Free WACE Media Production and Analysis Flashcard Review

Systems of signs that create meaning in a media work, grouped as technical, symbolic, written and audio codes. Producers combine codes to encode meaning; audiences decode them.

Codes produced by equipment and process: camera shot size, angle and movement, lighting set-up, focus, editing and special effects. Example: a low angle connotes power.

Elements that stand for meanings beyond themselves: costume, colour, props, setting, body language, facial expression and objects in mise en scène. Example: a wilted flower connoting loss.

Printed or on-screen language: titles, captions, intertitles, headlines, credits, signage within the frame and subtitles. They anchor or redirect the meaning of images.

Dialogue, voice-over, music, sound effects, ambient sound and silence. They build mood, guide emotion and can be diegetic or non-diegetic.

Accepted ways of using codes that audiences recognise, such as the shot-reverse-shot in conversations or the talking-head interview in documentary. They create expectations that producers can follow or break.

A category of media work defined by shared conventions of narrative, character, setting, iconography and style, such as horror, documentary or the western. Genre sets audience expectations.

The distinctive way a producer or movement uses codes and conventions, for example the handheld realism of observational documentary or the symmetrical framing of a particular director.

The literal, surface meaning of a sign: what is actually shown or heard. Example: a red rose is denoted simply as a flower.

The associated, cultural or emotional meanings a sign suggests beyond its literal content. Example: a red rose connotes romance or passion.

Everything placed in the frame: setting, props, costume, make-up, lighting, performance and composition. It is a key source of symbolic codes.

Sound whose source exists within the story world and which characters could hear, such as dialogue, a car radio or footsteps.

Sound added for the audience that characters cannot hear, such as background score or narrator voice-over. It guides emotional response.

Lighting with strong contrast and deep shadow, created by reducing fill light. It connotes mystery, danger or moral ambiguity and is a convention of horror and film noir.

Bright, even lighting with few shadows, connoting optimism, safety or openness; conventional in comedy, advertising and lifestyle media.

A shot showing a vast setting in which people appear small. It establishes place and can connote isolation or the power of the environment.

A shot that fills the frame with a face or object, revealing emotion or detail and creating intimacy or emphasis.

An editing convention that alternates between two characters facing each other, usually over the shoulder, to present a conversation as continuous.

A sequence of short shots edited together to condense time, build an idea through juxtaposition or create emotional intensity.

Editing that hides cuts and keeps time and space coherent (eyeline match, match on action, 180-degree rule) so the audience stays absorbed in the story.