Using semiotics to decode an image

‘Drive’ 2011 Writer, Director, Producer. Nicolas Winding Refn
Star Ryan Gosling


‘Drive Angry’ 2011 Patrick Lussier starring Nicolas Cage

After the communication theory lecture several people came to me and fed back that the semiotics section on how to de-code an image was perhaps the most useful. However the details of how to use semiotics to analyse an image were perhaps a little vague or brushed over as there were another 6 areas of communication theory to introduce. So, in order to help with an understanding of using semiotics as part of your tools for analysis I have decided to unpick the process a little further.

A film several students have mentioned recently in essays is ‘Drive’. It is a film that has generated much critical acclaim and perhaps this is partly because it is a good film to analyse.

Because this is a short blog post, I shall attempt to constrain the text by simply analysing the poster for the film; however points made should be directly applicable to the film itself. However this does mean that several areas that would normally accompany an analysis of a film are missing. In particular the codes associated with shot selection, mise en scene, editing, sound etc etc are not dealt with and you would be expected to include these things in an analysis. At some point I will go into these issues in more detail.

N.b I shall try and open out the issues surrounding this analysis by pointing out what I am doing as I go along. This will make for a quite clumsy bit of writing, but bear with it, as I’m trying to explain how and why you can do this sort of thing. I will also leave things open for exploration by the reader, suggesting where the analysis might go, rather than doing all the work.

I shall now undertake a semiotic analysis of the image used for the Cannes Festival poster for the 2011 Nicolas Winding Refn film ‘Drive’.

When setting out on a visual analysis I would usually recommend undertaking a detailed compare and contrast of paired images dealing with a similar topic; this is a lot easier than trying to analyse a single image. Therefore I will use the poster image for a superficially similar film from the same year, 2011, ‘Drive Angry’ directed by Patrick Lussier starring Nicolas Cage. Note: If you are using this guide to help you through conducting an analysis and want to reference it, use Chandler’s much better supportive web-site and text as references. This blog is just an indication of what to do, Chandler is much more comprehensive. (See the reference section at the end of this post)

Identifying the ‘text’
As we are going to use semiotics as a tool, the first thing to do is to establish why we are using it. Semiotics as a discipline regards all the things human beings produce as being capable of establishing semiotic meaning and when we start examining these things, semiotics regards them as texts. (Chandler, 2007) This could be an analysis of a haircut or a pair of trainers, if so the haircut or trainers would become the text. In this case the text is a film poster. We should always include a copy of the text with our analysis of it, and explain any significant shortcomings of the copy. We should also describe the specific medium used, the genre to which the text belongs and the context in which it is found.

The first step is to consider why we are analysing the text. This will affect which questions seem important. Usually we would analyse a text to come to a deeper understanding of what is being communicated. In particular by using semiotics we can demonstrate that meaning can have several levels. By using the difference between ‘denotation’ (a literal meaning of the text) and ‘connotation’ (an association, emotional or logical which the text points towards and which provides us with a way into an understanding of the deeper meaning behind the text).
Why am I using Drive as a text? I think it is a film that is not only current and well reviewed (winner of the ‘prix de la mise en scene’ at Cannes) but that it uses very familiar film conventions in fresh ways, reinventing the action movie, it has several channels of reference to past classic films and styles, such as Film Noir, gangster movies, romance and car centered movies. Therefore before I set off I feel confident that it will be useful in developing a wider context for the use of a semiotic analysis. (I’m also hoping it will work as a learning tool or model for others to follow).

So what sort of sign is this poster?
Is it
Iconic -- a sign which resembles the signified (portrait, photo, diagram, map)
Symbolic -- a sign which does not resemble the signified but which is purely conventional (the word stop, a red traffic light, or a national flag)
or
Indexical -- a sign which is inherently connected in some way (existentially or causally) to the signified (e.g. smoke signifies fire; and all the little symbols you see on web pages -- mailboxes, envelopes, arrows etc).

The poster is a sign of the movie, therefore as it resembles the movie it is iconic. But where is the signifier? The whole picture? What does it signify? The movie? However within the poster the driver’s glove is an important sign as well. This is indexical, it signifies driving expertise. There is also some symbolic signage, the logo for the Cannes film festival for instance. The poster could therefore be seen as iconic, symbolic and indexical. This complexity could therefore be another reason for choosing it as something to analyse.

As this is a mass produced poster it is a ‘token’ as opposed to a ‘type’. It is one amongst many copies, rather than being an original, like a painting. How does this influence our interpretation? We might have to reflect upon film conventions as well as advertising conventions. We need to think about this image as belonging to mass culture. It is made to be widely distributed and used to attract audiences to the film itself.

What are the important signifiers and what do they signify?
During a seminar session there were several suggestions as to what the signifiers might be. Below were some of the ones picked out. Initially we were looking for denotation signifiers or the literal meaning of signifiers. As soon as denotation was established, it was apparent that connotation or the deeper meaning started to come through. For instance in this case the driving glove not only signified driving expertise (denotation) but also started to articulate a set of signifiers related to emotional detachment. (connotation)

The driving glove in 'Drive'

The driving glove is clearly prominent and signifies the status of the driver as someone who considers himself an expert. The steering wheel is controlled using one hand, not both hands as recommended by driving instructors, again suggesting that this driver is confident and easily in control. However there is a further connotation that could be developed and that is one of distancing and ‘coolness’. By wearing gloves the driver doesn’t touch anything, the physical sense ‘touch’ being something we echo when we say someone was ‘touched’ by something. We tend to call emotional people ‘touchy-feely’ and there is a secondary set of signifiers operating that all point to emotional detachment and ‘coolness’ that the driving glove reinforces. The glove itself is also ‘stylish’ and beautifully crafted in leather, the owner has taken pride in the choice of these gloves and is ‘cool’ in that other sense of being comfortably stylish. We can deduce from the above observation that there are two systems within which these signs make sense. The first is that of the world of the fast driver, the other is about emotional detachment and ‘coolness’.

The hand on the steering wheel 'Drive Angry'

In contrast, in the ‘Drive Angry’ poster Nicholas Cage’s naked hand grips the steering wheel, a steering wheel that is also clearly made of wood and metal, whilst the steering wheel in ‘Drive’ is covered on some anonymous black material. Cage’s character is, as the film’s title suggests, ‘angry’, clearly in touch with his emotions, to the extent that emotions are taking control.
In ‘Drive’ the distancing of the nameless lead character is further reinforced by the fact that in the poster he is clearly behind glass.


Light shining off the window screen. ‘Drive’

We are positioned as an audience in this car’s path, the driver being clearly behind the glass of the window screen. The duality of this situation is fascinating. On the one hand we as an audience are directly involved, but with the potential impact of the car, which is heading straight towards us. The driver gazes off to the right, light reflects across the wind screen, he is unaware of us, distant and cold.
In contrast the figures in ‘Drive Angry’ are seen through an open window, we are close to these people, they are sharply defined. The car itself passes across our line of vision, it is moving off to the right, we are not going to be involved directly with this car, we are invited to look at the woman’s breasts, appreciate her wind-blown hair and respect the focused maleness of the driver. She glances backwards worried, he stares forward, angry and focused. The dark blackness of the car’s interior is used as a backdrop to the brightly lit faces of the car’s occupants. (At this point we could start looking at male and female signifiers and how film conventions are used to establish stereotypical gender roles. The concept of the male gaze and the writings of Laura Mulvey could come into play). But in this case I’m trying to keep moving on in order to indicate where analysis might be undertaken. The construction of maleness, is an issue I would suggest someone could open out in relation to the lead character of ‘Drive’.


