visually placed in the context of ‘family’, which reduces the potential for their
friendship to be read by a contemporary audience as a gay relationship. Interestingly
the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ reproduces the original text from the novel in the written
mode and so the visual re-presentation of the characters and the written representation
of them stand in tension.
Design
Composition and editing are means for the visual design (organisation) of a range of
modes in the video clips. They provide a range of resources for the arrangement of
elements in a visual space, in this instance the visual space of the screen. In the video
clip, the two characters could be represented on screen at the same time, or the
camera could move between each character (depending on who is talking). One
character could be placed in the foreground or background, on the left or right of
screen, or in the centre. Designers and viewers interact with these resources of
arrangement (read and make sense of them) to construct meanings. The way in which
elements are placed in relation to each other on screen produces relations between
them that express different potentials for meaning. Camera movement between the
two characters, for example, may be used to suggest dialogue (this may be realised in
the mode of gaze). The compositional framing of two characters on screen may
visually realise intimacy or unity.
In the first shot (Transcript 4.1 image (a)) the screen-space can be ‘divided’ into three
vertical ‘zones’. Each of these ‘zones’ is occupied by a different element. The
character Lennie occupies the left ‘zone’ of the image, the fire is in the middle ‘zone’,
and George occupies the right ‘zone’ of the image. Looking at the screen as a triptych
compositional arrangement of space in this way suggests that the relationship
between the characters Lennie and George is mediated by ‘fire’, a symbol of warmth.
During this shot, George consistently occupies ‘his own space’. In contrast, Lennie
moves across the fire to gesture and touch the character George in a kind of lunging
movement. Lennie’s movement from the ‘zone’ he occupies into the ‘zone’ occupied
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