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Distinctively Visual - Essay
Discuss how the composer us uses distinctively visual techniques to shape meaning and affect interpretation.
Distinctively visual texts utilise various techniques to convey significant ideas to their audience. A text is constituted to be distinctively visual through the images created and response gained from the audience. A composers life experiences and therefore their opinion on various topics are evident in their texts and are brought to life through the characters. Techniques such as imagery, irony, symbolism, camera shots and angles aid the composer in generating a powerful response from the audience. This is evident in Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run, and Robert Frost`s poem The Road Not Taken.
In his film Run Lola Run, Tykwer has communicated that time is an important aspect in one’s life and shapes their destiny. The opening sequence begins with a close up shot of a pendulum ticking, the audience, for the first time, understands that time is central to the film. The camera then pans up to reveal a grandfather clock with a low angle shot, placing the audience in a position that indicates that they are defenceless against time. The animation sequence then begins with Lola running towards a clock, foreshadowing that time is the reason she is constantly on the move. Tykwer then proceeds to show Lola being swallowed up by various clocks around her, conveying that she is powerless against time. Tykwer, by placing Lola and the audience in a submissive position, has suggested that time has an authoritative nature and may, in fact, have more control over one’s life than the individual themselves. The importance of time in the lives of Manni and Lola are further emphasised through the split screens. Tykwer h...

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...Frost, sigh, discovering they have made "all the difference. The subject chose "the road not taken" by others and although he ponders what lies down the unknown at the end of his life he is reminiscent and satisfied "I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference”. Frost presents to the reader a moment in anyone`s life where a difficult dubious choice has to be made. At the beginning the options seem comparable, but they will increasingly contrast with each other as they diverge in their separate ways.
Tykwer and Slessor have created distinctively visual texts through the deft use of techniques which have conveyed significant ideas to their audience. The importance of every moment in time, the role of chance and the decision making have all been communicated by these composers to their audiences and crated a distinct response each time.

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