The couple in the car ‘Angry Driver’

In ‘Drive’ the car’s lone occupant’s face begins to blur into the rest of the image, the fact that he is a loner, thus reinforcing the image of the ‘cool’ outsider. In contrast the male lead in ‘Angry Driver’ needs to bolster his maleness by having a beautiful female companion; two essentially different approaches, which could be opened out in detail if we were to analyse the films themselves. In particular the complex relationship that is established between the ‘Drive’ male lead and the ‘heroine’ of the film, which could be used to illustrate a more complex understanding of male/female role models.
These posters are set within very different landscapes. The ‘Drive’ poster is a night scene, set in a city landscape. A car with its headlights on follows us, we see vague glimpses of the city and are reminded of a setting from a ‘film noir’ or the urban context of films such as ‘Taxi Driver’.


‘Drive’ View through the rear window

The ‘Angry Driver’ poster is set within a romantic stormy landscape of swirling clouds, flickers of flame and sparks drift past, the raw energy of nature, explosive combinations of air and fire, all brought together to support the emotional intensity of the subject. The romantic landscape paradigm could be a starting point for a sub-set of connotations, which could be compared and contrasted to the urban. As Jaworski and Thurlow (2010) state, “mobility, and especially automobility,has undeniably altered rural and especially urban landscapes, with transport infrastructure (roads, car parks, railways), architecture (stations, out-of-town shopping centres, drive-through restaurants, petrol and service stations, motels, coach and train stations, and airports). As a sub-text to this analysis the semiotics of the two different landscapes as seen through the windows of the respective cars could be examined. This is another Paradigmatic analysis, (the paradigm here is landscape) The rural landscape has at times been used to signify the vitality of nature, (Tanner, 20011) this in contrast to the urban landscape that is often used to signify alienation from nature. This subtext can be used to reinforce a reading of the ‘Drive’ image as one that signifies emotional distance.


‘Drive Angry’ The landscape through the window.

The use of landscape as a sub-text for the ‘Drive Angry’ poster in contrast to the ‘Drive’ poster can be used to reinforce the sense of highly charged emotional vitality that is central to action movies. Landscape can be understood as an aspect of ‘mise en scene’. Therefore another starting point for analysis opens out which could be about the nature of city spaces in film as opposed to rural ones; environmental factors such as street lighting and urban furniture and how these signify certain aspects of the urban, (artificial light/sunlight, grime rather than dirt, waste rather than fertiliser etc)
In any flat image the formal elements that can be examined are composition, space and colour. You can further analyse these things in terms of linear direction, shape, tonal value, texture, and spatial implication. Concepts such as balance, contrast, harmony, emphasis, movement, proportion, variety or unity may be used to help develop an understanding of how these elements help develop signification.
The dominant colour in both images is blue. However there are subtle differences in how the blue is used.


Colour cross section 'Drive'

Colour cross section 'Drive Angry'

‘Drive’ establishes a blue dominant, with light white mainly generated by the driver’s white coat. ‘Drive Angry’ is again blue dominant but this is punctuated by flecks of red and because the skin tones are not mediated by being behind glass they provide a starker contrast. Again ‘Drive’ is cool throughout, whilst ‘Drive Angry’ has hot spots, suggesting a much wider emotional range. The driver in ‘Drive’ is particularly cold, his coat being suggestive of white ice, floating on cold blue sea. It could be argued that blue always represents the world of death or the spirit, however as Kress and Van Leeuwen, (2001) have argued signifiers, and therefore also colours, carry a set of possible meanings from which sign-makers and interpreters select according to their communicative needs and interests in a given context. In this context (the advertising poster) perhaps this issue could be opened out by discussing the use of blue within advertising posters in general.

Geometry/formalist issues

'Drive' is Portrait


Drive Angry' is landscape
'

The importance of structural/formal dynamics in still images often begins with a consideration of whether the image is portrait or landscape. Portrait as a format relates directly to us as human beings. The vertical format reflects our own bi-lateral symmetry and suggests that the relationship we have with the image is similar as to the one we have with another human being. Landscape format suggests that we are meant to enter into this space in the same way that we enter the open vistas of a real landscape.
Issues to discuss as a formal visual analysis develops would be whether or not the main focus is central or off centre, whether the image is stable (usually this would be ensured by a square format) or unstable (usually this would be due to an angular direction). For instance the ‘Drive’ image slopes off to the right, which is in the same direction as the driver’s gaze, whilst in ‘Drive Angry, the whole image seems to be directed downwards.
Other questions:
What does the Symbolic/written text signify? Typographic choice, use of caps, italics, font choice etc. Choice of text, ‘prix de la mise en scene’ as opposed to ‘Shot in 3D’. Text placement, such as actor’s and director’s names etc.
Modality
What are the reality claims? It could be argued that ‘Drive angry’ could be read as a fantasy. ‘Drive’ in contrast has more reality claims even though we know it is also a fiction. The issue here is plausibility. ‘Drive Angry’ is suggestive of a decent into hell, while ‘Drive’ suggests that the bad things that happen are simply the result of human nature.
Modality refers to the reality status accorded to or claimed by a sign, text or genre. More formally, Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress (1988) declare that 'modality refers to the status, authority and reliability of a message. In making sense of a text, its interpreters make 'modality judgements' about it, drawing on their knowledge of the world and of the medium. For instance, they assign it to fact or fiction, actuality or acting, live or recorded, and they assess the possibility or plausibility of the events depicted or the claims made in it.
If you were going to open out this area of analysis these are the main questions.
What reality claims are made by the text?
Does it allude to being fact or fiction?
What references are made to an everyday experiential world?
How do you make use of such markers to make judgements about the relationship between the text and the world?
Does the text operate within a realist representational code?
To whom might it appear realistic?
Paradigmatic analysis
Whereas syntagmatic analysis studies the 'surface structure' of a text, paradigmatic analysis seeks to identify the various paradigms (or pre-existing sets of signifiers) which underlie the texts. In the case of ‘Drive’ I would suggest that there is a set of cinematic signifiers that surround the idea of the young male ‘outsider’ and that these images can be traced back to the iconic ‘look’ developed by the way James Dean and other young male stars were presented during the 1950s. These 50s young men it could be argued came in two models, the cool James Dean type, a slightly confused outsider trying to find meaning in the world and the more angry, visceral, inarticulate figure such as that developed by Marlon Brando in the Wild One, which I would suggest is the distant model for the Nicholas Cage character.


