Short film in action: a multimodal and discursive panel

Abstract

In a contemporary hybrid (Chouliaraki, Fairclough, 1999) society, the genres are are more likely to be charged as multimodal (Kress, 2010) and present in all spheres, such as educational, media and cinematographic ones. The audiovisual film productions such as short and long films, play an important role in teaching, establishing establishes a parallel between the processes of multiliteracies, assisting in the development of skills that go beyond the verbal literacy. However, problems regarding the interpretation of these narratives in their global composition still remain, a kind of a complex of images, sounds, movements, colors, graphics, and other semiotic-discursive modes. This paper aims to analyze the short film The fantastic flying books of. Mr. Morris Lessmore in the light of the Multimodal Transcription Theory (Baldry, Thibault, 2006) in dialogue with the Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 2001), Multimodal Theory (Kress, van Leeuwen, 2006), for participants, angle,colors, distance, informative values, and Van Dijk’s Narrative Theory (1992), unveiling practices and broadening perspectives that already exist . The short film use semiotic-discursive games to structure its narrative and is linked to metaphors and intertextual practices, revealing and (de)constructing the theme of its plot, the act of reading and writing. More than merely watching it, it’s necessary to critically and reflexively unveil social and discursive practices.