Semiotics

Semiotics

In today's lesson we learned amount semiotics and how people interpret things differently depending on the images. Some keywords we learnt were denotation (which means what an image actually is)and connotation (which means what you interpret an image to mean.)

As part of the lesson we were assigned a task to look at the semiotics of a movie poster. I chose the poster for the movie 'The Da Vinci Code' as shown above.

The semiotics of this poster are that the immediate denotation received by the audience is that the movie involves the Mona Lisa with ties to religion and maths as shown by the calculations above the title and the painting of 'The Last Supper' behind the main cast.

However there are many connotations within the poster as well immediately presented by the cast as it can already be told that the main characters in the story are in the foreground while more minor roles within the plot are situated behind these characters. Furthermore the two characters in the foreground have an obvious height advantage over the characters behind them showing a larger importance.

Also the protagonists are not looking directly at the audience but are almost instead observing the artwork or codes above they heads while two of the characters in the background are staring at the audience menacingly foreshadowing an almost evil intent against the protagonists.

Lastly the code being revealed beneath the Mona Lisa foreshadows its importance in cracking the code while its situation on the poster being above the painting of 'The Last Supper' makes it appear to be above religion and above God linking religion to the story and making it appear that the code will unravel its mysteries.