Brando in the Wild One


James Dean in Rebel without a cause


Fake poster, as if James Dean had been in 'Drive'

'Paradigmatic relations' are the oppositions and contrasts between the signifiers that belong to the same set from which those used in the text were drawn. So what we have to do is at this point chose a stance to take. In this case I am choosing to develop an argument that signifiers taken from a particular film history are most important
Some more questions
To which class of paradigms (medium; genre; theme) does the whole text belong? To look at James Dean and film’s young men as outsiders. To look at clothes worn, the open neck look, hair cut etc
How might a change of medium affect the meanings generated? If these images were not film posters, what else could they be?
What might the text have been like if it had formed part of a different genre?
What paradigm sets do each of the signifiers used belong to? For example, in photographic, televisual and filmic media, one paradigm might be shot size.
Why do you think each signifier was chosen from the possible alternatives within the same paradigm set? What values does the choice of each particular signifier connote?
What signifiers from the same paradigm set are noticeably absent?
What contrasted pairs seem to be involved (e.g. nature/culture)?
Apply the commutation test in order to identify distinctive signifiers and to define their significance. This involves an imagined substitution of one signifier for another of your own, and assessing the effect.
What is the syntagmatic structure of the text?
Identify and describe syntagmatic structures in the text which take forms such as narrative, argument or montage. As a film poster photographic montage is the structure. This would be compared to the narrative elements in the film. See Drive" What If... Poster © 2012 by Peter Stults
How does one signifier relate to the others used (do some carry more weight than others)?
How does the sequential or spatial arrangement of the elements influence meaning?
Are there formulaic features that have shaped the text?
How far does identifying the paradigms and syntagms help you to understand the text?

Rhetorical tropes
What tropes (e.g. metaphors and metonyms) are involved?
How are they used to influence the preferred reading? You might want to revisit the Communication lecture to remind yourself what these were.

Intertextuality

Does it allude to other genres?
Does it allude to or compare with other texts within the genre?
How does it compare with treatments of similar themes within other genres?
Does one code within the text (such as a linguistic caption to an advertisement or news photograph) serve to 'anchor' another (such as an image)? If so, how?
What semiotic codes are used?
Do the codes have double, single or no articulation?
Which codes are specific to the medium?
Which codes are shared with other media?
How do the codes involved relate to each other (e.g. words and images)?
Which codes are notable by their absence?
What relationships does the text seek to establish with its readers?
How direct is the mode of address and what is the significance of this?
What cultural assumptions are called upon?
What seems to be the preferred reading?
How far does this reflect or depart from dominant cultural values?
How 'open' to interpretation does the sign seem to be?

Social semiotics
What does a purely structural analysis of the text downplay or ignore?
Who created the sign? Try to consider all of those involved in the process.
Whose realities does it represent and whose does it exclude?
For whom was it intended? Look carefully at the clues and try to be as detailed as you can.
How do people differ in their interpretation of the sign? Clearly this needs direct investigation.
On what do their interpretations seem to depend?
Illustrate, where possible, dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings.
How might a change of context influence interpretation?

You don’t have to develop answers for all these questions, they are simply there to stimulate questions and help you say things that perhaps you would not be able to without a bit of prompting.

Some references

Chandler, D (2007) Semiotics the basics London: Routledge
An on line version of Chandler’s text is available at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html
Jaworski A and Thurlow, C (2010) Introducing Semiotic Landscapes In Adam Jaworski and Crispin Thurlow (eds.) Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space. London: Continuum.
1–40.

Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2001) Multimodal Discourse – The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold.

Mulvey, L (1989). Visual and Other Pleasures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Tanner, K (2001) Spirit in the cities: searching for soul in the urban landscape New York: Augsburg Fortress
Mercer, J (2012) Semiology and Film Theory Film Reference available at: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Semiotics-SEMIOLOGY-AND-FILM-THEORY.html

Truth and Illusion

Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” has just won five Oscars, for cinematography, art direction, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing. It’s not just a technically interesting film though. The first films were direct recordings of reality and Mêlées (The early film director that is the subject of Scorsese’s film) was the first film maker to challenge this by introducing stop motion effects and the possibilities of fantasy to the general public. This dialogue between film as truth and film as illusion lies at the core of film theory.
Sometimes these polar opposites however seem to change places. In Godard’s 1967 film La Chinoise, the character Guillaume gives a lecture and in it he states that Méliès, was the true originator of the documentary film. “They say Lumiére invented current events. He made documentaries. But there was also Méliès, who made fiction. He was a dreamer filming fantasies. I think just the opposite…” (Godard, 1967)
Godard was filming at the same time as McLuhan was developing his communication theories; both were fascinated by how media affect our perception of reality and the world. These views would inform Baudillard’s postmodern awareness of how media creates "the death of the real". Eventually, as Baudrillard wrote, wars such as the Gulf War of 1991, wouldn't take place in reality. For Western audiences they would only be aware of war as a series of hyper-real images on television.
Film theory mirrors these polar oppositions. Bazin stressed the importance of ‘reality’ and truth to the filmed document, whilst Parker Tyler stated that “Camera trickery is really camera magic, for illusion can be freely created by the movie camera with more mathematical accuracy and shock value than by slight-of-hand or stage illusion”. (1947, p. 586)
Tyler was the first theorist to compare audience reception of Hollywood stars to the worship of Gods in ancient rituals. All films were essentially like ghost stories or they operated as time machines. The trick of illusion being at the centre of film’s attraction, its power coming from our deep rooted need to seek that other spiritual reality on the other side of the membrane. (Once again ‘the Mind in the Cave’ provides a useful image)
Mêlées was a stage magician and like many others at this time recognised the potential for film to extend his powers of illusion. (In England the magicians Fèlician Trewey and David Devant introduced film projections into their acts). Derren Brown has been at the Grand Theatre in Leeds this week, and several of his illusions rely on the fact that video footage can be edited. Our fascination with illusion is obviously very powerful, the fact that Brown’s performances were all full, reflecting the fact that even in an age of scientific scepticism we yearn for a world of magic and illusionistic tricks.

Stan Brakhage sees Mêlées as a precursor and this reminds me that as film students perhaps you ought to be looking at a much wider range of film-makers. It is worth investigating screenings such as ‘Future Shorts’ last seen at Temple Works in Leeds. Future Shorts highlights the communal experience of film, and how the physicality of the media affects an audience’s responses. This year David Reilly’s The External World (2010) was shown in Leeds as well as Juan Pablo Zaramella’s stop-motion film Luminaris (2011). This is a film you ought to see in conjunction with Mêlées’ work, because it highlights how traditional techniques can still be made relevant to contemporary work.



References:
Tyler, P (1947) Magic and Myth of the Movies in Mast, G & Cohen, M (1974) Film Theory and Criticism New York: Oxford University press p. 586)

Check out Saturday Guardian, 25. 2. 12. J Hoberman’s article ‘A History of Trickery’, is a detailed response to Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” and opens out many of the issues above.

