Research Focus: Symbolism
Symbolism is "the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities," when assuming 'symbols' to mean a "mark, sign or word to indicate, signify or represent an idea, object or relationship."
I find the idea of symbolism within film extremely interesting. I see symbolism as the film crew leaving crew to help the audience unravel the story. Using symbolism, a director can tell an audience a characters fears, hopes and insecurities without a single piece of dialogue. This makes symbolism extremely significant within the creation of a film. I feel that it is particularly important within the supernatural genre as the genre itself is enshrouded in the unknown, therefore symbolism allows the audience to better understand what is going on. Having said that, symbolism can be used to mislead. It can point an audience in the wrong direction without them even realising it, perhaps to avoid them prematurely guessing the ending or a characters true intentions.
A contemporary example of symbolism is through the use of water in oscar-winning 'Moonlight.' Director Barry Jenkins utilises water throughout the film to symbolise rebirth. It is shown several times throughout the various stages of the lead characters life and is key in showing the audience each pivotal moment in the characters life and specifically moments of character development.
I decided to incorporate the ideology of symbolism into our AS piece to enhance the effect on the audience.
The first piece of symbolism I thought to use was colour. Based on my colour research, I decided that we should use a lot of blacks and reds to symbolise death, evil and blood. The idea behind this was to warn the audience that the rest of the piece will encompass death. Next, I thought we could use some of our mise en scene to symbolise peace. Forests connote serenity and therefore by enshrouding our lead character in trees and leaves I hoped to gain the effect of enshrouding the lead herself in peace to emphasise her innocence in contrast to the 'deathly' colours used. Furthermore, a forest symbolises life as it is where life itself thrives. I felt that this would therefore be ideal as it completely juxtaposes the fact that our lead dies in the forest, which emphasises the contrast between life and death. Additionally, we have used off-screen diegetic sounds of crows to once again symbolise death and add to an ominous semantic field of misfortune.
I find the idea of symbolism within film extremely interesting. I see symbolism as the film crew leaving crew to help the audience unravel the story. Using symbolism, a director can tell an audience a characters fears, hopes and insecurities without a single piece of dialogue. This makes symbolism extremely significant within the creation of a film. I feel that it is particularly important within the supernatural genre as the genre itself is enshrouded in the unknown, therefore symbolism allows the audience to better understand what is going on. Having said that, symbolism can be used to mislead. It can point an audience in the wrong direction without them even realising it, perhaps to avoid them prematurely guessing the ending or a characters true intentions.
A contemporary example of symbolism is through the use of water in oscar-winning 'Moonlight.' Director Barry Jenkins utilises water throughout the film to symbolise rebirth. It is shown several times throughout the various stages of the lead characters life and is key in showing the audience each pivotal moment in the characters life and specifically moments of character development.I decided to incorporate the ideology of symbolism into our AS piece to enhance the effect on the audience.
The first piece of symbolism I thought to use was colour. Based on my colour research, I decided that we should use a lot of blacks and reds to symbolise death, evil and blood. The idea behind this was to warn the audience that the rest of the piece will encompass death. Next, I thought we could use some of our mise en scene to symbolise peace. Forests connote serenity and therefore by enshrouding our lead character in trees and leaves I hoped to gain the effect of enshrouding the lead herself in peace to emphasise her innocence in contrast to the 'deathly' colours used. Furthermore, a forest symbolises life as it is where life itself thrives. I felt that this would therefore be ideal as it completely juxtaposes the fact that our lead dies in the forest, which emphasises the contrast between life and death. Additionally, we have used off-screen diegetic sounds of crows to once again symbolise death and add to an ominous semantic field of misfortune.
Comments
Post a Comment