This is my favourite movie and I have depicted it using only the visual language of emojis. Can you figure out which movie this is?
Reflection
When I saw this task, I had considered completing this process with a book, but then I thought a movie might be easier for others to guess. I knew right away I wanted to showcase The Notebook because it’s one of my favourite movies. As I tried to wrap my head around how to illustrate the plot of this movie, my thinking process became, “How do I show people what’s in my head using only emoticons?”
First, I started with the title and that was easy. I found the perfect notebook emoji for it. Then I had to break down the significant scenes from the movie, visualize them, and decide which emojis to use. It was harder than I imagined! I also went on YouTube to watch the trailer just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I questioned whether the emojis created a clear enough picture or if I had captured the essence of the scene or not. Questions that came to mind were:
-Will it translate the same in other’s minds?
-Does it look right?
-Am I missing anything?
-What are the significant symbols or items/objects for that particular scene?
-How can I make it easy for others to translate my emoji story?
This task demonstrates that as we venture onto the digital journey and way of communicating, visual forms of communication play an important part in our daily lives. Bolter (2001) emphasizes the tension between textual and visual modes of representation and that print today [continues] to remake itself in order to maintain its claim to represent reality as effectively as digital and other visual technologies.
We could use emoticons/emojis solely to express ourselves, but will they be able to fully translate what we mean to say? Would people understand what something means if they do not have prior knowledge of what is being shown? It’s possible to communicate ideas and thoughts through just visuals, but I feel that with words and text, we can express explicitly what we mean. This week’s task and readings made me think about the way communicative practices have evolved and how we communicate and express ourselves have become multimodal. There are so many mediums available to us now in how we want to communicate and share our thoughts and ideas. It made me ponder and wonder how this will impact teaching, learning, and the modes and ways of communication as we move forward in time.
References
Chapter 4. Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kress, G.R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. Oxford University Press.