Developing emotional attachment in a video game or film

Polanski: End credits: The Pianist: 2002


The ability to empathize with the characters portrayed in a narrative is vital to both film and game. The actions of a character are designed to enable an audience to develop empathy with a particular emotional experience in the expectation that this will allow the audience to understand why the characters feel the way they do. However in a game both the player and the developer have control over a character’s actions. In fact the association between a player and a particular character can become extremely intense. I can clearly remember my sister an obsessive MUD player, being totally obsessed with her character. She used her involvement in the game’s fantasy world to "shut off" her own life so that she could become part of another reality. The writer Sherry Turkle (1997) wrote extensively about this and in particular how participants might create more than one personality which would allow them to act out several types of roles. The interesting issue here is that these ‘personalities’ are partly a construct of the game designer and partly the player. The character is not a ‘tabula rasa’ or blank slate, it is designed to fit into a particular world and respond to the rules and principles laid out for it. (See previous post: 14 December 2011: “Therefore when designing stages one of the first issues is how to begin the narrative and then how to get the player to learn the rules.”) So what are the ways a designer can set out conditions for character development and how does a player develop these further?
The designer will usually start with a decision as to the type of world the game will exist within, (science fiction, war, fantasy, historical, etc. etc.) this world will already have associations with pre-existing stereotypes which the player will subconsciously take into the situation. (If a combatant in a war game, the player will expect to behave in certain ways probably using clichés developed by going to war movies/reading books or comics etc). The formal design of the game may be emotionally suggestive, (dark colour palette, high contrast, a section where everything goes purple, sharp angles to all the forms experienced, soft out of focus feel, lots of shadow, intense colour saturation etc etc) and background sound may be used to either sooth out tensions or build anxiety. However it is through the game-play that most emotional intensity will be experienced by the player. As each challenge is overcome or not as the case may be, the way this is achieved will add to the player’s understanding of their character. This understanding will then be laid upon a growing awareness of the ‘narrative’ of the game and its particular goal. Thus narrative consequence will have a direct influence on emotional engagement, in particular when the player’s character is involved with other characters within the game world, the player will be unconsciously comparing and contrasting his/her own player’s characteristics with others.
Emotional intensity is often associated with player accomplishment. The balance between player skill and game difficulty is central to this. “If the game is too easy the player quits because they are bored. If the game is too hard players quit because they are too frustrated.” Lazzaro (2008) The diagram below designed by Lazzaro sets out some of the issues.



N. B. Fiero is ‘the Italian word for “Personal triumph over adversity.” It is the emotion that accompanies the experience of mastery.


In film emotional intensity is partly developed by the building of empathy with particular characters and partly by creating a general emotional atmosphere as a formal quality. This can be through the use of sound (I will be putting up a post on this at some point), editing style, cinematography, actor’s ability to give depth and weight to a character, and of course directorial ability as co-ordinator of all these elements. What is sometimes being aimed for is ‘emotional catharsis’ Once again this is a very old term. Aristotle pointed out that in a play or drama what was important was the controlled release of pent-up emotion. He also outlined the fact that this was both on the part of the audience and the characters in a play. This has also been called, ‘emotional cleansing’ as a result of experiencing strong feelings. Through these emotional experiences the inner turmoil built up in an audience can be released.
For instance, in the Roman Polanski film ‘The Pianist’ (2002): the ending is a wonderful catharsis. The body of the film deals with death, persecution and destruction but at the end redemption occurs. Over the end titles, the central protagonist plays Chopin’s ‘Grande Polonaise for piano & orchestra’ with the Warsaw Philharmonic in a concert hall, a close-up on the sensitive concert pianist’s fingers setting the scene for a cathartic balance between emotional release and spiritual yearning. In order to achieve this there are no opening credits or titles, all the text, including the title, appear at the end of the film, thus allowing Polanski to direct the audience to focus on the cathartic moment. Again we experience ‘personal triumph over adversity’.

What is a MUD? Originally this term came from Multi-User Dungeon, (As in Dungeons and Dragons) with later variants Multi-User Dimension and Multi-User Domain. A MUD is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat.

If you wanted to explore these issues further the texts below would be a useful start.
Bellantoni, P. (2005) If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Colour in Visual Storytelling New York: Focal Press
Freeman, D. E. (2003) Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering London: New Riders Games
Lazzaro, N (2008) Why We Play Games. Baltimore: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Lazzaro, N (2008) Halo Vs. Facebook: Emotion and the Fun of Games. Etech Conference. http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/1589
Lazzaro, N (2007) The 4 most Important Emotions of Game Design Available at: http://www.2007.loginconference.com/session.php?id=46
Turkle, S (1997) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet London: Simon & Schuster

More Thoughts on Communication Theory

Frame from the Piers Sanderson film: High on Hope

The interesting thing about communication is that it is a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create a shared understanding. It requires both intrapersonal and interpersonal skills and it is through communication that we can develop collaboration and cooperation. As an old fashioned Socialist I strongly believe in communication as being at the core of all political activity and a lack of communication is usually at the core of organisational dysfunctionality and poor politics. I therefore worry about individualism. What can happen when the deep underlying reasons for collective, communal communication are lost is the rise of cultural fragmentation and individualism, a state that the Rowntree Foundation (Lawson and Thake, 2008) has argued as being one that needs to be confronted and replaced. "This individualism was seen to have damaging consequences, fuelling selfishness and greed and leading to isolation and fear as people struggle to cope and live fulfilling lives."

As DFGA Students you specialise in moving image communication techniques. We presume that a visual message with movement and sound has a greater power to inform, educate or persuade a person than a static visual. I.e. it is a synchronistic concept, whereby two or more forms of communication come together in order to achieve a powerful effect. In The Mind in the Cave by Lewis Williams (I do believe this is essential reading and I know I have mentioned it several times before) it is pointed out that sound, vision, dance and touch were all used to convey shamanistic messages to the tribe. Perhaps the rave is the clearest modern format for this. The film/music documentary ‘High On Hope’ which commemorates the 20th anniversary of acid house, telling the story of the infamous ‘Hardcore Uproar’ warehouse parties in Blackburn in the late nineteen eighties is a good illustration of this. Over 10,000 people dancing in cavernous warehouses across the north-west every week was the nearest to a Shamanistic experience I think we could get. For a brief moment perhaps our individualism is shed and we operate as one with the group.

You could say that one implication of communication theory is that evaluation of a good visual design/communication can be done by measuring the comprehension by its audience, not by aesthetic or artistic preference. In this case the problem in terms of communication theory is that if the people evaluating the art, media product or design are themselves media professionals they are too 'attuned' to the business to be aware of how a non media specialist would receive the communication. I.e. the best critics are those experiencing the communication, in the above instance the ‘ravers’.

Rhetoric
However it is within the old history of rhetoric that I find a deeply fascinating series of narratives. It is strange and wonderful and as it covers memory training, body language, voice projection as well as the well known 'rhetoric tropes'. It is indeed a deep river to fish. (To use the rhetoric trope 'metaphor'.)


An image from Yates: The art of memory

A key book to look at is I would suggest, ‘The Art of Memory' by Yates. For DGFA students this book can be an entry into a way of thinking of writing a film script as a memory aid (cues can help with memory retrieval) or developing a navigation theory for game design (Developing a system within which players' decisions are limited but significant). In fact if you follow Cicero’s rules for mind walking as a memory aid, you realise that the whole construct feels like an interactive video game. He suggests leaving odd, memorable images in significant places as you walk around a building. You ‘collect’ these as you retrace your memory steps, in a similar way to the collection of weapons or tokens as you navigate through a game. Cicero was when at work, a teacher of rhetoric to the powers that were in control in Rome. His texts were written to explain how rhetoric worked. What is interesting is that modern day computer games often outline how their ‘worlds’ work and there are several analogies between how Cicero pictured a controlled political environment and how game designers such as Hideo Kojima and Sid Meier set up the control systems for game parameters.


