GLOSSARY

Code

Systems of meanings.

Convention

Generally accepted ways of doing a method, in this case by the audience.

Encode

How texts are placed together.

Decode

How texts are disassembled

Mise-en-scene

• Everything and anything the audience can see.
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•  The elements of mise-en-scene are:
• - Set design — The scene furniture, helps to describe the time, setting and location of the play.
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• - Costume —  Wardrobe choices for the characters, used for describing the role, status, or their personality.
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• - Props — Objects of the setting, functioning as accessories, or builds for the setting itself. 
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- Staging & Composition — Staging is how the shots are customized for a particular effect, suggesting its relationship with other characters or even props. Composition is how the shoot is shot. Different angles help to understand the relationship between a character and the scene. 

• - Tone/Color and Acting — Every hue represents a meaning, which would be very important for the characters being acted as it represents their personality, what they like, or for emphasis in the scene. Acting is the key to build the essence of the character, as small actions could be big trends from loving fans.
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Camera

Medium used for visually recording shots.

Sound

What we hear.

Editing

Retouching the work to improve its quality, done digitally in editing programs such as Adobe Premier.

Camera Movements

Dolly

 The camera physically gets closer to the subject.

Crane

Camera moves up or down, but subject stays in shot, changing the perspective of the background.

Track

Camera moves away or to the subject, making it more personal as it brings as physically into their world.

Pan 

Camera moves parallel (left and right), 

Tilt 

Camera moves up and down.

Zoom

The lens largens into the subject. (Reverse zoom is the opposite)

 Camera Shots

• Establishing shot - Introduction of a scene, to tell where the action is happening. There is no character in scene.

• Extreme Long Shot - Used to establish the details of the surroundings while the characters are still noticeable. 

• Long Shot/ Wide shot - Frames several characters, background or visual elements simultaneously. Like the picture shown, it helps us to view the calm environment shown by the clear sky and soothing sand dunes.

• Full Shot - Shows the full body of the subject. In this image, it emphasizes the overall physics of the character. In the example below, the shot shows the attire of the man in a well-suited green army outfit, portraying his status potentially as the leader.

• Medium Shot - A waist-up shot focusing on the character while showing some environment. These shots capture the facial emotions of the characters while telling us their upper body language and a closer look of their costumes.

• Medium Close-Up - Chest or shoulder up shot. This shot emphasizes more of the character's emotions while allowing us to sympathize more for the character as we get closer in distance with the character.

• Close-Up - Fills the screen with the face or head of the subject, focusing on the importance of their emotions or behavior.

• Extreme Close-Up - Emphasizes details of the character's emotion of the subject from a small area, usually focusing on their eyes or mouth.

• Overshot - A shot of the subject from above, emphasizing height usually implying weakness into the subject/s. Though in this case in the image, it presents the togetherness of the characters in the group as they held hands and bond a unique formation.

• High angle shot - A high shot making the subjects look smaller, often indicating a lack of power.

• Dutch Shot - A diagonal shot taken, can be used to make the character look more intimidating.

• Point of View (POV) - Shot of the character's perspective, casting an illusion of being a part of the character's life.

• Eye-level shot - A shot placed in the character's eye level to familiarize the audience with the characters, considered to be a "neutral" angle.

• Low Angle - These shots are typically used for making a character as a powerful or dominating figure. 

• Undershot - Conveys extreme power as the shot is directly beneath the character.

• Over the Shoulder Shot - Displays the relationships between the interacting characters, and just like its name — it is shot behind the shoulder.

Diegetic Sound

Sounds that can be listened relevant to the actors and the audience, for example dialogs or sounds of objects being interacted with.

Non-Diegetic Sound

Sounds that only the audience can hear, for example ambient sounds and background music.

Denotation

Refers to the literal meaning of the word. Ex. snake: "sometimes venomous, legless, animal"

Connotation

Refers to the associations or emotional suggestions related to the word. Ex. snake: "evil, sly"

Preferred Reading

When the audience decodes the text exactly as intended by the producer as they might have the same ideological position.

Negotiated Reading

The understanding of the passage is achieved by the audience, but they might reject certain elements.

Oppositional Reading

The rejection of a text's meaning, which might cause the audience to not engage with the text.

Diversion

A form of escapism from stress and strain of everyday life from the audience to distract them off reality with.

Personal Identity

The way of understanding our own place in society as audience compares their life experiences with those represented in it.

Social Relationships

The building of relationships with the topic matter as they make connections with the performers they see on screen.

Surveillance

Staying updated about media around the world to satisfy their curiosity.

Hypodhermic Needle Theory

A model of communication suggesting that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.

Demographics

The way in targeting audience by their age, gender, social class, ethnicity/race, income, location, political leanings, and star appeal.

Psychographics

The way in targeting audience by their personality, behavior (passive or active), values, interests, and spending habits.

Genre

A way to categorize media products by grouping them together via their shared characteristics, known as codes and conventions.

Sub-genre

Categorization of media a step further.

Media Language

How the production of a media is formed with codes and conventions with the genre within it. It is how the products influence the target audience.

Representations

Ideas generated to appeal the target audience, about specific locations, social groups, etc.

Audience

The media-consumers. They are identified to get the products to appeal to them by seeing how it is engaged with the audience to make sure it encourages interaction/action.

Industry

The way in which the products contribute to the circulation and/or distribution to the audience as the economic factors are evident. It is influenced by the modern technology that advances as the years go. 

Stereotype

When a specific group is generalised or oversimplified, usually the cause of a controversial matter.

Representation

How a group or an individual is portrayed in the media, classified in two; positive and negative. An example of a positive representation is when a person's traumatic experience is pictured with an actual realistic cause. For example, a character being depicted as suffering from Anorexia and their cause being bad-mouthed about their appearance. This is a positive representation as audience that suffers with the same or similar problems can relate with the media being shown since it is pictured accurately.

An example of a negative representation is when a Muslim is projected as terrorists in most Western media, assuming all of them are dangerous people when in reality, it is just a matter of people and not religion. This can cause harm as the audience can be heavily affected, thus more stereotypes are created.

[radio terms]

Dead Air

All speakers are silent.