Preliminary Exercise 2: Roland Barthes' Theory of Semiotics Analysis

  

                                     Ronald Barthes was a French essayist who theorized that myths and signs have a connotative and denotative sign. A myth is usually a story from a culture passed on from a culture and they have a denotative meaning, which is it's straight forward meaning, and connotative meaning, which is it's more complex meaning. This is very important when making a film because it can decide what plot beats are shown and what are not, and it can also be important to what a plot truly means which gives it purpose. I of course watched a scene such as the stage scene from Mockingjay Part 2 which has a man announce something and the crowd cheers, this crowd is interrupted however when a girl and her love interest reveal to the crowd that they have a baby and the girl literally spins out of her white dress to reveal a beautiful bird-like black dress. To analyze this in the charts below I chose the setting, the dress, the dialogue, and wings on said dress. These codes show the rebellion that is painted in this scene and these signs can make it very easy to understand why this is important.

      

                                            

Reflection:

                   I created this presentation to show what Barthes' theory was and a clear example of it. I would say I am intermediate in creating these presentations, they aren't that hard at all, all you need is time and a computer. The first slide is just explaining Barthes' theory and the meanings of connotations and denotations while the next slides tackle the setting, costume, dialogue, and body language of the scene. I got help from one other person who did a lot of work on this part of this assignment actually, I just did the first slide that explains Barthes' theory. Throughout all of this I learned about Ronald Barthes and his impact with a full example of it in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM1ABOZQ8Po