An orator speaks to the Roman senate

As Galloway (2006, p. 90) states in relation to a discussion of Meier’s work, “The gamer is learning, internalising and becoming intimate with a massive, multipart, global algorithm. To play the game means to play the code of the game.” I.e. you need to learn a process or set of rules in order to be able to calculate how to solve problems. This is very similar to Edward Channing’s (1856) definition of rhetoric; he stated, “rhetoric undertakes to show man rules or principles which will help to make the expression of his thoughts effective”. If you want to progress in a game such as ‘Civilization’ you need to internalize the logic of the program, once you understand the rules and principles you can make your thoughts effective. It could therefore be argued that a good game designer like Meier is someone that clearly understands how to use a contemporary type of rhetoric. In both cases, Cicero and Meier, their work can also be used to understand things about the wider political culture within which they both operate. In the game ‘Civilization’ the “massive electronic network of command and control”, as Galloway (2006) puts it, reflects the reality of contemporary power structures, whilst Cicero’s principles of rhetoric reflect the organizing principles of the Roman senate.


Sid Meier’s Civilization

Galloway., H. R. (2006) Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture London: University of Minneapolis Press
Lawson, N and Thake, S (2008) Why individualism has created "social recession" York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Is film an art form? Part 2

Plato's Cave

The last post argued that stained glass is an art form; however it can come in very different formats. A Medieval cathedral round window, a narrow niche in a college foyer, a lamp shade etc. I think there has often been slippage as to what is considered an art form and what is a format. I would argue that a symphony is a musical format, so is a 3 minute pop record, someone singing in the bath and a folk song. Non of them necessarily are aesthetically pleasing unless they “provide a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction”. My problem now is the word ‘pleasure’. Is giving pleasure enough? We tend to associate ‘pleasure’ with ‘entertainment’ and disassociate the term from ‘meaning’. Perhaps this is a mistake. Much art is ‘difficult’; hard to understand, jarring, designed to shock etc. Modernism (as in Dada, Surrealism etc.) is often ‘transgressive’, which itself is defined as, “of or relating to fiction, cinematography, or art in which orthodox cultural, moral, and artistic boundaries are challenged by the representation of unconventional behaviour and the use of experimental forms”. So the old chestnut, “But that’s not art!” is perhaps not as simple to get round as we think it is. If an art form is “a conventionally established form of artistic composition”, if this convention is broken, is this not a way of therefore establishing the fact that what is there is not art? Again though there is the problem of ‘convention’. Who establishes this and why? Conventions have often been overthrown because they were out of date or put in place by power structures that have now been deposed. The avant-garde as a concept presumes that artists should operate at the boundaries of convention. Is this something to do with how a society establishes its ‘moral’ fabric? What is it right and proper for me to do as a member of society?
It might be of interest at this point to go back in time somewhat. Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) believed that knowledge is derived from the senses. The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, were therefore at the centre of life’s decision making. He tried to demonstrate the differences between natural desires, (need for food etc) and artificial ones (need to pander to vanity, have more riches etc). He was looking to develop a philosophy that led to contentment of mind. He would therefore suggest that transgressive art forms were to be avoided as their assimilation could lead to a disturbance of mind. Inner peace or ‘ataraxia’ is what we should be aiming for. Therefore forms of art that lead to contemplation are what he would advise we should develop. All this however seems in opposition to Aristotle's ethical and social activism.
In Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics Book VI he states: “What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance are in desire; so that since moral virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, and choice is deliberate desire, therefore both the reasoning must be true and the desire right, if the choice is to be good, and the latter must pursue just what the former asserts.”
In order therefore to make choices “reasoning must be true and the desire right.” So it isn’t enough to set out a clear reasoned argument for the establishment of an art form, the emotional need for art must also be given a voice.
My feeling is that emotional needs are linked to deep psychological drives and that these have been wired into us over thousands of years of evolution. It could be argued that human psychological traits are evolved adaptations to solve recurrent problems that have faced humankind in the various environments we have found ourselves living within. So why do we get pleasure or satisfaction in sitting together in the dark watching an illuminated screen of moving images?


Being inside a dark cinema is similar to being inside a cave or the womb


We have archeological evidence of human beings doing similar things over 30,000 years ago. In 1976 Richard Dawkins published ‘The Selfish Gene’, in this text he proposed that there was a way to look at culture from an evolutionary standpoint. He came up with the term ‘meme’ his word for a unit of culture that was supposed to be rather like a ‘gene’, something that is carried by a mind and that can be reproduced from mind to mind. In the same way that a gene is subject to the ‘survival of the fittest’ evolutionary test, a meme will survive if it is useful to us and our collective survival.
There is a wonderful book by David Lewis-Williams called ‘The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art’. He proposes a scenario where early humans collected together in caves to develop a particular set of rituals which were essential to collective survival. The shape and form of these rituals is I would argue still apparent within our present cultural products and activities. Williams describes a scene from 30,000 years ago, where people enter through a narrow passage that opens out into a cavern. The darkness is lit by flickering lights and images appear to almost move as the light flickers across the surface of undulating stone. Sounds of drumming fill the space and chants are sung and narratives told as social rituals are enacted. I’m sure certain modern forms of entertainment reflect these conditions quite closely. On the other hand, caves, in particular those structured in similar ways to the Rock Womb at Nenkovo, are clearly womb-like structures, the significance of which is inescapable.


Still from Herzog's 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams'

What really struck home with me however was Lewis-Williams’ description of the wall of the cave as a membrane. A surface that was understood as a barrier between the world of the living and the world of the spirit. It is an awareness of this divide and a need to come to terms with it that I feel lies at the core of what ‘art’, ‘religion’ , science’ and all our other forms of collective coming to terms with what’s out there are all about.

The psycho-analyst Lacan has a term called ‘the big other’. This is something that is so radically different to us that it goes beyond the imaginary. This term is usually linked to his understanding of constructions such as the law. However if we think of death as a passageway between what has life or ‘élan vital’ as Bergson would put it and what is inanimate or dead, the big issue is what is it that changes? At one moment a human being is alive, moves and has soul, at another there becomes no difference between a body and a stone, both exhibit complete inertia and are lifeless. This is a fundamental thing that we as conscious beings have to come to terms with. Perhaps all our ‘art’ forms are in one way or another simply trying to help us understand what it is to accept death as part of life’s experience. Without the development of culture our lives would be meaningless. In this sense culture has an intimate relationship with the development of religion. My experience of religious chanting or whirling dancing being at times not far away from my experiences in raves; my experiences in art galleries has at times reminded me of visiting a cathedral.

So is film an art form? Well yes and a powerful one. It brings together light, movement, sound and narrative in a collective environment and its images and stories attempt to make sense of the world. How many times as we leave a film with a partner do we end up discussing, “what was that all about?” What it was about was a meditation on the human condition. Whether or not it was a useful one, a deep one or a superficial one is another issue.

Is film an art form?

