Week 3 - Text: Is Film/TV a language?

This week in our lecture, we focused on whether TV and Film is a language. The given readings this week were John Ellis’ ‘Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video’ and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith’s ‘How films mean, or, from aesthetics to semiotics and halfway back again’. In order to further understand why Film and/or TV can be considered a language we looked at what techniques and methods are used to convey meaning. We also applied certain methodologies (one of which was semiotics) to understand this further.

Ellis compares the importance of sound and image as elements and explains how these differ when consumed through TV or Cinema. He also describes the impact this can have on the viewing experience audience members have. He further explains that because people watching TV are within the comfort of their own home, they could easily get distracted suggesting that their attention isn’t 100% focused on what is on the TV. Because of this, Ellis points out that ‘TV uses sound to appeal to it’s audience, using a large degree of direct address whose function is to attract the look and attention of the viewer, and to hold it’. (Ellis, 1982)

Exploring why producers and directors of TV do this, he explains the impact imagery as well as sound have on the overall viewing experience at the cinema by highlighting lack of it in TV. ‘TV does encourage the same degree of spectator concentration. There is no surrounding darkness, no anonymity of the fellow viewers, no large image, no lack of movement amongst the spectators, no rapt attention.’ (Ellis, 1982) Through this Ellis explains that all of these variables (sound, image, atmosphere) have an impact on not only the viewing experience but also how much they interpret and pay attention to the film. He also states that although audience members may not concentrate on it fully, TV still has a ‘more extended period of watching and more frequent use than cinema’ (Ellis, 1982), this is because of its accessibility as well as cost.

However, Geoffrey looks more at the study of meanings in film through exploring the features of semiotics, aesthetics and political economy. He does so in order to try and explain the ways in which these things allow people to interpret and make meaning of a narrative by themselves. ‘Films mean because people want them to mean’ (Nowell-Smith, 2000) As well as this, Geoffrey explores the importance of cinematography and the impact this has in creating meaning within a narrative.

To develop my understanding of this, I could use textual analysis deconstructing the cinematography used in a film such as Deadpool.

References:

1.Ellis, John (1982) Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, Routledge: London - pp. 127-159

2.Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (2000) ‘How films mean, or, from aesthetics to semiotics and halfway back again’ in Gledhill, C and Williams, L. (2000), Reinventing Film Studies. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

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