Texts - Visual and Technical Codes

The first question of the exam will always ask you to analyse the given text in terms of visual codes, technical codes, and either genre or narrative.

This includes codes of camerawork, Lighting, editing and sound for audio-visual media

and graphic design elements for print-based and interactive media

VISUAL CODES including:

• Clothing and physical appearance
• Facial expressions
• Colour uses
• Body language and gesture 
• Graphics
• Settings

TECHNICAL CODES including:

• Shots – range of shots and why they’re used – wide shots? Close ups? High/low angle shots?
• Any camera movement
• Editing – the way scenes change from one to the next
• The pace of the text – fast? slow? why?
• Lighting
• Mise en Scene – what’s in the shot.

AUDIO CODES including:

• Sound 
• Language used
• Foley
•  Diagetic and non diegetic
• Any ambient noise
• Voicover
• Music