Rose window: Notre Dame de Paris

Early film theory looked at how film differed from ‘reality’ and tried to establish how it could become an art form in its own right. But what is an art form? Some definitions are circular, such “as a genre or activity viewed or treated as an art form”. On the other hand you get definitions such as, “a conventionally established form of artistic composition, such as the symphony or the sonnet”. But a film is a technology, not a form of artistic composition. It can be a documentary or a western, short or long. Is playing musical instruments an art form? According to this definition it is when a symphony is being played but not perhaps when a group of people get together and jam in someone’s front room. The key phrase is, “a conventionally established form of artistic composition”. So how is this convention established? The 3 minute single was a product of technical limitations, so is the convention of the pop single a conventionally established form of artistic composition? In this case we have the word ‘artistic’ to contend with. The definition of which is, “performed, made, or arranged decoratively and tastefully; aesthetically pleasing”. Aesthetically is defined as; “Characterised by a heightened sensitivity to beauty”. So is it to do with defining whether or not an art form can achieve “a heightened sensitivity to beauty”? If so, what are the structures that enable it to do this? If these structures can be singled out, how then do we measure the success or failure of these structures to “capture beauty or heighten sensitivity to it?
Beauty is defined as; “characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction”. In the case of a film, I would presume this could be both an object (the film itself) and an idea (the film’s content). I can see how the perceptual experiences of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction could be important, but again how each of these is singled out as a measure of success or failure of aesthetic worthiness is hard to understand.
For example a very unpleasant film may serve to heighten an understanding of meaning. This understanding may give great satisfaction but am I therefore to now read “beauty” as some sort of recognition of ‘meaning’?
Light has at times been thought of as being a symbol for the revelation of God; this can be seen at its clearest in the production of Medieval stained glass windows. If you visit Chartres for example, the stained glass lights your travel through the dark spaces of the cathedral’s interior and you feel the resonance between the building’s religious significance and your experience of how light is controlled by the makers of that time. There is a pleasure in the understanding of how this light is shaped in deference to a deeper meaning and this gives great satisfaction. Therefore it could be argued that stained glass is an art form. As an art form it seems to me that it is not very far away from film. Light is projected into a dark space in order to “illuminate” the audience. However there are also stained glass makers who make inserts for door panels, lamp shades etc. and they do not usually attempt to forge a symbiosis with a grander concept, such as religious experience. However they may for instance develop floral decorative motifs designed to remind us of nature. It must be art if it is, “performed, made, or arranged decoratively and tastefully”. But is it aesthetically pleasing? Where is the dividing line between a weak decorative connection to nature and a deep convergence of religious meaning and formal expression?

Using a case study in an essay

An audience watching Christian Marclay's The Clock

When looking at writing about certain aspects of film or game it is often useful to use case studies. Particular films or games can be examined and you can make your points with precision as well as be able to direct your reader towards the original material. In an essay it can be a way of being able to use your specific interest in a particular film and use it to illustrate a more general concept. In this case the relationship between editing and our experience of ‘time’ in film.


Pulp Fiction: Quentin Tarantino Miramax Films 1994
Watch the clip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKQ-BpO4Gzo&feature=related

In the drug overdose scene at the movie’s midpoint, Vincent (John Travolta) attempts to revive Mia (Uma Thurman) by stabbing her in the heart with a hypodermic needle filled with adrenaline. The scripted scene fills us with tension. We hold our breath hoping that Mia is going to make it. The reason we hold our breath is because the script is written already “edited” for suspense.

How does Tarantino do this? By writing overlapping action. Tarantino’s script includes cuts to the needle, the red dot and the faces of the characters. These cuts lengthen the time needed for the real-time-event of the stabbing to occur.

Time in film is perhaps one of its most interesting aspects. A film runs for a specific length of time and we watch it in real time. However a film is rarely cut to reflect the actual time an action, narrative or event takes. One of the few that does this is High Noon a 1952 American Western that tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself.



Because time is so important to our understanding of the world, a film director can shape our experience of it to heighten tension, confuse or disorientate us or suggest we are ourselves aging as a film develops. Christian Marclay's The Clock is perhaps the best example of a meditation on time in film. This 24 hour long film collects together thousands of clips from films, each clip referring to a specific moment of the day, these being edited together to make one complete day which if you want to experience it means sitting in the cinema for 24 hours and watching it in real time.

In Pulp Fiction, although Vincent counts out three seconds on the dialogue track, it takes three quarters of a page for the moment to take place—or 45 seconds of screen time. That means that we are holding our breath 15 times longer than Vincent’s three-second countdown suggests. Through purposeful use of editing, Tarantino’s script is guiding the reader’s emotional experience, and delivering a scene that itself can be imagined as a mini-movie.


The red spot


About to drive the needle in


Tarantino doesn’t write in descriptive sentences or paragraphs like novelists, but builds his scenes in shots. Each of his sentences implies a specific camera angle. “Implies” being the operative word here, as camera angles and lenses are not called out, but understood from his description.
The script’s pacing mimics what will later be seen on screen. Paragraph and sentence length suggests how long a shot will play on the screen. For example, a single one-sentence paragraph implies one shot. The implication is that it should play out longer on screen than would, say, multiple shots implied in a four-line paragraph. The white space buys the single shot time. Adding an editorial aside like “Mia is fading fast. Nothing can save her now” is like saying “hold on the shot.” It again gains the shot more screen time.
This excerpt (below) from the original script is taken from mid-scene.
The top line is from Tarantino’s script, where no camera information is given. The text below each line written in brackets in capitals relates to the camera shot actually used in the film.

Vincent lifts the needle up above his head in a stabbing motion. He looks down on Mia.
(LOOSE CLOSE-UP VINCENT) (VINCENT POV – MIA)
Mia is fading fast. Soon nothing will help her.
(HOLD ON MIA.)
Vincent’s eyes narrow, ready to do this.
(TIGHT CLOSE-UP – VINCENT)
VINCENT
Count to three.
Lance, on his knees right beside Vincent, does not know what to expect.
(WIDE SHOT – LANCE AND VINCENT)
LANCE
One.
RED DOT on Mia’s body.
(CLOSE ON RED DOT )
Needle poised ready to strike.
(CLOSE ON NEEDLE)
LANCE
Two.
Jody’s face is alive in anticipation.
(CLOSE-UP JODY)
NEEDLE in the air, poised like a rattler ready to strike.
(CLOSE ON NEEDLE)
LANCE (OS)
Three!
The needle leaves the frame, THRUSTING down hard.
(CLOSE ON NEEDLE)
Vincent brings the needle down hard, STABBING Mia in the chest.
(MEDIUM SHOT)
Mia’s head is JOLTED from the impact.
(CLOSE ON MIA’S HEAD)
The syringe plunger is pushed down, PUMPING the adrenaline out through the needle.
(CLOSE ON SYRINGE PUMPER)
Mia’s eyes POP WIDE OPEN and she lets out a HELLISH cry of the banshee.
(CLOSE-UP ON MIA’S EYES)
She BOLTS UP in a sitting position, needle stuck in her chest---SCREAMING
(WIDE SHOT - MIA)

Writing cinematically requires understanding the language of film, knowing how to use it creatively and translating it into script form. Editing is just one of many film techniques. Lighting, sound effects, camera angles, camera positions, transitions, space, framing and so on are other tools available to the essay writer.

Although edited and added to by my own reflections most of this text is taken straight from ‘Cinematic Story Telling’ by Jennifer Van Sijll Published September 3, 2007
Find the original at:
http://www.moviemaker.com/ screenwriting/article/cinematic_storytelling_20080722/

Phenomenology as an approach to film and game theory.

Above: A collage of images from the shower scene in Psycho

Many writers on film and game concentrate on the intellectual aspects of theory. However my experience of watching film or playing games is much more physical. I start with a feeling and this usually resides in my bodily reactions. I’m not the only one who feels this.

