Commercial Photography, Mass Communication : Lamborghini

The media is the one to be blame for all sorts of changes, beliefs and thoughts that happen to be affecting our life every day. It is the way people communicate throughout the world in different media.

As the picture being shown above, a Lamborghini’s car, an Italian automaker company with their latest car called Aventador. Lamborghini begin its time since 1963 with a main objective of producing a grand touring car to compete with other Automobile’s company like Ferrari. It do its best by continue to create a car that could satisfy the audience and still stick to the identity of Lamborghini. Lamborghini itself is the identity of the brand after all. Impressed by the majestic Miura animals, Taurus, the automaker relate the car’s name according to bull breeder and bullfighting which is a famous Spanish sports. This Aventador as well, is a name of a trophy-winning bull in the world of Spanish bullfighting.

Rather than selling just a car, Lamborghini tend to sell the ideas, brands and their concepts and inspirations.  A European luxury, sport and trendy car concept based in Italy manage to communicate with people worldwide. Through mass media, everything seems believable. This happens throughout a long journey and it takes time. We understand the definition of mass communication which delivering information and ideas to the audience through a medium that fulfill its purpose. Hence, in this case Lamborghini tends to specific its target market for upper class middle age man with an interest in automobiles.  Particularly, wealthy man with extra money to spares.

We could see how they create their events and showcase to publish their new cars in a high social class together with other automobile company in the same class and level. Lamborghini tend to appear in entertainment industry with high cost, detailed computer graphics advertisement to fulfill the demand of today’s audiences. It fits into entertainment theory as the function of mass communication. With the extremely strong international brand recognition and brand appeal, Lamborghini manage to being acknowledged as high performance super sports car and highly aspirational luxury acquisitions.

There are a lot of non-verbal message that could be understand easily, not just by its own target audiences but to everyone worldwide. With just a simple high quality photo of the Aventador car itself, it successful delivered a single message to the entire world of a ‘classy’ super car. Adding a background view of a deserted place with nothing but Aventador manage to tell audience that nothing could go so far but the car itself. The power of a super sports car is the non-verbal message that successfully delivered to the audience and it’s impressed everyone.

Conclusion, the understanding of mass communication and its effect towards target audiences are important for a company to analyse their needs throughout the time. Lamborghini design their car with their own beliefs and concept, combine with the newest technology and trends, needs a deep understanding of what they would affects the market through mass communication. Hence, they are truly concern about their products and makes metal and wheels a new way to approach their target audiences.


*Author of this post : Leong Chee Kai

Film Appreciation : The Thin Red Line

THIN RED LINE by TERRENCE MALIK (DIRECTOR)

Storyline :

The movie is base on James Jones novel. During World War 2, the battle of Guadalcanal had bring an impact that will strongly influence the Japanese's advance into the pacific. The start of the film is by a narrative voice over by Witt who  is an AOWL (absence without leaving) US Army Private who living with Melanesian natives in the South Pacific. A private boat were searches for Witt and another private AOWL which is understood at the end of the scene. The war itself is horror, it forms the soldiers into a tight-knit group, their emotions develop into bonds of love and even family. They are fighting with a war that they know nothing much on it and they even have to face with fear of death.

Two different Scenes that we are going to discuss :

Scene 1 : The crocodile scene 

This scene is under the opening of the movie, a crocodile is crawling into the water. Looking the crocodile slowly get inside the water, the camera start to focus on it’s eye. The lighting is low key, therefore the crocodile is almost in dark colour tone and the water in the scene is dark green tone. A foreboding music is play.

Interpretation :

This scene is quite a successful play, the director cleverly used a crocodile as an icon to symbolizes as the instinct of nature to survive, if necessarily, by killing. Same goes to the war, the moment you get involved into the war, you will have to fight for victory and for an army, he will definitely fight for survive, if necessarily, by killing too. The metaphor for this scene is death, danger and hunter, it will lead reader to make a mental comparisons between crocodile and war. A foreboding music is play to prompt the reader to understand the crocodile foreshadows death. Follow by the next scene is another peaceful and harmony jungle scene. I definitely will like the director showing another comparisons by using the jungle scene, to show out the difference between danger and peaceful.

Scene 2 : The Canopy Scene ( Jungle )
This scene show of canopy of trees shooting with the light occasionally over exposing in the film. Playing with an soft and beautiful music. Later on follow by a voice over, the music turn to be the background music of the voice over.

"What is this war in the heart of nature?
Why does nature vie with itself?
This land contends with the sea.
Is there an avenging power in nature?
Not one power, but two."
- The first voice over is a poem about war.


