 Colour  Costuming

 Lighting  Gaze
 Vectors  Salience

The best way to pick these out in a visual text is to look at what your eyes are immediately drawn

to and figure out why. Is it because there’s one patch of blue in an orange image? Or maybe one

figure is way bigger than another? Label each of these techniques and then annotate them with a

few words about what effect the technique is having. For example, if an image is mainly yellow,

write something like “Colour – yellow has happy connotations, creates joyful mood”. It’s that simple!

Find some strong techniques to analyse.

1. Colour contrast – b and w figure contrasts with colour background, symbolic of ‘grey’ mood and
not fitting in. Shows character is aware of lack of connection w society and is saddened by it.
Facial expression - also shows sadness.
2. Gaze – creates a vector from the character’s eyes to the text, encourages audience to read the
words and make connection with text and facial expression. Looking enviously at the house?
3. Symbolism – houses represent life and people living together, community, family. Lights are on –
represents warmth while character looks cold. Salient image is houses, not the character – no
one notices him.
4. Text – symbolically appears ‘cut-out’ and disjointed, like the character.
Word choices - connotations of “smaller”, “lost” and “alone”. Emphasises character’s
emotions, his lack of connection and the negative impact his desire for connection has on
him.

5. Colour – the whole image is in rich, saturated colours to better contrast the black and white

figure. Shows ‘outside’ as bright and happy, character desires to be connected with it and enjoy

more positive emotions.

6. Angles – the buildings/houses all appear at different angles, creating a sense of being off-kilter or
unbalanced
7. Composition – placed on the edge of things, not part of society. Long shot means we view him in
relation to his setting: how he defines himself in relation to things around him.

We want to be looking at specific examples from the text – our techniques – and how they show

something.

With thanks to https://www.artofsmart.com.au/analysing-visual-texts-hsc-english/