MIL: Audio Visual Information and Media

• Audio-Media Information & Media -

  • The use of recorded pictures (static or moving) and sound, or the equipment that produces them.
  • “Combination of sound and sight.”
  • A wide range of audio and video media used in personal, professional, and commercial settings.
• Symbolic Codes - Social in nature. Live outside the media product themselves, but would be understood in similar ways in the “real life” of the audience.
• Setting -

  • The time and place of the narrative.
  • When discussing something, you can describe the setting of the whole story or just a specific scene.
  • Can be as big as the outback or space, or as small as a specific room.
  • Can be a created atmosphere or frame of mind.
• Mise-en-scene -

  • A French term that means “Everything within the frame.”
  • In media terms, it has become to mean the description of all the objects within a frame of the media product and how they have been arranged.
  • An analysis includes set design, costume, props, staging and composition.
• Acting - Actors portray characters in media products and contribute to character development, creating tension or advancing the narrative. The actor portrays a character through: facial expression, body language, vocal qualities, movement, and body contact.
• Color - Highly cultural and strong connotations. When studying the use of color in media products, the different aspects to be looked at are: dominant colors, contrasting foils, and color symbolism.
• Camera Work - Positions of camera to show the setting and the mise-en-scene. Ex: rule of thirds, leading lines, center frame
• Editing - The process of choosing, manipulating, and arranging images and sound in a media product. Done for 4 different reasons: graphic edits (effects), rhythmic edits, spatial edits (cut to cut), and temporal edits
• Foley - The act of performing and recording sound effects in sync with moving images.
• Lighting - The manipulation of natural or artificial light to selectively highlight specific elements of the scene. Its elements include quality, direction, source, color.
• Conventions - Accepted ways of using media codes. Closely connected to the audience expectations of a media product.
• Types of Conventions:

  1. Form Conventions
  2. Story Conventions
  3. Genre Conventions
• Form Convention - The certain ways we expect types of media's codes to be arranged.
• Story Conventions - Common narrative structures and understandings that are common in story telling media products. Ex: narrative structures, cause and effect, character construction, point of view