than writing. In short, the shift from writing to speech changes the strength of the
meaning.
The Use of Video in the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’
The video clips placed at the beginning of each of the six chapters in the ‘Novel as
CD-ROM’ serve as a multimodal summary of the pivotal events in gradual demise of
the character Lennie, who appears in each of the six video clips. Video clip one
shows the characters George and Lennie camping out by the river on their journey to
the ranch. Video clip two shows George and Lennie meeting the boss of the ranch in
his office. George and Lennie are shown in the ranch bunkhouse telling another ranch
worker, Candy, of their plans for the future in video clip three. The fourth video clip
shows Lennie and Crooks in the barn with some newly born puppies (which Lennie
later kills by accident). The fifth video clip shows Lennie stroking Curly’s wife’s hair
(shortly before he kills her by accident). The final video clip shows the characters
Lennie and George at the river after Lennie has killed Curly’s Wife.
Through the visual arrangement of a range of modal resources (movement, posture,
gesture, editing, screen composition, etc), location, character, and narrative episode
are used to emphasise the theme of loneliness. The video clips reorder the narrative of
the story, placing certain moments at the start of a chapter. In this way, the move
from page to screen is used to change the sequence and the pace of the narrative. One
outcome of the changed organisation of the ‘Novel as CD ROM’ is to reposition the
characters, in particular Curly’s Wife and Crooks, both of whom appear in the video
clips. Both the characters of Curly’s wife and of Crooks are ‘outsiders’ within the
written narrative of the novel as book and in the original novel there is little
description or insight into either character.
Not all of the characters in the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ are represented in the video
clips. Perhaps most notably, the characters Slim and Curly are not represented in the
medium of video: they are literally given no voice or visual appearance. The decision
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