to represent a character multimodally (in the form of a video clip) gives the character
more ‘potential to mean’ than the decision to represent a character in still image and
written text alone. That is, ‘giving’ a character a direct voice, movement, and visual
appearance realises the entity differently. The characters Curly’s Wife and Crooks
therefore become foregrounded in the ‘novel as CD ROM’.
The video clips foreground Lennie, who appears in all six video clips. The visual
appearance of the character Lennie is heightened by his propensity for silence - it is
others who talk - with the exception of when he is shown alone with George. This
modal difference is carried across to other parts of the CD-ROM. Within the Dossier
part of the CD-ROM, for instance, only the file on the character Lennie includes
video clips in which others talk about the characterisation of Lennie. Overall, the
video clips provide a multimodal filter for the construction of the characters in the
‘Novel as CD ROM’.
Written Text to Visual Text
As the video clip described above ends, the screen fades to black, and a new screen
appears. This screen shows a line drawing of a country road with an accompanying
white block containing writing (occupying 10 % of the screen). Chapter One includes
39 screens, each screen consists of a block of writing ‘over’ a drawing. The
introduction of drawings to the text brings forth a range of resources for the
realisation of the entity character (including frame, distance, angle, and composition)
which are discussed below.
Represented Elements
The characters Lennie and George appear in screen three. The images of the
characters are narrative representations; that is, they present them as actors in a series
of unfolding events. In the screens of Chapter One of the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’
George is primarily represented as engaged in an activity (walking and looking) with
a goal (transactional action). Often these images show George as the actor and Lennie
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