Some revision notes to recap the Unit before you do your Outcome.
Also, a link from Christian about the negative portrayal of women in the media this year:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NswJ4kO9uHc&feature=youtu.be
Thanks Christian! *thumbsup*
NOW....
How do you analyse a visual text?
In visual texts you do this by looking at:
Placement of the objects or items: for example it is our cultural norm to place the subject in the middle. If you placed the subject in the lower right corner of the page, there must be a reason for that and the viewer will look for that reason.
Size of the items. Look for extreme close up, close up, long shot, extreme long shot or other ways in which the item has size. What is the importance or impact of the size of the item in the photo? Does one object dominate? Why?
Position: If you position something above the camera lens there is a sense that the item is more important or superior. If it is positioned low in the shot, it appears inferior or less important.
Colour: Why are the items the colour they are? Advertisements use colour linking eg the item for sale might be red and so might the background furnishings or the clothing the model is wearing.
Reading path: Are there lines or vectors leading your eyes in one direction? We read from left to right. Is the visual image following that path? Are you as audience being positioned to read the text in a certain way?
Culture: What is valued in the text? How are the characters shown and why?Who is included and why?
When analysing a visual text you must use the correct terms. Make sure you understand your visual language.
Angle: How has the composer positioned the audience or the objects or people in the text? A high angle shows dominance of the audience by having the audience take a raised point of view of the object or people that we are viewing. A low angle makes the audience experience weakness by looking up at the object or people being viewed. Equality is shown through the representation of an eye level point of view.
Appropriation: Appropriation is taking an image, character or technique from one context and placing it in another. This happens quite a lot in many different text forms. Often the appropriation will occur when a character is taken out of their time. A 21st century boy, for example, might be placed in the context of the Dark Ages or conversely (the opposite) a boy from Ancient Rome might travel through time and be forced to attend a 21st century school.
Body Language: posture, gesture and facial expression all tell about the way that we are feeling and thinking. Animals are often portrayed with body language to develop humour.
Close-up or personal shot: a close-up contains a character or object in detail. It is sometimes called a personal shot because it reveals to the audience the emotions of a particular character and creates a direct link between text and audience.
Clothing: reflects or our personality and can also be a symbol of period, culture and status.
Colour: White denotes innocence and black denotes death in some cultures. Hindu people mourn in white and marry in red. Colour often represents the stereotypes for maleness and femininity in popular culture- soft, pastel colours are associated with feminine stereotypes while dark primary or metallic colours are seen as masculine by some groups. Some colours are typically symbolic in western culture as well. Red can represent passionate emotions, white can represent purity and innocence, blue can represent coolness or sadness, and green can represent freshness, nature and a new start.
Cool colours: In colour theory, colours are described as either warm, cool, or neutral. A cool colour generally is one which contains a large amount of blue, as opposed to a warm colour, which will contain more yellow. In theory, cool colours seem to recede in space, as the distant mountains or hills tend to appear light bluish-gray, and the closer ones will be more green or brown (warmer). In landscape paintings, artists often paint the distant hills in this pale blue colour; and it is generally thought that cool colours will recede into space in any painting.
Eye-level shot: an eye-level shot and is used by composers when the intended effect is to position the audience to feel equal with the subject in question.
Focal point: In two-dimensional images, the center of interest visually and/or subject-wise; tends to be used more in traditional, representational art than in modern and contemporary art, where the picture surface tends to have more of an overall importance, rather than one important area.
Full shot: a full shot contains the full figures of people. Composers of visual texts use full shots to give the audience an overall impression of the people in a shot. Generally, a full shot demonstrates the type of people and general social interaction between them. This is called proxemics. The closer together the characters are in a frame, the closer their relationship.
High angle: a high angle is when the audience looks down on the scene or picture. Because the audience is looking down on the subject, the effect of a high angle is to either empower the audience (make the audience feel powerful) or to make the subject seem vulnerable, or both.
Layout: Layout refers to the composition of the frame, where the images are placed and what colours are used. When you are analysing a visual text you are really analysing the layout. Why has the composer used particular images and why are those particular images placed where they are?
Long shot: a long shot contains a lot of landscape. The effect of a long shot is to give the audience an idea of place. A composer of a visual text will use a long shot to establish a setting.
Low angle: is a low-angle shot and is the exact opposite of a high-angle shot. A composer will use a low angle to make the audience feel vulnerable or in awe of the subject or to emphasise the subject's power and strength.
Light: Different lighting effects or colours can provide meaning e.g. soft, yellow light or back lighting creates a halo effect and can suggest innocence. Overexposed lighting suggests heat while underexposed light suggests coolness or an enclosed feeling. Settings can be confirmed through time of day clues provided through the representation of light.
Mid-shot: a mid- shot and contains characters or objects in more detail. It is sometimes called a social shot because it demonstrates, in more detail than a full shot, the relationships between characters. Composers of visual texts often use mid-shots so the audience can understand and empathise with the characters in an image.
Position: The position of objects, shapes and figures in photographs gives meaning e.g. centre, left, right, bottom, top, foreground, mid-ground, background and whether the objects are close together or far apart.
Reading paths: In general, the Australian reader will read a page from left to right and from top to bottom. This is the standard reading path. This is no different for visual texts. The next time you pick up a magazine, notice that the logos for the advertisements are on the bottom right hand corner of each page. This is the last place that the eyes look when they are reading a visual text.
Rule of Thirds: divide an image in thirds from the top and sides and look at the placement of people and/or objects. An object in the top third is usually empowered whereas anything in the bottom third is disempowered.
Salience: The salient image in a visual text is the first image that a viewer sees when looking at an image. Salience is important as it is where the audience will begin their reading path. To correctly find the salient image when analysing a text, close your eyes when you first look at the text and when you open them take note of the first thing that your eyes are drawn to. There are a number of reasons why a feature of a visual text may be the salient feature:
• The colour is bright and therefore stands out.
• The image is particularly eye catching.
• The layout - or where the image has been placed.
Size: Important objects are usually large and located in the foreground while small objects that are in the background are considered less important.
Settings: Settings can have symbolic significance and influence our response to a photograph- dry, country settings denote ruggedness and hardship while soft, green, rural settings suggest tranquillity.
Vectors: Vectors are similar to reading paths as they are concerned with how the viewer of a visual text reads the page. Vectors, however, are techniques that composers of visual texts use to make viewers take specific reading paths.
Warm colours: In colour theory, colours which contain a large amount of yellow, as opposed to cool colours, which contain more blue. Warm colours are thought to appear to be closer to the viewer, while cool colours are thought to recede into the distance.
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