in on the main females characters dress.

5 visual codes.

props
costume
lighting
gesture