Interpretation :
Nature always giving us a feel of peaceful and harmony. The poem is like asking a questions about humanity, why does we have to fight with each other since we are in the same motherland and why is there to have two avenging power in nature. For me, I feel like the power that state in the poem, is about the avenging power that bring by the war itself. Two different country are trying hard to fight for their victory.


*Author of this post : Chan Wei Kee

Titanic

Storyline: 84 years later a 100-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story to her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert, Brock Lovett, Lewis Bodine, Bobby Buell, and Anatoly Mikailavich on the Keldysh about her life set in April 10th 1912, on a ship called Titanic when young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon 'Cal' Hockley. Meanwhile, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets to the ship in a game.

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Who is Jack Dawson and Rose Bukater?
Jack Dawson: a lower class artist. With his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi, they won third-class tickets and on his way to America after winning his ticket aboard Titanic in a poker game.

Rose DeWitt Bukater: Rose DeWitt Bukater was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1895 and is 17 years old during her first class passage on the RMS Titanic. Rose boards with her fiancé, Caledon Hockley, and her mother, Ruth. Although Rose does not love Cal, she is being forced into an arranged marriage to him by her mother. Since her father's death, according to Ruth, she and her daughter were left with nothing, except a "legacy of bad debts hidden by a good name", so she expects Rose to marry into money (Cal) in order to maintain the family's high social status and luxurious way of life.

What stereotypes does Jack and Rose represent?
For Jack Dawson, he represents a kind person.

- When Ruth (Rose's mother)stresses the importance of Rose's engagement, pressure her mother is putting on her, Rose considers suicide by jumping off the stern of the ship. Before she leaps, Jack Dawson intervenes and persuades her not to jump.

- Jack helps Rose onto a nearby wall panel that will only support one person’s weight when they returned to the top deck. As he hangs onto the panel, he assures her that she will not die there and will instead die an old woman, warm in her bed. Meanwhile, Fifth Officer Harold Lowe has commandeered a lifeboat to return and search for survivors. When he arrives, he manages to save Rose, but Jack has died.

For Rose DeWitt Bukater, she represents a person who appreciate her friendship
- Jack and Rose have developed a tentative friendship, though Cal and Ruth remain wary of the young third-class boy. Following the first-class dinner that night, Rose secretly joins Jack at a third-class party.

- She realizes that she cannot leave Jack, and jumps back on board the Titanic to reunite with him.

Is he and she good or bad?
Jack and Rose characters are good.

What complexities does he and she have, if any?
As Jack and Rose return to the top deck, the lifeboats have all departed and passengers are falling to their deaths as the stern rises out of the water. The ship breaks in half, and the stern side rises a full 90-degrees into the air. As it sinks slowly and completely, Jack and Rose ride the stern down into the ocean. Jack helps Rose onto a nearby wall panel that will only support one person’s weight. As he hangs onto the panel, he assures her that she will not die there and will instead die an old woman, warm in her bed. Meanwhile, Fifth Officer Harold Lowe has commandeered a lifeboat to return and search for survivors. When he arrives, he manages to save Rose, but Jack has died.

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*Author of this post: Khoo Seng Fui

references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_%281997_film%29
: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0002339/bio

History of semiotics : Denotation, Connotation and myths

Introduction:

A long time ago human has already discover the science of semiotics and after further studying on it has create massive influences to our daily life. We cannot run away from it because its was form in a way that connecting all the thing around us so that we could understand more. Many people think that semiotic study is a hard job because there consist of many theory and sometimes found it hard to understand but actually semiotic system happen everyday and we apply it most of the time on our behavior.

Sign vehicles is an sensible thing consist inside a semiotic system. Language consider as one of the rare kind of semiotic system while in the mean time it has greatly effect on human behavior.

Any of the two human being in this world can found a way to communicate with each other in a way of using any sign, language or symbol. This can link their mind together and so to understand what are the things the other person trying to say but this only could happen when these two share the same language.

Next, If there is two human being who speak totally different kind of language can also learn each other speaking from time to time and eventually understand the thought of another person but this need to have patience and also time to do so.

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In the other hand, there is another thing that also had greatly effect on our behavior which are the human gestural signs that is consider understood worldwide. The good advantages about the gestural is even any of the two person do not speak the common language but yet they can use gestural sign to communicate.Here are some of the common gestural that we usually could see or apply on our daily life.

Waving hand - It consist of two meaning which the 1st is a sign to say bye bye to a person while the second meaning is reject something or idea and thoughts that provide by someone.

shake hand - This is the normal manner way to do whenever wanted to greet someone. Second this could also be done when some deal or condition has agree among two of the person.

