Establishing rhythm and creating salience

solution to the conflict is presented for the viewer where the girl gets support and comfort from another girl, and the third scene stages the

“happy”, open ending where the two girls are grabbing each other’s hands and in slow motion running away together to the sound of a pounding heart.

The structure of the video is also supported by typical components of a filmic composition such as title page and credits. The deleted scenes, which the students called “failed scenes”, play a central part of the video, particularly when it comes to establishing the thematic line – and, indeed, the students’ thematic interpretation of the poem. The deleted scenes function as a metacomment to the video, and the students use them to contextualise their interpretation of the poem within a larger frame of reference to a topical issue of interest to them. Without the deleted scenes the video can be viewed on a thematic level as finding and showing one’s true self, but in the

“failed scenes”, the students establish their interpretation of revealing one’s true self regarding sexuality. By this they are also commenting on the official debate in Finland, current at the time of data production, regarding homosexuals’ right to get married. As demonstrated earlier, the students use several semiotic resources to address the issue of homosexuality in the video, but the most obvious and direct comment to establish their interpretation is the last clip of the video, following the deleted scenes: the written text “Thanks to Karin Boye (who was homosexual)” accompanied by the sound effects of cheers and applause.

Transitions play an important role in weaving the scenes and clips in the digital video together as a whole. The transitions establish movement in both time and place. The most visible transition is in space, since the location and setting are different in all the three scenes. But there is also a transition in time, even though the length is not specified. The time that passes between the first two scenes, between the girl’s announcement of her “secret” (first scene) and the contact created between the two girls (second scene), is open for interpretation. The transition in time can be considered as minutes or weeks. Technically the transitions are mostly hard-cuts between the

scenes and clips, weaves the video into a cohesive “text”. This cohesion is further established by the voice-over reciting the poem throughout the three scenes, establishing a semiotic rhythm. This matching of the voice-over is an essential part of the students’ editing work and is further presented in Section 5.1.3.

Semiotic rhythm is established by the use of the narrative structure;

filmic compositions as title page and credits; transitions in time and space; and the voice-over reciting the poem, holding the digital video together as a cohesive “text”. The coda is placed outside this semiotic rhythm, which indicates its function as a metacomment that should be viewed on a different level than the earlier part.

Regarding spatial aspects, the digital video uses a small variety of different ways to establish information value; the placement of the represented participants is mostly in the middle of the camera frame.

In the first scene the notions of centre and margin are also applied in the positions of the represented participants, as the group of youngsters gather around the girl, indicating that the focus is on her exposed position. However, the students use different semiotic resources in creating salience. The principle of salience deals with how attention is drawn to or realised by the use of colour, sound, light, or zooming. The students particularly use sound effects to draw attention to certain issues, like the use of the intimidating sound to establish an intense and confrontational situation in the first scene;

the use of the sound effect of a pounding heart to indicate intimacy, closeness and, possibly, love; the use of church bells to indicate the connection to marriage; as well as the sound effects of applause and cheers as a standpoint regarding the issue of homosexuality. The students also use the special effect of slow motion as a means to draw attention to the two girls as they reach out for each other’s hands and run off together in the third scene. The issue of creating salience is a recurrent matter during the students’ working process and is especially noticeable in their meticulous editing work, which is further elaborated in analysis of the students’ videomaking process (see section 5.1.3).

In short, the analysis on the compositional level illustrates how several different semiotic resources are combined to create the structure of the video as a whole. The narrative is based on a commonly used structure: exposition, conflict, rise of action, denouement, and coda. Three different scenes move the video forward in narration and time. An essential finding is the students’

use of the coda, as a metacomment on the digital video, to deepen possible interpretations and to substantiate and clarify their intentions. By the use of the coda, the students further substantiate their interpretation of the poem and relate this to a larger frame of reference by commenting on an issue of topical interest at that particular time. The analysis also shows that transitions play an important role in weaving the digital video to a cohesive “text”, and that this is realised by the use of sound and voice-over as well as movement in both time and space.