14 Mar 2011

After a lecture from Will Godfrey about form and structure, I wanted to research a little deeper about Ritual Condensation. Using different framing and symbolism, the images shown to a person can shape how the viewer interprets them.

The image that Will used was this one.


Using what we can see and what we already know, assumptions are made about what is happening in this still frame.

People generally see the character wearing black as the bad guy. The camera position is close to the ground looking up at the 'bad' guy which also creates a feeling of intimidation. Our subconscious pieces this altogether in an instant automatically after years of stereotyping through film imagery, and photography.

If you remove the stereotyping and look at the image in its simplest terms, it looks like the guy in white is about to shoot the guy in black in the back, which in this instant make the guy in black the victim rather than the bad guy.

While thinking of possible short films or sequences, I constantly think of playing with these set image 'Rules' and turning them around.

A short example of how sometimes not conforming does add different moods is good old Star Wars.



Here Luke Skywalker (forward figure in white) is shown as the hero, dressed in white. Using white again shows many stereotype meanings, Innocent, pure etc.

In this image,



Luke is wearing all Black. At face value, it is hard to decide who is being presented as the bad guy. They are all wearing similar tones. Is this signifying that Luke has joined them, he is conflicted whether to be good or evil, or just that he has lost his innocence that he had in the previous films? Or could it just be that wearing Black is cooler that white?

So where do these stereotypes come from? Well I’m glad you asked because semiotics will be given its own blog post.

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