MEDIA CODES

Ayesha Mushaim, A1
Dress Codes
 SUITS (T.V Series)
Suits, American legal drama, is based in a
fictional Corporate Law firm in New York. The
main characters of the series include Harvey
Specter and his associate Mike Ross who are
mostly seen in their office, Pearson and
Hardman, trying cases for the firm and as the
name suggests we see both the main as well as
supporting cast wearing formal crisped suits and
tyes. Also the female characters include women
who have gained prominence in a male
dominated feild,and are shown to have very
understated yet formal office wear attire which
includes pencil skirts and blouses and these play
an important role in highlighting the female
character’s personalities; confident, sure of
themselves and not afraid to speak even when
they are surrounded by their powerful male
colleagues. As a rich and famous corporate
lawyer, Harvey mostly wears Ralph Lauren suits
and Tom Ford sunglasses which complement his
savage personality.
 Blow your mind (music video)
Dua Lipa’s Blow your mind is all about a group of young rebellious feminist girls promoting
niceness as the singer quoted herself. The girls appear in a very individualistic manner and
have very bold, non contemporary attire. Their clothes are semi formal, hip hop which also
compliments to the genre of the song, includes bold colored tees, short skirts, ripped jeans
and leather jackets and Dua’s Mwah necklace. The clothes very well represent the rebel in
the girls’ personalities and since the song in mostly shot in streets, the clothes do fall under
the category of street wear but definitely more fashionable.
Color Codes
 Into You (Music Video)
Arianna Grande’s Into You is all about her running away
with her bodyguard to a motel in the middle of the
desert. The music video has pink lightings and soft color
grading which looks like they used an overlay with a pink
tone setting up a romantic mood to the whole music
video. At certain points in the video we can see a very
light baby blue lighting gaining prominence in the frame
while rest of the colors seems to look dull. It provokes a
dreamy, young, and warm romantic feeling to it and
coupled with the whole star crossed lovers vibe, the
music video definitely falls under the genre of romance.
The lighting is very low-key, with a very few range of
colors being used. Its mostly light pink, an indicator of
romance and at some point light baby blue dominating
the frame while other colors( character’s clothes, vehicle,
motel’s building etc.) are all a bur of dull black and greys.
Even the windows at the motel seem to have bright pink
curtains which just dominates the whole frame and
complements the low-key pink lighting.
 Facebook (Social Media Application)
Facebook is an American social media multinational
corporation. It has a blue and white theme for it’s
timeline, wall and news feed etc. Millions rather
billions across the globe use Facebook and its color
scheme plays a very pivotal role in attracting and
addicting people to the platform. The blue color
symbolizes calmness, trust, loyalty, and confidence
which is very important for the user since he/she
needs to trust the platform which he/she is using to
share their personal information. The white color is a
connotation for happiness, hospitality, love and
benevolence and thus this plays a crucial role in
attracting people to this platform as they feel they will
accomplish joy and happiness if they will use this
particular application.
Proxemics
Captain America; Civil War
(movie poster)
Marvel Studios’ Captain America; Civil War (2016)
divides the Avengers into two groups, one lead by Steve
Rogers (Captain America) and the other lead by Tony
Stark (Iron Man) as shown in the poster where
Avengers have taken place at opposite sides and are
glaring at one another. Though its avengers up against
each other, but mostly its Tony Stark Vs. Steve Rogers
when they disagree on a pivotal decision and so we can
see in the poster how both of their figures have taken
up the most space and their expressions towards each
other are of anger, betrayal and contempt. The wide
space between the two shows the gap that has formed
between the Avengers and the distance that they’ve
grown apart and especially between Tony and Steve
and also suggests the splitting up of Avengers which is
the end result of the movie. The fact that the two
groups have taken opposite sides of the poster,
suggests their apparent disagreement over an issue and
each characters placement represents which side of the
issue he/she is in favor of and who they are supporting.
Archive (movie poster)
Archive is science fiction futuristic British
film revolving around a scientist who is
experimenting AI to bring back his dead
wife. We can see in the poster the close
proximity between the characters which
indicates the nature of relationship
between the two characters, that they
maybe romantically involved. On the other
hand there is a certain distance at which
the two characters are standing from each
other, they are still not close enough and
the yearning in their expressions shows
that they want to, which indicates that life
and death according to the plot of the
movie still keeps them apart.
Technical Codes
Laal Kabootar (feature film)
Laal Kabootar is masterfully directed, shot, edited and
written crime thriller film. The writer has clearly
established all the characters. The montages of the
films are in sync with the slum surroundings of Karachi
and not a single thing in the background looks out of
place. Cinematography which is mix of jerky shots and
distance and close up shorts, ensure that the camera
would follow all the characters through every dark
slum alleys of Karachi. Shorts are neither long nor very
small in duration and the editing is very crisp although
a little slow paced in the beginning. The background
score which is dominated by foley sounds,
complements each scene. All the elements are sync
with each other.
A Gentleman (feature film)
A Gentleman, an Indian action comedy film, has
Sidharth Malhotra playing the double role of
Rishi and Guarav in a parallel narrative thus the
theory of parallelism with Rishi and Gaurav being
protagonist in two parallel storylines is perfectly
executed to the point where a person tends to
believe that Rishi and Guarav are infact two
different people. The background score includes
mix of strong pop and romantic songs which
complement their respective scenes. The actions
scenes have sound effects which give in to the
theory of Verisimilitude. All the fast paced action
sequences have though non diegetic but close to
reality and appropriate to the situation
background score.
 Kalp Atisi (T.V Series)
Kalp Atisi meaning Heart Beat is a Turkish romantic hospital drama. In this
particular scene Eylul is mad on Ali for interfering in her patients medications. It
is a long duration continuous short with close up shorts highlighting Eylul’s facial
expressions full of anger while close ups of Ali’s face shows how calm he is
about the entire situation and that maybe he did it on purpose to get a rise out
of Eylul. A perfect blend of close up and medium shorts potray the emotions as
well as proximity of the both characters and give us an idea of their
surroundings (hospital lobby in this case).