Media Theories

Media Theories

1.The Enigma Code by Roland Barthes

The Enigma Code is interpreting story lines in different ways.

Bathes says that all narratives share structural features that are brought together in different ways. Although there are differences between individual narratives, they all have a limited number of organisational structures that affect our reading of texts - these are called 'Narrative/Enigma Codes'. According to Barthes,there is always more than one way to read the text. Barthes theory of the five codes is a way of grouping signifies according to the role they play in the text.
These are categorized as :

• The Hermeneutic Code - keeping the audience in suspense and questioning (the voice of truth)
• The Proairetic Code - leaving the audience wondering what is going to happen (the voice of empirics)
• The Sematic Code - keeping the audience guessing if there is another meaning behind the story line (the voice of person)
• The Symbolic Code - very similar to The Sematic Code acts in a wider level, organizing sematic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning.(the voice of symbol)
• The Cultural Code - movie cannot be interpreted in different way as the facts are in the movie (the voice of knowledge)

2. Todorov's Narrative Theory

In 1969 Todorov produced a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to any film.

Todorov believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern through various stages.

There are five stages the narrative can progress through:

• A stage of equilibrium,
• A disruption of that order by event,
• A recognition  that the disorder has occurred,
• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption,
• A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium.

3. Binary opposites by Levi Strauss 

Claude Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist. He believed that human's brain relates every term with other that has an opposite meaning.  This means that when a term is said, human's brain automatically thinks of an opposite one to give the term an easily understandable meaning. For example, a term 'bad' has its opposite which is 'good', 'short' is opposite to 'tall', 'cold' is opposite to 'warm', etc.

In movies, binary opposites can be a little harder to recognize as they are not that obvious, however there are usually some. For example, in a movie 'North by Northwest' By Alfred Hitchcock there are binary opposites between the main character Roger  O. Thornhill and his seeker Philip Vandamm. Roger O. Thornhill is a hero in the movie and Philip Vandamm is a villain, Also, one less obvious difference between the two is that the villain is wealthier that the hero as the villain own more recources as well as power than hero. This is a common binary opposite in thriller genre.



4. Vladimir Propp - Character Types

Vladimir Propp analysed a lot of different folk tales which defined all the main character of ANY narrative into 8 broad character types. The 8 Character types are:

• The hero - (AKA victim/paladin/winner.)  Reacts to the donor, wed the princess.
• The villain - Struggles against the hero.
• The donor - Prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
• The dispatcher - Character who makes the lack known, sends the hero on his way.
• The false hero - Falsely assuming the role of hero, perceived as good character in beginning but emerges as evil.
• The helper - Gives support to the hero/ helps the hero in the quest.
• The princess - The reward for the hero, but also needs to be protected from the villain/ the character that hero marries.
• Her father - Gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero.

5. Laura Mulvey - The Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist. She is currently a professor of film and media studies. She believes that women are materialized and sexually objectified in movies as their bodies are always in a first place. 

• Women viewed as the objects of male erotic desire - in film and audience
• Men are presented as active, women - passive
• Women do not have agency - they do not move the plot forward
• The audience is forced to identify with male gaze as the camera shots and angles are showing women as sexual objects
• Cinema reflects patriarchal (male dominated) society
• Patriarchy and phallocentrism linked - phallus (penis) a symbol of power - e.g. in cinema guns = phallus = power.

Conventions of a Thriller

Conventions of a Thriller

A Thriller is a villain driven plot. The villain presents obstacles the hero must overcome. 

Thrillers have:

• Fast pacing
• Frequent action
• Resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains.

Thrillers uses devices such as:

• Suspense
• Red herrings
• Cliffhangers

Red herrings - are used to refer to something that misleads or distracts from the relevant or important issue. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads audience or characters towards a false conclusion. In  other words, red herrings are used to confuse the audience and draw their attention away from important part of a movie.

Cliffhangers - a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of a movie. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma. In other words, cliffhangers are used to draw the audience into the movie at the end of it by not allowing them to know the true conclusion. Then, the other movie is made.

