SEMIOTICS

 Semiotics literally means the study of signs (the way we make sense of everything around us).

What is a sign?

It could be a symbol, a colour, a camera angle

Sign (signifier) -- Denotation (the literal meaning) or Connotation (the signified meaning)

Polysemic - to have multiple meanings 

You can find signs in moving image. In this case a Japanese extract to which there is an awful lot of dead silence, which builds up the tension and fear.

Mise-en-scene - basically just everything within the scene (set, costume, hair, makeup)

Sound - tone of voice can show anger or danger. Some clips have no sound to make it more scary and dramatic for the audience 

Camerawork - composition, movement, framing

Editing - how one clips move from one to another. Some clips are longer than other which creates a held-breath situation as it drags on with tension.

Myth - widely accepted meaning of a sign

Denotation - is the literal meaning of signs

Connotation - is the signified meaning of signs. It's what the sign represents

Tales of Terror from Tokyo

The extract shows how we rely on language to represent meanings. As the film is in a foreign language it means the audience needs to use signs to understand. The audience can tell that the child in the film is scared, due to the high tempo music that dominates the natural sound. When the person on the other side of the door starts to bang and shout, the tone and screech that it produces connotes danger. Camera angles also create the tension throughout the film. The camera often matches the height of the small girl, which means the audience feels as small and as vulnerable as the girl.

Roland Barthes

Barthes' Semiotic Theory broke down the process of reading signs and focused on their interpretation by different cultures or societies. According to Barthes, signs had both a signifier, being the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses and the signified, or meaning that is interpreted.

The Rhetoric of the Image