Key Section from Reading

Visual Codes. These include codes of composition, codes of movement, and codes of sequence.

• Codes of Composition...include the codes which govern the way a picture is framed, colored and lit. How many elements are on screen together, and what is their relationship? How does the way they are lit affect their signification or connotative qualities? How does the use of composition codes set news apart from other television genres?
• Codes of movement govern movement within the frame of both the camera and the subject. One routine convention in newsfilm is the pan from an apparently insignificant object (like the flag of a ship's mast) to the 'real' subject of the report (like striking seamen gathered on the ship's deck). A similar device is the zoom from long-shot into big close-up of the newsworthy celebrity, or the hand-held camera doggedly following the star, the ball, the police...into the thick of the action.
• Codes of sequence are those associated with editing. How quickly shots are changed, what images are juxtaposed, and how different aspects of a story are differently edited into a sequence, can radically affect the 'meaning' of an event.

Materials

• Video cameras
• Videoediting capabilities

Objective

Create a news story about a mundane topic at school, but use as many conventions from the article, "Conventions of Television News" as possible.

• Student groups can brainstorm topics, share camera work and decide on how they want to divide up being news anchors and field reporters.
• Note: Explain what is meant by 'mundane topics'? Examples: 'My Locker will not Open' (or possibly called, 'Operation Locker Stuck'), 'Christine Lost her Calculus Book' (or possibly called, 'Responsibility and American Youth: An Impossibility?') etc.

Discussion: Analyzing Visual Codes

• Depending on the number of computers in your classroom, students can get screen captures of news footage off the web (putting the image in a word document) and then analyze the image using the questions to inspire thinking. If time permits, teachers can have students share what they found in groups or as a whole class.
• How many elements are on screen together, and what is their relationship? How does the way they are lit affect their signification or connotative qualities? How does the use of composition codes set news apart from other television genres?

Discussion: Exploring Relationship of Images and Words

• In groups or individually depending on number of computers, students do their own study of news footage by looking at clips on the web or of video on VCRS. Students analyze footage using questions below. Groups share findings and ideas with the rest of the class.
• Hartley asks us to think about the relationship between spoken words. And, pictures on television. Discuss which carries greater authority or importance? Ask students to recall examples where the images simply illustrate the words? Have students point to places where the words simply provide a caption for the pictures. Ask where there are cases where the verbal narration stops and they simply respond to silent images?

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