Title

The Process of Film Communication—Probable Result

Description

Sometimes we understand a film. Sometimes we are able to recognize the signals, code them into signs, reorganize them into their component units of story-organism and infer a feeling-concern very similar to that implied by the maker. …Most film communication is not, as pictured in [the ideal figure], the perfect correspondence between the feeling concern, the story-organism, and the image-events they dictate, and their reconstruction by the viewer. Most film situations, depending as they must on the maker and his context (both social and psychological), the viewer and his, and the film itself, are imperfect communicative situations.
Understanding such a complex process is at present extremely difficult, but that is where we must begin. There are several avenues from which we could start. We could examine in detail the relationship between the maker and the product he produces, between the sender-encoder and the signs he generates. Or conversely, we could examine the relationship between a set of signs generated by a known or unknown object and its effect on a receiver or decoder. Third, we could examine the sign system itself, determining methods of description and manipulation.

Designer

Worth, Sol

Date

1968

Source

"The Development of a Semiotic of Film"

Bibliographic Citation

Worth, Sol and Larry Gross. 1968 "The Development of a Semiotic of Film." In Studying Visual Communication (1981), by Sol Worth. Edited, with an Introduction, by Larry Gross. University of Pennsylvania Press. Figure 1-3. Pages 46-49.

Worth, Sol. 1969. "The Development of a Semiotic of Film." Semiotica, 1:282-321.

Information Flow

English Sequence or Process

is composed of

English Circle

English Square

has attribute

English Arrow

English Dash Line

English Solid Line

use feature

English Brace

Alternative Title

The Process of Communication—Probable Results

Coverage

communication

film

narrative

semiotics