Introduction to Audiovisual Archives

Chapter 4

Analysis of Audiovisual Expression ¹

4.1. Introduction

The analysis of audiovisual expression constitutes a particular approach to the processing of audio and visual information from our audiovisual text. In this approach, the focus of attention is still the text’s “semantic content” and the meaning it conveys, but now the analysis deals with the visual and sound representations of this meaning and on the technical processes which facilitate this representation.

There are varying definitions of the notion of an audiovisual shot¹ which will not be discussed at length here. Generally, it is helpful to distinguish the image track from the soundtrack, both of which constitute a “logical manifestation of the modes of expression” [STO 03; STO 09]. Thus the audiovisual expression is a composite phenomenon that must be discussed on two different levels:

– the visual shot;

– the sound shot.

In this chapter, we shall address the two very particular aspects of analysis and development of the audiovisual shot, namely describing the analysis of the visual shot and describing the analysis of the sound shot.

4.2. Analysis of the visual shot

4.2.1. General overview

As we saw in the previous chapter, the Description Workshop facilitates an analysis of the video based on the semiotics of the audiovisual document.² Hence, in order to develop the appropriate model of description to analyze the visual elements, we relied upon the main processes of semiotic visual analysis of film texts. ...