Rick Altman's Theory

Rick Altman

Rick Altman was a professor in cinema and comparative literature at the university of Lowa.


Theory

• Film/Genre has proposed the semantic/syntactic approach

• Semantic- is concerned with conventions of the genre that communicates to the audience such as characters, locations, props, music, shooting style and signifiers. for example in a pop music video the semantic elements would be the lead singer standing behind a microphone to represent themselves. Also, it would include breaking the 4th wall through interacting with the audience as well as extreme close up shots. The majority of music videos would also use stereotypically attractive people to attract a wider range of audiences to their music videos.

• Syntactic- aimed at the relations between these elements and structure of narration in genre. They are often themes such as the overall mood or emotion of the video. 

For example Taylor Swift's video is said to be based on a relationship theme and this is shown through the separate shots of the male an female and therefore are not seen together to show a break up. Similarly the female is shown in natural lighting outside whereas the male shots are taken in a dark bedroom to represent both their contrasting moods. This also signifies he characters being Taylor Swift (the artist) as the protagonist and the male actor as the antagonist allowing the audience to sympathise for her.

He expanded his approach to include these elements by proposing a semantic/syntactic pragmatic approach and this can be applied to texts and videos.

Example

Nicki Minaj- Super Bass

Semantic- The bright colours and high key lighting used stand out and engage the artist. It also represents a typical convention of the artists style. The location is constantly changing as well as the outfits making the whole video very fast paced and engaging for the audience keeping them hooked.

Syntactic- The hidden meaning behind this song is shown through the use of 'he' throughout. The words resemble singing about men being true to their feelings no matter what they are. For example these lyrics “Excuse me, you’re a hell of a guy You know I really got a thing for American guys I mean, sigh, sickenin’ eyes And I can tell that you’re in touch with your feminine side” represent the song is about drag queens. However, as this is not visual not many audiences will pick up on this.

In our music video we are going to try and use syntactic and semantic elements allowing the audience to create their own view on the story line adding a sense of enigma. The semantic elements we will include  will be a variety of camera shots, movements and different locations sticking with the typical conventions of the Indie Rock genre.