April 20, 2005
Visual Film Grammars and Information Systems
Is there anything to be learned from historically established twentieth century grammars of cinema in constructing information systems for the twenty-first century? With 2D paradigms and visual metaphors fairly well-established as 'icons' for enhancing intuitive usability in operating systems, the next level of development involves widespread application of narrative and visual metaphor towards information systems. This entry reflects briefly on possible avenues of investigation with regards to established codes of film grammar and possibilities for new information systems.
In his "Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema" originally written in the late 1960's in France, Christian Metz outlines a formalist agenda for the exposition of the codes of film grammar. While highly regarded in an earlier historical moment of twentieth century Cinema Studies, currently the text is largely forgotten. Where the text has applicability that has not been tried is towards the developmental paradigms of creating new information systems.
Similarly, Metz's school of formalist critique carried on by neo-formalists such as David Bordwell (On the History of Film Style, Film Art, Narration in the Fiction film) technically deconstruct a set of 'visual' meaning making codes that have as yet been untried on the 'small screen' of computer interfaces. Similarly, film historian/theorist Robert Stam's work, particularly New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism, Poststructuralism and Beyond remains fertile ground for information systems designers and opens the door for possibilities with regards to interface.
With regards to information systems and information design, many of these subtle meaning-making largely modernist 'film techniques' could be well used in developing new information search/retrieval systems or search engines. This is especially true with the merger of Macromedia and Adbobe and new generation of Macromedia Flash, the vector based interactive design program and possibilities allowed by Actionscript II and video.
The twentieth century is one in which codes of film and television grammar are known, established and well-understood - intuitively by every western child and adult. These grammars and affordances should begin to be exploited and applied to the 'text box' and long scrolling list information system interfaces dominant today.