Symbolic and Cultural Codes

Louise Ilyas

Genre

Ken Montague

Genre

Genre Conventions

Genre conventions are what allow the audience to distinguish what genre a film is. It is the norm. The audience can instantly recognise a horror film by seeing fangs or a vampire. A romance film can be recognised by red roses and ‘proms’. Genre conventions give the audience pressure to feel a certain way. If the audience knows the genre of a film before watching it, they know how they’re expected to feel.

Symbolic and Cultural Codes

The symbolic and cultural codes are the visual signs and images, which help represent a certain genre. The iconography: the appearance of people, the landscape, the clothes, buildings and so on are what the audience use to recognise the genre. For example when fangs, blood and necks are symbolic codes of an image the audience would instantly know that the genre was a vampire horror. A film with cowboys, sandy landscapes and horses would instantly be recognised as a film of a western genre. The symbolic and cultural codes give the audience a system of expectations, once the audience has seen the iconography and recognised it within it’s genre, they can expect the expected from the genre itself.

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene is a French term, which literally means “put on stage”. It refers to everything we see on the screen, the composition and background of each scene. The characters appearance, their costumes, make up, hairstyles, acting styles and props. All of these elements of mise-en-scene are key in providing the audience with the understanding of the story. The main elements to consider are the costumes and the expression and movement of actors, the lighting and colour used. Also how objects and people are positioned.

The movement, positioning, editing, lighting, costume and all other elements of the mise-en-scene provide ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Mise-en-scene

The movement, positioning, editing, lighting, costume and all other elements of the mise-en-scene provide the audience with the expectations and predictability of what the film is to be. For an example in a film where a female role is a sluttish bitch, the director would deliberately choose to use red lipstick on the woman as the colour red represents danger, evil and passion. If the director were to use no lipstick on the actress the same meaning wouldn’t be conveyed.

The choice of lighting and the way it is used is crucial for creating a particular atmosphere. The audiences’ attention can be guided by brightly lighting an object or a prop that is vital to the plot. For example in a horror film the shoes of the killer are sometimes shown to make you believe you know who the killer is but then later on you realise you were misguided by the object you were ‘forced’ to see. Shadows can be used to build suspense; this type of mise-en-scene is likely to be used in a thriller or horror, as suspense is key in keeping the audience scared and on edge.

Technical Codes

Technical Codes convey meanings by use of equipment, camera positioning lighting and colour. The use of these technical codes is very important in distinguishing different types of genres. The choice of camera angle and size of shot is important in the way the audience react to what is shown on screen. For example in a romance in a scene where two people are about to kiss, a close up (CU) could be used as this shot puts the audience very close to something or someone and is often used to show the expression on someone’s face.