A USERS GUIDE TO VISUAL LITERACY

BY JACK BROOKES

LOW ANGLE

• A low angle shot is a shot taken from the ground. This type of angle is commonly used to make someone look tall and powerful. An example of this is in the first Shrek movie when lord farquade is first shown. There is a low angle shot that makes him look tall and powerful but then it goes to an eye level shot showing that he is actually small and weak.

HIGH ANGLE

• A high angle shot is when the camera is above eye level. This shot would be used to make some one look small and weak. Or if some one is about to be swallowed by an enormous creature which is used in many films such as Shrek. For example when the dragon from the first Shrek rises up above donkey. This makes donkey look small, helpless and weak.

EYE LEVEL SHOT

• An eye level shot is when the camera is right up to the persons face. This is to show a persons face reaction or an expression of someone who as most likely heard some horrible news.

EXTREAM CLOSE UP

• An extreme close up is a shot that zoom right up to a persons

face. This is to show possibly when pupils may enlarge when someone is surprised by something big.

MID SHOT

• A mid shot is to show a hole persons face plus part of there clothing. This type of shot is to make you feel like you already now the person almost to feel like your friends when you have never actually met before.

EXTREAM LONG SHOT

In an Extreme Long Shot, also called a Wide Shot the subject is small in the image. This is also called an establishing shot. This is used for showing the audience the background that the main characters are in.

BIRD EYE VIEW

• A birds eye view is when the camera man is filming above the person or the object. This is to show the top view of something . This type of view is commonly used in many movies

SALIENCE

• Salience is when an object may stand out more than its neighboring objects . For example look at the picture below the first thing that attracts your attention is the bottle because it is a dark coca cola bottle and stands out in the white background. This technique is commonly used in advertising on the TV.

Reading path

• A reading path is when you what an image is about . Although everyone's reading path is different depending on what attracts there eyes the most everyone should basically get what the image is about.

MODALITY• Modality is when a picture is ether real or drawn. For example if

you have a real picture of a man standing looking at you. this would be high modality but if you where to have a cartoon man standing still this would be low modality.

• • high modality low modality

VECTORS

• A vector is when someone may be looking or point at a particular way which gives you the feeling that you should look where they may be pointing or staring.

GAZE ( OFFER AND DEMAND )

• A gaze is when a man or a woman is giving you ether a demand or an offer. For example in the first picture the woman is looking straight at you as if she wants something. This is called a demand . But in the second picture there is a woman looking at something else. This means you can look at him but he wont really care. This is called an offer.

• Demand Offer

COLOUR SYMBOLS• Red – symbolizes Excitement, energy, love, power, war, and violence.• Pink – symbolizes love, romance and excitement .• Yellow – symbolizes joy, happiness, hope and jealousy.• Blue – symbolizes peace, truth, trust and depression .• Purple – symbolizes Royalty, mysterious, wisdom and nobility. • Orange – symbolizes energy, balance, enthusiasm, and warmth. • Green – symbolizes healthy, good, lucky, youth, jealousy and envy• Brown – symbolizes home, outdoors, and comfort.• Grey – symbolizes security, sadness, modesty, sold, old, and intelligent

FRAMING

• Framing is the object that goes around a picture. The frame can play an important role for the photo in the center of it. For example if there were to be a black frame and a white picture the frame would attract your eyes directly to the

picture.

LAYOUT

• Page layout is the part of the details in the arrangement of a magazine cover or story . The page layout can have an affect on how we feel about the subject in the text it can trigger sad emotions happy emotion or even make you scared.

PERSPECTIVE

Perspective is when you are looking at one particular object but at a different angle or ( perspective). This can be used in commercials for example the iPad commercial it show the front perspective of the iPad to show how big and wide the screen is but then it moves to a side perspective just showing how thin and light it is

FONT

• Font is the different types of writing used in visual text. For example if there is a poster on a haunted house the type of style that they use could make you feel scared and frightened.