Hermeneutic Codes

Roland Barthes, who was known as a french literary therorist had devloped a theory which are five major codes within a story that are interwiven in order to create a meaning, two of the codes are proaretic code and the other is Hermeneutic code. these narrative codes help film producers to find out what is going to be in the audiences minds by the storyline or a sequence of a film so that it is the story is effective and makes sense.

Also known as enigma codes, Hermeneutic codes are simply unanswered questions that the audience have which want answered, this is where a film storyline doesnt explain into too much detail and leaves unanswered question, therefore the audience wishes it to be resovled. normally many films leave a question in the beginning and reveal the answer at the near end, some may leave cliffhangers in order to keep the audience attention drawn in. Hermenuetic codes consists a variety of points in order to acheive it. which are, The snare, where there is a deliberate avoidence of the truth or a tease which sends the audiences mind into a diffrent path. Partial answers, which reveals some but not all of the final truth, mainly used to increase suspense of the storyline. Equivocation, this has a mixture of the first two points, where theres is some reveal of the truth but not all and a diversion in order to create suspense, and the last one Jamming, where the story suggests towards the audience the the problem is impossible to unsolve or finish it.

Proairetic code, is simply actions that suggest further actions/reactions hence why its known as the action code. for example to gang leaders meet up with their gangs the two leaders have an argument, the audience will make guesses of the outcome of this action and reaction, which is why in alot of films proairetic code is useful to build suspense and tension.

for our 2 minute film opening, we are going to use many types of hermeneutic codes but a main one at the end where the audience have a big question in their mind which is "why" typically ask alot in horror films especially zombie based horror moves, where the question asked by the audience why is everyone chasing or eating one another. in Case production we have thought of doing a similar story to 28 days later or 28 weeks later which is a horror genre and zombie attacking based storyline, we thought it would be perfect for the target audience we are aiming at and the idea is simple and unique.