Film Codes and genre Conventions Preliminary Exercise 1

Symbolic Codes Closed reading of VALERIAN Official Trailer #1 (2017)

On November 16th, 2021 my instructor introduced a lesson surrounding symbolic codes in films. I learned that codes are a set of conventions, which an audience uses to make sense of a media text. Additionally, codes are systems of signs which create meaning. Being anything that is visual or symbolic, technical, auditory or written in media text such as films. Furthermore, these messages and meanings in media texts such as film as encoded by media producers and decoded by audiences. The key idea expressed in our lesson were symbolic codes. Symbolic codes are the visual elements that connote meaning in a media text, and technical codes being the codes that result from how a media text is constructed. Some examples of symbolic codes include setting/set/location, acting, costumes, hair and make-up, color, tone, props and lighting. Symbolic codes are used in films to show the deeper meaning of what we see, hear and feel from a set of scenes, using techniques, processes, equipment, and layout strategies.

The media text given to us to analyze symbolic codes is the movie named Valerian and the city of a thousand planets, which is a sci-fi/action film that came out on July 21st, 2017. This movie is set in the 28th century, where two special operatives, Valerian and Laureline, work together to maintain peace throughout human territories. Under the orders of the minister of defense, the duo goes on a mission to Alpha, an ever-expanding metropolis where diverse species gather to share knowledge and culture. They would come to find out a force threatens the peaceful city, so Valerian and Laureline must race against time to identity this threat that jeopardizes the future of the universe. For this analysis, I identified five symbolic codes in the trailer for Valerian and the city of a thousand planets. These include setting, costumes, props, and casts. Settings I analyzed in the trailer that are sci-fi related were outer space and the deep sea of an alien planet. The costumes in this movie were astronaut and diving suits. An example of a prop in the movie are laser or futuristic guns. Casts included sci-fi specific creatures like aliens or extraterrestrials.

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