Vivian Sobchack states in : Carnal Thoughts – Embodiment and Moving Image Culture.
“Nearly every time I read a movie review in a newspaper or popular magazine, I am struck by the gap that exists between our actual experience of the cinema and the theory that we academic film scholars construct to explain it – or perhaps, more aptly, to explain it away.” (2004: p.52)

This gap between theory and experience is sometimes where trying to write about film and game becomes unstuck. What we are writing does not seem to match up with experience. I want a way of writing that reflects how film and game experiences move me. In particular at that moment when I want to cry or laugh out loud or get that hand clenching tension as I wait for the monster to reveal itself or find out if the hero survives.
Phenomenology is centred on perception and how our senses make meaning. It is also called embodied thinking. Therefore when trying to analyse responses to a film or game it’s useful to focus on how we are perceiving the world normally and how a construct like a film or game forces us to perceive differently.
Deleuze and Guattari state that the three great domains of human creation are art, philosophy and science. These three different modes of expression are they suggest; perceptual, conceptual and functional. In particular they argue, art relies on the creation of sensuous aggregates. (Rodowick in Furstenau, 2010, p. 31)
The term ‘sensuous aggregate’ is one taken from Husserl who used it to describe a ‘unified intuition’ (Farber, 2006) and is a term used to describe the various feelings and bodily knowledge that come to us through pre-cognitive thought. This ‘sensuous aggregate’ is something that I might also call a ‘feeling tone’ when describing an experience.
These feelings must come from my bodily experience of the real world. For instance at this time of the year when I leave work it’s dark. It’s also dark when I get up. This absence of light definitely makes me feel slightly depressed. This isn’t just my feeling, scientists have now linked depression to an absence of light and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a recognised medical condition. If I catch movement out of the corner of my eye I’m alerted to something, I therefore switch my attention on and if I can’t spot anything when I do this I become nervous. I’m aware of something that possibly exists but I’m not sure what it is. In a dangerous situation this of course would lead to real fear. In film or game these experiences can be triggered by the way a film is shot and edited or a game constructed and lighting levels decided upon.
The theoretical concept, ‘the abject’ is according to Kristeva (1982) situated outside our normal symbolic order, therefore being forced to face it is a traumatic experience. The usual examples used for this are being faced with a corpse, death, excrement and rot etc. However it could also be argued that these are simply learned responses to colour and textures that we associate with disease, food rotting, meat going off etc. and are bodily warnings to stay away from potentially dangerous situations. In art, in particular in film and game we can be made to experience these feelings through colour selection, (for instance food may be photographed when lit under a blue light) or texture (slimed surfaces etc) purposely developed to create revulsion.
In Psycho the scene when Janet Leigh is having a shower is a classic piece of phenomenological editing. We are drawn in to believe she is relaxing and oblivious to the world whilst she showers, this being something everyone of us can bodily feel. We all escape momentarily from the world in a shower’s warm jet of water. Then suddenly a shadow appears outside the curtain. That mind- shrieking violin music starts up and then the knife plunges into her naked back again, and again. The physicality of each blow is felt by us with even more force because we have been drawn into that feeling of being warm and naked in the shower. We have unconsciously achieved a bodily empathy with Janet and therefore feel the blows that much more deeply. The ripping of the shower curtain as she falls, and the cut to the blood swirling down the drain all add to the sense of bodily disruption because of the rapidly changing camera angles. We associate these changes in viewpoint with moments we have experienced such as falls and accidents, when we are violently forced to see the world from low and difficult angles. Hitchcock knows how to get us to engage with his film, in particular he is controlling our ‘sensuous aggregate’ by building physical associations with characters and situations and thus subjecting our overall ‘feeling tone’ to a complete filmic makeover. Bernard Hermann's eerie score further reinforces the development of the ‘feeling tone’ of the film. His high-pitched violins encapsulate the whole feeling of the film. Sounds of that tone and pitch being associated with the scraping of metal on metal or that awful screech you get when animals are being killed, again associations that develop through real life experience.
Technically nearly the whole film was shot with 50 mm lenses on 35 mm cameras. This closely mimics normal human vision, which deeply linked the audience’s perceptions of the cinematic world to their own real life experiences.
I could go on but the point of this post was to highlight one of the areas of communication theory and demonstrate how it could be used to look at film or game. I’ve also cited references used, so that those of you starting to develop essay ideas can get used to how citations should appear in a text.

References

Aaltonen, Minna-Ella (2011) Touch, taste & devour: phenomenology of
film and the film experiencer in the cinema of sensations. MPhil(R) thesis. Obtained at: http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2666/01/2011aaltonenmphilr.pdf
accessed on 14. 11. 11

Farber, M (2006) The foundation of phenomenology: Edmund Husserl and the quest for a rigorous science of philosophy London: AldineTransaction

Furstenau, M (2010) The film theory reader London: Routledge

Hitchcock, A (1960) Psycho Paramount Pictures

Kristeva, J (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection New York: Columbia University Press

Partonen, T & Lönnqvist, J (1998) Seasonal affective disorder The Lancet Volume 352, Issue 9137, 24 October, Pages 1369-1374

Sobchack, V., (2004) Carnal Thoughts – Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Berkley,
Los Angeles, London: Routledge

Batman and Tintin

There is a new Batman Game 'Arkham City' being launched this week, as well as the new Tintin film coming out. This of course had me thinking about their roles as transmedia characters and why these comic book figures have survived for so long and still seem to have relevance.
I looked at the on-line promotional materials for the new Batman game and interestingly there was no gameplay, it was simply a series of images that were designed to reinforce what we already know of the character and the environment of Gotham city. The opening sound was of course the theme tune to the Batman movies, (not of course the "Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da BATMAN!" one), but the Danny Elfman written theme from the 1989 Tim Burton film. http://www.hark.com/clips/rttkwddvls-batman-theme-song. Burton established the dark gritty feel of Gotham using both Frank Miller’s reinvention of the character and a nod to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis for the setting. The game keeps this dark lighting and in the clip there were further references to the settings of early James Whale Frankenstein movies, in particular the lightning flashes and operating tables.
Rocksteady's David Hego has explained that Arkham City's use of light and shadow and warm and cool lighting are used to direct a player's attention within the environment. He has had much to say about the stylised realism used to design the characters. He called the exaggerated features and realistic textures of the character models, especially that of the Joker, a kind of hyperrealism. He feels that hyperrealism also circumvents the problematic issue of the uncanny valley. (See my post of Monday, 29 November 2010, as well as http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/27/tintin-uncanny-valley-computer-graphics?INTCMP=SRCH a Guardian article on the problems with the new Tintin film, which I shall get back to). As Hego states, "One of the big advantages of the stylised realism was we were jumping across the uncanny valley… By making [the characters] so stylised, you can forget about uncanny valley because you accept that it's not real."
In some ways the game is a celebration of the Caped Crusader’s expansive mythology.
The main narrative of Arkham is a story based on the internal corruption of Gotham City which is portrayed as a type of disease, the Joker is slowly dying, internally corroded and we get the sense that everything is diseased and old. These are themes that Paul Dini (a long time Batman writer) has used several times before and of course Grant Morrison has been scripting Batman recently (Batman Incorporated) and has imported his unique take on conspiracy theories and double layering of realities. All of this seems perfectly suited to the current climate of economic depression and corruption within the global economy and banking systems.
It’s interesting to unpick why Batman (created in 1939) should still be relevant and Tintin, a character created in 1929 should be not quite so pertinent to life now. Both though have resilience as transmedia characters that has ensured that they are returned to over and over again.
The key to Batman’s cultural longevity is that perhaps the “devil has all the best tunes” and taps into deep archetypes, and holds together in one character several key concepts and archetypal psychological models that enable us to on the one hand have empathy with the roles he plays out and on the other accept his almost god like powers to overcome evil.
Perhaps it’s the 19th century where we need to look for the roots of these fictional beings. Both Batman and Tintin are detectives, they hark back to the classic model of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes who first appeared in 1887, but Tintin is more in the Alan Quatermain mould, a character developed by H. Rider Haggard in 1885, (Indiana Jones being a more recent reinvention of this) he is an adventurer inconceivable outside of a colonial or post-colonial setting.



