18 Film Trailers and Genre 1

Learning Objective: To identify genre conventions within moving image film trailers

Generally in Media Studies, you will need to analyse a text in terms of visual codes, technical codes, and possibly audio codes. These will help to categorise the text in terms of genre.

This categorisation can also include codes of camerawork, Lighting, editing and sound for audio-visual media
and graphic design elements for print-based and interactive media

VISUAL CODES including:

Costume, Clothing, physical appearance, jewellery, hairstyle, make up.
Facial expressions
Colour uses
Body language and gesture 
Graphics
Settings

TECHNICAL CODES including:

Shots – range of shots and why they’re used – wide shots? Close ups? High/low angle shots?

Any camera movement

Editing – the way scenes change from one to the next

The pace of the text – fast? slow? why?

Lighting

Mise en Scene – what’s in the shot.

AUDIO CODES including:

Sound 

Language used

Foley

 Diagetic and non diegetic

Any ambient noise

Voicover

Music

You will deconstruct media texts and find examples of the conventions linked to that genre. 
Key words: Iconography, codes, conventions, deconstruction.
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Iconography – symbolic representation, especially the conventional meanings attached to an image or images

In Media Studies we see iconography as part of genre, and particularly film genre. Students need to know the term and how it is used. It is quite a complex concept that informs image analysis and the deconstruction of genre. Iconography originates from the study of art. 

Task 1: Identify the visual, technical and audio codes that help to categorise these trailers for audiences: 

3 Lists for each of 3 trailers. Orange books.

 film.