OK sign - the hand gesture mean to agree with something

V sign - This is greatly use as a sign to show victory while taking photo and it can also represent the peace sign

These are the common hand gesture sign that we use almost in everyday but in different country it could signified a different kind of meaning which could contain insult, hatred and others. So we must be careful and try to know the meaning of it.

Connotation and Myths:

When this two element combine it can tell us a lot more meaning rather than the primary meaning that get when 1st look at it. For any teenager that grow within that culture will eventually found them self to learn some of the characteristic or code sign that been present from any image, movie video from the media.

The picture below can show some of the example:

The kid dressed himself as his favorite hero because he try to learn the way of being a superman as he was show in a figure that is strong, cool and heroic. This has make the child to think that this is the exact way of being a male.

At last, the conclusion is semiotic system definitely has effect on human behavior and it has play an important role in our daily life. Just imagine if we were exposed to different kind of signs, our life would not be the same anymore. It is a great knowledge to practice it because it contain many useful knowledge within it.

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*Every comment represent our own opinion, no plagiarism.
*Author of this post: Kue Tek Chee

Sign : Icon, Index and Symbol

Sign is a stimulus pattern that has a meaning. The difference between the various kinds of sign has to do with how the meaning happens to be attached to (or associated with) the pattern. There are three types of signs: Symbol, Index and Icon.

Icon

An Icon sign is a sign that resembles something, it also be illustrative or diagrammatic. An icon is directly related to what it represents, the meaning is immediately evident and it can be a smaller part that represents a whole.

The little icon appear on your computer screen is an icon for your to function it. Take an example, a ‘B’ alphabet icon is an icon for the BlogSpot.

A picture of a smoking cigarette with a diagonal bar across the picture is an icon that directly represents `Smoking? Don't do it'

A picture of Avril Lavigne portrait is an icon of Avril Lavigne.

Index

An `index' is defined by some sensory feature, A, (something directly visible, audible, smellable, etc) that correlates with and thus implies or `points to' B, something of interest to an animal. Another way to explain this is an Index sign is a sign where there is a direct link between the sign and the object.

This is and index sign that finger pointing up, which means a giving direction to someone.

This is an index sign, giving direction and information.

Dark cloud scenes, first sign what message u get? Going to raining? 

Symbol

A symbol does not have direct connection to what it represents. The meaning usually needs to be learned through association.

This image of an anchor is a symbol of hope in most cultures. Hope is the main theme behind the image. Without cultural knowledge, someone might just see this image as an anchor.

This is a symbol created by Disney. It is a symbol because this picture can be any dog character. But to who watch Disney, they able to know that this is a Goofy create by Disney. 

Conclusion by http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/103/sign.symbol.html

The term sign is often used for all three of these: icons, indices and symbols. All have a signal aspect, some physical pattern (eg, a sound or visible shape) and a meaning (some semantic content that is implied or `brought to mind') by the signal. But they differ in that icons have a physical resemblance between the signal and the meaning and an index has a correlation in space and time with its meaning. But a symbol is an arbitrary pattern (usually a sound pattern in a language) that gets its meaning primarily from its mental association with other symbols and only secondarily from its correlation with environmentally relevant properties.


Mini exercises :
These 3 picture under which categories ?

*Every comment represent our own opinion, no plagiarism.
*Author of this post: Lee Mun Ket

First week :-: Semiotic in Text and Media

Semiotic is a study of sign. Sign is something that stands for something other than itself. A sign can be in the form of words, images, sounds gestures or even objects. Semiotic can be said as a study of how meanings are made and how reality is presented.

How does a text can be related with semiotic?
 Text is a message which has been recorded in some way, it can be in the form of writing, audio or even video recording. 

What made us think of a picture of a tree since the text of tree does not showing any form of a tree? Text is like a code, or even a medium. It can be used to map out relationship between media and social phenomena.

What about Media? How does it related with semiotic study?
Media can be said as a medium or even a communication channels. For examples of communication tools, they are television, newspaper, radio, printed media and so on. Through these medium, we can get to know different information and entertainment as well. Take an example of a movie showing a guy wearing a silver color suit, fashionable and futuristic designed, and driving some kind of irregular car design or even UFO, you will automatically receive the sense that movie is about science fiction.

What we have learned and think have been influence by our social phenomena and even our own culture background. Things that we have been experienced will remain in our memory, when we look back on it, we will automatically think back of it. The memory is like a code or sign that made us understand or define what the things that we are now looking or dealing with.



So, we are going to discuss and share our own opinion regarding to the media and text we see in our daily life.
Question :
1. What will you think of when you see a building with a number 4 painted on the wall? Does it representing any meaningful or useful information?


*Every comment represent our own opinion, no plagiarism.
*Author of this post: Lee Pui Sun