Batman can be traced back to the 1886 novel by Stevenson, ‘Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ and Bram Stocker’s ‘Dracula’ of 1897.






These images are specters that haunt an evil society. The late 19th century was a time of heavy industrialization and it saw the rise of global capital, mass population transfer to city living, the evils of slums, downtrodden populations. In 1848 Marx had published the Communist manifesto, a manifesto that starts, “A spectre is haunting Europe” this spectre was a response to the evils of a capitalism that was then as now rampant and people’s fears were echoed in the shaping of new archetypes that could combat the dark forces they were confronted with. Science being on the one hand a potential savior, but on the other a means of destruction, this duality reflected in Mr Hyde’s horrific nature as the reverse of the scientifically minded Doctor Jekyll. The ability of scientific thinking to solve problems was a clear vindication of the Enlightenment project, (a project that was to be questioned by the Romantic movement) and paradoxically once again, just as science seemed to be the only real answer to the world’s problems a new dark territory opened out to us through the work of Freud and an awareness that our unconscious was shaping our supposedly ‘logical’ responses to life. This duality, the potential of science to solve problems, (the detective) and the awareness of the power of the unconscious (the vampire, the bat in the night, Mr Hyde) is what makes Batman so interesting. Perhaps there is not enough contradiction in Tintin’s make up to ensure his relevance to our lives under 21st century late Capitalism. Tintin is essentially only knowable as a comic book figure. His complexity lies in the relationship between Hergé's ‘ligne claire’ drawing style and the printed text. Batman on the other hand has had numerous writers and artists depict the character, Bob Kane as an artist and Bill Finger as a writer, never fixed his image beyond the initial concept which has morphed with the times. Tintin would not be Tintin without Hergé, hence the problems with the new Tintin film, but Batman is open to constant re-interpretation.
Both characters are tied to childhood, but in different ways. Batman will forever act out the night of witnessing the death of his parents, Tintin will never grow up. It’s only when we are happy supported children that we believe that we don’t need parents, because their support is such that they seem as natural as water is for fish to swim in, we can’t imagine the world without them. As we mature, there will be always a point of parental loss and we then have to make our own decisions about life and face the tragedy of our own drama. Perhaps this is why Batman’s early loss resonates with audiences as they get older and Tintin’s angst free life is more something for the child in us. Tintin’s fictional life is one that is essentially comedic, the action may be tense but it never descends into the dark, his soul is spotless, but Batman’s is dark and torn around the edges and is tragic.
Both characters have animal shamanistic elements. Tintin and Snowy come as a unit. An inseparable combination reminiscent of Philip Pullman’s dæmons. Batman is of course a ‘manbat’, he dresses as a shaman would, clothed in an animal costume designed to alter his persona and strike fear on his enemies. His bat animus (Jungian term) being a primary anthropomorphic archetype of the unconscious mind. In one comic thread Batman first learned of the powers of bats from ancient North American indian folklore, so it is not too far-fetched to assume that his writers have been very aware of the shamanistic links and play with them, Hergé of course never reflects on this relationship and Snowy is simply a very knowing dog.
Perhaps above all the fact that Batman is normal, (well as normal as an Olympic athlete is), means that we can see ourselves being able to do the things he does. This is often the flaw in Superman, who is very hard to relate to and therefore to defuse this films of Superman often have a comic element. Superman’s origins on a farm, don’t have the same relevance to us as an urban childhood. However I’m now drifting off the point so perhaps I better stop. It would be interesting to hear readers own views of these two releases.



The above image of a shaman is from Les Troyes Feres cave complex and is over 14,000 years old.

Leeds Film Festival and Thought Bubble

Big Man Japan Director:Hitoshi Matsumoto

Big Man Japan has been to Leeds before it's a hoot, dont miss its screening as part of the film festival.

It’s nearly time for the Leeds Film Festival again. This is an event so easy to miss out on. My suggestion is to go through the programme and be selective, if not you can get really lost as there is so much on offer. So, what am I going to prioritise?
Simply because I’m someone who spends a lot of time drawing narratives, the Thought Bubble event on the weekend of the 19th and 20th of November, is an event I won’t miss. http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/
It’s a chance to catch up on small press offerings and see if there are any people out there making comics that deal with subject matter outside the norm. Last year Darryl Cunningham http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.com/ was a hidden star. His graphic novel ‘Psychiatric Tales’ is a brilliant series of observations made when he was working in a psychiatric ward. You can see his work on-line and it was his on-line presence that started to alert publishers that here was a major talent that needed publishing.



Darryl is a classic case of an artist experiencing the world and then processing it through his work. He demonstrates that all our experiences have potential to be source material for creative art. When I was giving a lecture the other day on comics I was thinking of Darryl when encouraging everyone to look at underground and independent press publications. The last thing the world of transmedia needs is yet another superhero, the gold dust in terms of character development is always hidden in the fantastic complexity of real life. Darryl’s latest work looks at science, a potentially boring subject elevated by his clear treatment and focus. Again not a subject you would normally associate with comic books, but that’s the point.


The other area I’m always interested in is the Fanomenon section. The Méliès d’Argent competition has a whole mix of shorts and odd things that are usually 70% rubbish but 30% are gems. I’m really looking forward to what could be a post-modern classic. The Last Screening by Achard, is a French film that is set in a little one-screen arthouse picture palace that plays Renoir’s ‘French Can-Can’ on loop. In between screenings the proprietor recites passages of dialogue with the patrons. But the screen is set for closure, so some of the proprietor’s more violent pastimes may have to be curbed. I’m told Achard’s film is out-and-out preposterous, a soulless essay that’s livened by a smattering of striking imagery and a few neat juxtapositions. Sounds good to me.


The Last Screening

I’m also intested in seeing ‘Mystics in Bali’ which is a 1981 Indonesian horror film directed by H. Tjut Djalil. The film revolves around the Balinese mythology of the leyak and was originally banned in Indonesia, but pirated copies found their way onto VHS first locally and then internationally. The film eventually gained cult status, particularly after the proliferation of the internet. The way this film has slowly become popular is a great example of accidental viral marketing.
There is also some classic Japanese horror; including a screening of one of the Ghost Cat films. The Ghost Cat story was first filmed in the silent era (1918) and the first Japanese talkie was Kazuo Mori's Ghost Cat & the Red Wall, (1938), so it has a long history and is comparable to Murnau’s Nosferatu which first aired in 1922.


Poster for Ghost Cat

I’ll be interested to see how many reviews get posted over the period. Getting to see films that position themselves outside of the normal conventions is another way of helping build up a wider range of visual references and it really helps when it comes to making decisions when you are looking through the camera lens and deciding how to frame and what to do with the lighting.