• Danger and violent confrontations are standard plot elements of a Thriller.
• The climax of a mystery is when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others.
• Thrillers can be defined by the primary mood that they create: Fearful excitement.

If it Thrills you - Its a Thriller.

Thriller is a very flexible genre. It usually includes some sub-genres which may also include elements of other genres.

Action Thriller - violent, obvious antagonist, a lot of guns and explosions. Examples: James Bond films, The Transporter and The Jason Bourne novels.





Conspiracy Thriller - hero confronts a large, powerful group of enemies whose true extent only he/she recognizes. Examples: Three days of the Condor, Capricorn One and JFK.











Crime Thriller - focused on criminals, rather than policeman. Offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. Includes murders, robberies, chases, shootouts. Examples: The Killing, Seven, Inside Man, Reservoir Dogs.









Disaster Thriller - about natural or artificial disaster such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc., or nuclear disasters as an artificial disasters. Example: 2012









Drama Thriller - slower paced and involves a great deal of character development along with plot twists. Examples: The Illusionist, The Interpreter, The Prestige.









Legal Thriller - lawyer - heroes/heroines confront enemies outside, as well as inside, the courtroom and are in danger of losing not only their cases but their lives. Example: A Time To Kill











Medical Thriller - Involves a medical personnel. Examples: Awake, The Hot Zone.









Political Thriller - hero/heroine must ensure the stability of the government that employs him. Examples: Seven Days in May, Agency, The Day of the Jackal.










Psychological Thriller - emotional or mental conflict, rather than physical. Examples: Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, Blue Velvet.










Spy Thriller - Hero is generally a government agent who must take action against agents of a rival government or terrorists. Examples: 24, From Russia, with Love.










Techno-thriller - technology is described in detail and make essential to the viewer's understanding of the plot. Examples: The Hunt for Red October.










Religious Thriller - related to religious objects, institutions and questions. Examples: The Da Vinci Code, The name of the Rose, Foncault's Pendulum.

Sound Exercise

Sound Exercise

The Worker Games - Catching Fired

  In this exercise we had to make up a short story and film it. It had to include some sound and different filming techniques. The main task of this exercise was to show our understanding about sound when filming the sequence and sound effects when editing it.

  Our idea was about an office worker getting fired and a conflict occurring. We have used most of the shot types and camera movement we were told to:

        Demonstrating following techniques:

• Diagetic/Non-diagetic sound
• On/Off screen sound
• Sound bridge
• Parallel/Contrapuntal sound

    Also including a short conversation. The focus of the task was the use of sound so we had to          consider carefully:

• Dialogue (conversation)
• Sound effects (footsteps, doors slamming, etc.)

  I believe we made good choices on filming angle as it presented the situation clearly, for example when filming the dialogue we have filmed the over the shoulder shots as well as wide shot to show the characters, their reactions and body language.

  The sound effects we have used (the sound after the employee was told she was fired at 0:36) were not our best choice and we could have used some more realistic and serious sound effects when editing if we wished to make the sequence to be taken seriously, however they still made sense and made the sequence seem more funny than serious.

  At the beginning of the filming we were a little confused with the sound equipment we were given to use. However it did not take us a long time to realise what we were doing wrong and everything else went well. Using sound equipment was also quite fun and interesting as it was something new to use and made the sound the way more clear and loud in the video.

  At the very beginning of the sequence we have used the on-screen sound as the employer was typing on the keyboard, later on- the off-screen sound was used as the employee was knocking the door. We have also used a short sound bridge between the shots as the employee says ''What?'' and the other one comes into the room. We have showed the examples of diegetic and non-diegetic sound as the dialogue was happening and the character were in the shot and also when they were not. We had an example of parallel sound as the employee finds out she is fired. We have used a sound that represent confusion and disappointment as well as anger at the same time. However we have not used contrapuntal sound in our sequence.

We have had a good idea of a sequence and we did try our best to use every technique we were asked to used. I believe we would be able to improve the sequence if we filmed it once again as we have a wider understanding of media, filming and using all of the techniques. To improve it we would probably make more shots to choose from, improve the acting, choose different sounds when editing, also make a longer sound bridge so it would be more clearly noticeable.